> On July 26, 2021, Austin Huang (maintainer of Barinsta) received a cease & desist letter from Perkins Coie LLP, a law firm representing Facebook. As a result, Barinsta is no longer maintained or distributed.
I had been a user of Barinsta, until the creator was hit with legal threats from Facebook.
It was then when I saw it clear that these types of projects are better to be developed anonymously, so without any address or name, the legal department wouldn't have anywhere to send their letter.
At most they might ask GitHub to close the repo, so probably a Git provider from overseas would also be a good idea. In general: don't host the code in the same country of the company you will be pissing off.
The big problem with our society is that somehow there apparently are laws that would protect these companies from adversarial interoperability, so these threats actually have teeth. I kinda wish to see one of such cases brought to a court to see it ruled in favor of the developer.
How tightly does Facebook lock their stuff down to barely get a mention here? I deactivated my account years ago, and my only interaction is checking things like local restaurants and groups to see their schedules or other such public information and it's hell.
Say I want to eat out on Christmas eve. Around 80% of local restaurants will only publicly say if they're open on a Facebook post, and like half of those will be inaccessible without logging in. This became even worse with covid, where I had to basically guess which part of their service was open.
So I was hoping for some workaround, like using nitter to bypass Twitter's new account requirements, but it looks like I'm out of luck.
You go around, survey the opening hours posted on local restaurants (I usually take a photo, and don't copy and paste from other sources as this normally goes against their T&C) and then add these to openstreetmap.org.
Then next time apps like organicmaps.app update, you'll have all the local opening hours for restaurants and things directly on your device.
I have found that places usually change opening houes by an hour or two.
And if anyone reads this and thinks: "well, that sounds like a chore", this is the only solution I've found that:
1. Is under an open data license
2. Is easily editable as a normal user
3. Isn't backed by "Big Tech" that can wall it off
4. At least has apps that make the data searchable in an offline way
Shout out to the open source Android app Street Complete, which shows you a map indicating missing OSM data points and lets you easily contribute (opening hours, road surfaces, house numbers etc.)
> How tightly does Facebook lock their stuff down to barely get a mention here?
Pretty hard. There are some extensions (FB Purity being the most popular), but they focus on trying to modify the facebook site in your browser, and they break often. There used to be more 3rd party android apps but FB locked their APIs down more. And even the FB app linked on this Github directory, Frost, does not work, as FB will not allow you to login with the embedded browser.
Sad state of affairs. One alternative could be to create a dummy account for this purpose, turn-off every notification, add no friends and use it only for the purpose of accessing pages for businesses (I don't use Facebook at all personally but the way things are going, I may have to resort to such shenanigans).
creating a dummy account might alleviate the immediate issue, but it doesn't really fix the root cause of the problem - which is that the restaurant thinks it's ok to only post on facebook, and assume everyone has access.
Indeed but I think (hopefully wrongly) that we can't put that genie back in the bottle. Business are most influenced by shareholders/customers and the vast majority of these groups are quite ok interacting on Facebook despite what the HN minority thinks.
It is OK, though. It’s not that they’re assuming everyone has access, it’s that they’ve made the business decision that it isn’t worth going the extra mile to cater to a minority of customers that aren’t on Facebook.
It annoys me too but I’m not blaming my local restaurants for following market forces.
while i would give these businesses the benefit of the doubt, i would also say that the responsibility is on them to know. Ignorance isn't a real defense imho.
It's true that making an independent site to host your updates and info isn't as easy as just posting to facebook/twitter. I understand why a lot of businesses, esp. small ones, don't bother. Each rain drop also don't hold themselves responsible for the flood.
There are some kind of Facebook settings that will let people access your page with only a frequent pop-up telling you to log in. The "extra mile" is enabling that rather than leaving on whatever setting requires someone to be logged in to see your page.
I'd still be annoyed I have to use Facebook, but it wouldn't impact my decision to visit the store. I'm not going to a store when I can't tell if it's open.
"Made a business decision" is not the same as "it's ok", and it's dangerous to conflate these. I'm not sure where posting on Facebook falls, but for a relatively clear-cut case consider "made a business decision to not bother with wheelchair accessibility".
There are laws preventing you from ignoring wheelchair accessibility. As a society we have decided it is important. We’ve done no such thing for keeping information on Facebook only.
We have those laws because we had already decided that was a Not Ok business decision. That was true before the laws came into effect, and would hold even if we didn't manage to pass the laws at all. Moreover passing laws is not the only way to express a shared moral judgment. Anyway, I was very explicit about it not being exactly the same situation.
Dummy account didn't work for me. It just asks for a selfie verification after a day or so and images you find online, ml generated photos etc. gets rejected.
Out of curiosity, can Facebook do something more with a dummy account presumably linked to you IP than they can with any other unregistered person tracked over Facebook Connects, friend's contact syncs, etc.?
They will connect it to you sooner or later. Then it doesn't matter if it's dummy or "real".
[rant start] Similar thing happened to me recently (not restaurants, but language schools), I decided I would rather continue without services I need (even if it was e.g. kindergarten for a kid) than make (dummy) FB account (Whatsapp, Instagram included). I am more annoyed by big tech practices by each day (Google and Paypal even more). I really hate them all :| The only bigtech service I'm still using is LinkedIn (also hate it) and only because it remained as only connection to some old friends and acquaintances. They all really suck in any possible way [end of rant]
Yeah and seeing it from the other side as a cafe owner you have so many different sites to manage to try and help people find out where you are, when you are open, and the events you have running.
Would really love some sort of framework for managing all those competing offering for location services. An open source framework in particular would be ace although it would mean the vast majority of small businesses wouldn't use it. Too little time.
Have you ever brought this up to the restoraunt owners? I would guess that if they are not some large chain, they listen to direct customer feedback, over statistics and corporate guidelines.
That's a fine solution if I'm only curious about whether one place is open. I want to know what options I have and I may want to do it late at night or in the morning rather than call twenty places during a busy period.
This would be nice if it happens. I have fond memories of pidgin and similar and being able to use multiple messenger accounts from one program.
This would be a key enabler here as well for alternative front ends or interfaces to platforms.
Reducing platforms to their API and a "platform preferred" front end.
I mean obviously the EU is strongly motivated by wanting their companies to have a stronger chance at competing with US FANG companies but it's still a good move for the users.
Nitter.net is so much better -- comically better -- than Twitter's site. I'm on a somewhat slow computer right now, and loading a Twitter user's channel (sorry I can't remember the correct Twitter slang) takes like 3-4 seconds on Nitter, and like 10 seconds on Twitter. And scrolling on Twitter is supper choppy, on Nitter it's just normal. Twitter's frontend code could be a good one for thedailywtf.com.
It's insanely better. I enabled the Twitter theme, and it felt creepy how much smoother it was _while having the same interface_! I wish that I could login/view my feed :( I would 100% switch if I could.
If it's API restrictions, they should create a browser extension! Maybe someday Firefox mobile will allow add-ons again :(
> Maybe someday Firefox mobile will allow add-ons again :(
Huh? Firefox on Android does support addons. There's only a small subset of them available by default but you can enable support for all addons as well although you'll have to use Fennec or Mull from FDroid for that.
Go to the "About Fennec" menu and tap the logo several times to enable the hidden "Custom Add-on collection" menu. Create an account on Mozilla Add-ons website and add all the addons you like. Use the profile ID to add the collection in the hidden menu you unlocked.
Yeah, I know, using addons shouldn't be so convoluted.
I wouldn't hold my breath, mainly because Google has already stiffled Mozilla from publishing in the Play Store due to, apparently, downloading addons constitute "malicious behaviour" back in Firefox 68.
So the restricted addons is specifically because they reviewed that subset personally and thus is, at least for Goog's policies, okay.
(Yes, I'm aware of Kiwi browser. Says a lot about app store moderation.)
Is there a browser addon that would turn twitter links into nitter links automatically on click?
I access twitter only via links usually, when someone refers to a tweet.
A quick test by replacing "tw" with "n" in the URL led to "not found", so apparently it's not that easy.
Edit: Reading capability is a clear advantage. It's .net, not .com, actually it works. Though editing is less comfortable now, so question still remains valid :)
Many of these lists seem reluctant to include alternatives for which no publicly accessible hosted instance is provided.
I have made rimgu[0] for imgur. There are a small number of edge-cases (for example the stackexchange subsite) it doesn't handle yet but otherwise I find it works great.
On a similar note, I find Piped[1] superior to any of the other alternatives for YT I tried so far, including invidious.
I tried the official Twitter app & site now after using Tweetbot exclusively for years.
The experience is a Facebook-esque joke. Tweets are out of order, random people I’m not following are shown in my feed, and the feed is dotted with ads.
I avoid having accounts on those sites - partly due to privacy but mostly because that keeps me from actively interacting which is such a fruitless and frustrating time sink. Like engaging in discussions on Twitter and Youtube. Seems like they are building increasingly higher fences around their web estate.
I'm a daily user of nitter. As someone without a Twitter account, nitter has legit a 10x better UX than Twitter. It loads super fast and just works. On Twitter, it seems the "X" to remove the sign up popup is first run through 10 react js virtual dom frameworks, it's so sluggish.
> As of September 1st 2020, invidio.us has closed down.
> To see this content, please select another instance,
Ok, I'll try the first alternative in their list, inv.cthd.icu
> Could not get channel info.
Ok, second one, invidious-us.kavin.rocks ?
> Could not get channel info.
Hmmm, maybe it's something to do with the sample channel, Troy Hunt? I'll try a known good channel, AvE.
> Could not get channel info.
Ok, maybe I should go to the front page of invidious-us.kavin.rocks and search for AvE. Ahah! There he is! I'll try clicking on his first video[0]. Well, the page appears to load but the video spins a loading spinner for a couple of minutes and then I get
> The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.
I've had that problem occasionally, but I think that's a bad first impression. I've had an auto youtube -> invidious redirect enabled for about two months now and only encountered issues a few times.
Not precisely the same thing, but worth mentioning: I'd recommend setting up something like gitea or gogs. They both have built-in support to auto-sync repos based on criteria, thereby also giving you full availability. Of course the issues/PRs etc are a different story.
Would anyone here be interested in working on a startup that is making alternative front-ends but adding additional features (ability to edit feed algorithm, better DM support, etc.)? Feel free to reach out!
While that sounds interesting, I wouldn't stake my income on trying to build a third party frontend for these companies that can be rather hostile to such efforts.
Is there anything like this for iOS? I don't mind building from source. I mainly care about PiP (Picture-in-Picture), and ad blocking, but I'd love to keep my video history (and time left off) synced.
> NewPipe is in that list and it works most of the time
To the point where my non-tech SO complains every time we have to use the official YT app. NewPipe's user experience is just better for everything but "discovery", which after over a decade of usage and dozens following dozens of channels, I don't do.
If you'd have cared to actually check the linked projects, you'd have noticed that most of them avoid communicating with the service in question except when abosolutely necessary, which for most of them means the provider can't ban your account because you never logged in from their point of view. At most it will get your ip rate limited if you choose to open your proxy up to the public, an issue most invidious instances unfortunately do have.
I had been a user of Barinsta, until the creator was hit with legal threats from Facebook.
It was then when I saw it clear that these types of projects are better to be developed anonymously, so without any address or name, the legal department wouldn't have anywhere to send their letter.
At most they might ask GitHub to close the repo, so probably a Git provider from overseas would also be a good idea. In general: don't host the code in the same country of the company you will be pissing off.