The developer wrote a good post on Reddit, which I will mainly quote here:
10 second pitch: Libreddit is a portmanteau of “libre” (meaning freedom) and “Reddit”. It is a private front-end like Invidious but for Reddit. Browse the coldest takes of r/unpopularopinion without being tracked.
🚀 Fast: written in Rust for blazing fast speeds and memory safety
☁️ Light: no JavaScript, no ads, no tracking, no bloat
🕵 Private: all requests are proxied through the server, including media
🔒 Secure: strong Content Security Policy prevents browser requests to Reddit
How does Libreddit enhance my privacy?
Reddit tracks a lot of data but Libreddit logs nothing and uses no JavaScript by default so client-side monitoring isn’t possible. There are 35 community-hosted instances that can be used to access Libreddit; one can spread their traffic across multiple for even more privacy. 7 of our instances are .onion hidden services so you can browse Libreddit using Tor.
Can I use it to login to Reddit?
Libreddit doesn’t currently support logins but using cookies, users can subscribe to subreddits, follow users, and import their subscriptions from Reddit.
Does Libreddit have any features not offered by Reddit?
On top of the minimalist design, Libreddit is very customizable with:
- 10 themes to choose from
- A toggle to enable Wide UI (for those of you who like to maximize your screen space)
- Filters so you can hide certain subreddits or users from your feeds
Instances: up-to-date table of instances -> https://github.com/libreddit/libreddit-instances/blob/master/instances.md
Not every instance is equally fast for you, similar to Lemmy. Try out a few.
GitHub: https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit
For PC, I recommend the add-on LibRedirect, which automatically converts a Reddit link to a Libreddit link. This way, Reddit doesn’t get any traffic from you, even if you want to access the page via a Google search.
I just use Lemmy now but that’s pretty neat.
And no John Oliver pictures here
You say that like it’s a bad thing!
Nothing is perfect.
Here you are, a community dedicated to our british birdman
Yeah, I’m glad to be rid of reddit. Well, except for porn. It’s still the best for porn. For now.
Lemmynsfw is definitely filling my needs the way reddit used to
Just like the rest of Lemmy it’s not quite there yet, but it has the potential.
Why would I want to get angry 🤬😡 for no reason again. It was so exhausting
I have an honest question for all the commenters saying “I’d rather not use reddit”: where do you get niche information from other than reddit?
I don’t want to give reddit traffic, but I find myself constantly looking for information that would necessarily only be available on a platform like reddit. Examples:
- Product info and reviews
- Niche troubleshooting for odd hobbies (fermentation, video games, diy)
- Travel advice from locals/regulars (do I need wetsuit to swim here? Where are restaurants that won’t harass my partner and I for being queer?)
- Advice, when the “official” recommendations on SEO websites were clearly written for a litigation-happy American society (some healthcare, some law, etc.)
I consider myself pretty information-access savvy but a lot of these things require a “crowdsource” aspect that blogs and other websites can’t provide.
What do y’all do?
I’ve exclusively used a selfhosted instance of libreddit for a while now and always loved it. I haven’t used it very much since all the API drama. I am now wondering how long libreddit will last.
Not being able to login to libreddit is a feature to me, since ideally people would not be contributing to helping add value to the ecosystem of reddit with comments for people to respond to.
Seen so many excuse like oh the subreddit I am on is niche so it doesn’t matter. But, it’s those niche ones that actually add the most value and have people come back, since the popular ones have been the easiest to replace. And it’s the niche ones that show up in search results the most in my experience due to the obscurity compared to popular subs that have many different sites having the same resources.
I’m not a developer, is there an app or something I can download or a web app I can install?
Nah. Thanks for trying to help, but personally, I don’t want to have anything to do with Reddit. I won’t even follow Reddit links on Google.
The only way I interacted with Reddit was Apollo. And that’s gone. So Reddit is dead is dead to me.
I appreciate the concept, but I don’t even want to give Reddit page views anymore.
I’ve moved on from various platforms before, but I’ve never done so feeling so thoroughly pissed off at the platform itself. (I never had a Twitter account, or that would likely be neighbors with Reddit in this category)
Fair enough. With libreddit, you don’t give Reddit any traffic or views, because the libreddit instance already scraped all information.
So that means it’s good to follow my niche topics that didn’t make it to Lemmy and likely won’t anytime soon, but it comes with the price with not being able to contribute?
Maybe that’s a thing I can get behind.
Reddit ruined it. Reddit just isn’t reddit without RIF. I don’t even wanna see what’s going on there anymore. From what I’ve heard it’s going downhill anyways.
Apollo was my app of choice, but I agree. Nevertheless, Reddit still has years and years of valuable product reviews and discussions that have not - and probably will not for years, if ever - be rivaled in the fediverse.
Libreddit and Teddit are good for “{topic} site:Reddit.com” searches when you don’t want to give Reddit the traffic and ad revenue.
