I might be misreading what you're saying (and if so, apologies), but I just went to nitter.net and pulled up a couple of accounts and they worked fine.
> It's impossible to use Twitter without JavaScript enabled
It's important to note that this is not a technical requirement but an intentional choice by Twitter. I used to surf Twitter with Javascript disabled. They'd show a little message telling me the experience was better with Javascript but that was all. A year or so ago they intentionally blocked reading Twitter without Javascript.
An alternative frontend would simply be an alternative frontend to the backend... This is an alternative frontend to an alternative backend... (requests do not go from client to and from Twitter. Because of this, I find the "alternative frontend" terminology misleading at best.)
Also, one man's "pulling data from an unofficial API" is another man's scraping, but I'm not gonna die on this hill because I see why it's arguably not.
Lets you browse Twitter without being logged in and not getting the constant "you need to log in to keep reading!!" wall of messages. It just calls in to their API and builds a similar experience as the real site.
I clicked that link and got three near fullscreen dialogs one after the other: sign up nag screen, turn on notifications nag screen and sign in with Google prompt. I just wanted to see geohot's post but apparently whoever's in charge of Twitter user interface just can't help themselves. If they break nitter, I'm not coming back.
Although I applaud the goal (I browse away from twitter whenever the login popup appears) I think it's a bit funny that you need someone of geohot's calibre to remove a "feature" that most probably sits behind a single switch/condition somewhere.
Not only that. Its UI is more legible. With standard Twitter UI I often do not notice where those "threads" end, and where Twitter's algorithmic suggestions begin; and that I should have stopped in between and clicked a little link to see more of the thread. With Nitter, a larger portion of thread is shown from the start, and just shows a clearly visible link at the bottom to another page, if there's more. It doesn't try to hook you on its algorithmic suggestions to boost engagement.
Also the Privacy Redirect add-on to Firefox can be set to automate changing the twitter link to nitter. EDIT: you can set Privacy Redirect to choose a random nitter instance, so by opening several tabs with it you are much more likely to strike an operating instance.
Though the problem with these national instances may be distinct, the main Nitter.net instance hasn't been working since October 25th apparently. This same issue (no tweets show up) remains today; I've experienced this bug for the past few weeks.
Musk announced his intent to deprecate the old Twitter API, which Nitter relies on, but it's unknown whether it's been done, or if it has anything to do with this (Nitter issues predate both the deprecation announcement, and, actually, Musk's takeover, though Nitter.it is only offline since recently).
Maybe you're using a bad mirror or have something funky in cookies/cache? I've been using nitter.net to read twitter just fine since that date. I've used it a bunch today even.
I've been using nitter.net for RSS feeds, as well as occasionally visiting the site itself. I personally was having no issues with it up until a few hours ago, although it seems my feeds haven't had any new posts within the past two hours or so, and I don't see any tweets on nitter itself.
Do you think that the API has only been deprecated for the few instances that people have noticed are down at the moment, while dozens of other instances are running smoothly?
As a Libredirect user, probably a fifth of listed instances are totally down and a good third are rate limited at any particular moment.
Sometimes literal child porn gets posted on twitter (and "sometimes" at twitter scale means at all times by dozens or hundreds of accounts simultaneously.)
Some law enforcement/politician may have gotten a report or run across something, and made a call.
Another backup solution is https://rss-bridge.github.io/rss-bridge/ which can allow you to bring RSS feeds and a ton of other sources into your RSS reader. Couple this with libredirect add-on in your browser whenever you want to see more info.
I've got my own instance, and since the code is open-source everybody can run their own. Who has interest in keep playing this stupid whack-a-mole game with open-source software that anyone can run?
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 115 ms ] threadhttps://nitter.fdn.fr/
There were a bunch of commits yesterday, maybe there's a bug? Can still get account tweets on my private instance and haven't updated yet.
My RSS feed off nitter.net has the complete text, no media.
It's important to note that this is not a technical requirement but an intentional choice by Twitter. I used to surf Twitter with Javascript disabled. They'd show a little message telling me the experience was better with Javascript but that was all. A year or so ago they intentionally blocked reading Twitter without Javascript.
An alternative frontend would simply be an alternative frontend to the backend... This is an alternative frontend to an alternative backend... (requests do not go from client to and from Twitter. Because of this, I find the "alternative frontend" terminology misleading at best.)
Also, one man's "pulling data from an unofficial API" is another man's scraping, but I'm not gonna die on this hill because I see why it's arguably not.
I wonder if any of this is intentional.
it’s been super useful for people who don’t have a twitter account or for people who don’t want to feed the twitter beast.
multiple of the mirrors have been down today—nitter.net has also been showing “…not found…” messages to me all day as well.
https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect
https://github.com/libredirect/libredirect/
LibRedirect looks good!
https://xnaas.github.io/nitter-instances/
https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/707
Musk announced his intent to deprecate the old Twitter API, which Nitter relies on, but it's unknown whether it's been done, or if it has anything to do with this (Nitter issues predate both the deprecation announcement, and, actually, Musk's takeover, though Nitter.it is only offline since recently).
https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/730
Do you think that the API has only been deprecated for the few instances that people have noticed are down at the moment, while dozens of other instances are running smoothly?
As a Libredirect user, probably a fifth of listed instances are totally down and a good third are rate limited at any particular moment.
Some law enforcement/politician may have gotten a report or run across something, and made a call.
[1]: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/740#issuecomment-132...