Alternative Twitter front-end
Find a file
Zed de62eedea5 Refactor hostname to be a runtime option
Add a `hostname` field under Server in your conf file, see the
updated nitter.conf in the repo for an example. The compile-time
option (-d:hostname) is no longer used.
2019-10-21 05:19:00 +02:00
public Show heart instead of thumbs up for tweet likes 2019-10-08 20:56:54 +02:00
src Refactor hostname to be a runtime option 2019-10-21 05:19:00 +02:00
tests Add docker instructions to readme 2019-10-18 00:19:09 +02:00
tools Add task to compile scss 2019-09-13 10:54:09 +02:00
.gitignore Fix .gitignore css typo 2019-09-13 12:39:16 +02:00
.travis.yml Moved tests from Dockerfile to Travis 2019-10-13 03:23:50 -04:00
config.nims Revert "Use asynchttpserver instead of httpbeast" 2019-10-06 16:41:58 +02:00
Dockerfile Add docker instructions to readme 2019-10-18 00:19:09 +02:00
LICENSE Add license file 2019-06-21 20:29:33 +02:00
nitter.conf Refactor hostname to be a runtime option 2019-10-21 05:19:00 +02:00
nitter.nimble Use httpbeast fork to fix crashes 2019-10-07 15:39:18 +02:00
README.md Refactor hostname to be a runtime option 2019-10-21 05:19:00 +02:00
screenshot.png Update readme 2019-09-20 03:06:02 +02:00

Nitter (WIP)

A free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy.
Inspired by the invidio.us project.

  • No JavaScript or ads
  • All requests go through the backend, client never talks to Twitter
  • Prevents Twitter from tracking your IP or JavaScript fingerprint
  • Unofficial API (no rate limits or developer account required)
  • AGPLv3 licensed, no proprietary instances permitted
  • Dark theme
  • Lightweight (for @nim_lang, 36KB vs 580KB from twitter.com)
  • Native RSS feeds

Todo (roughly in this order)

  • Embeds
  • More caching (waiting for moigagoo/norm#19)
  • Simple account system with customizable feed
  • Json API endpoints
  • Themes
  • Nitter logo
  • Emoji support (WIP, uses native font for now)

Resources

The wiki contains a list of Nitter instances and a list of browser extensions maintained by the community.

Why?

It's basically impossible to use Twitter without JavaScript enabled. If you try, you're redirected to the legacy mobile version which is awful both functionally and aesthetically. For privacy-minded folks, preventing JavaScript analytics and potential IP-based tracking is important, but apart from using the legacy mobile version and a VPN, it's impossible.

Using an instance of Nitter (hosted on a VPS for example), you can browse Twitter without JavaScript while retaining your privacy. In addition to respecting your privacy, Nitter is on average around 15 times lighter than Twitter, and in some cases serves pages faster.

In the future a simple account system will be added that lets you follow Twitter users, allowing you to have a clean chronological timeline without needing a Twitter account.

Screenshot

nitter

Installation

To compile Nitter you need a Nim installation, see nim-lang.org for details. It is possible to install it system-wide or in the user directory you create below.

You also need to install libsass to compile the scss files. On Ubuntu and Debian, you can use libsass-dev.

# useradd -m nitter
# su nitter
$ git clone https://github.com/zedeus/nitter
$ cd nitter
$ nimble build -d:release
$ nimble scss
$ mkdir ./tmp

Set your hostname, port and page title in nitter.conf, then run Nitter by executing ./nitter. You should run Nitter behind a reverse proxy such as Nginx or Apache for better security.

To build and run Nitter in Docker:

docker build -t nitter:latest --build-arg HOSTNAME=nitter.net .
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 nitter:latest

To run Nitter via systemd you can use this service file:

[Unit]
Description=Nitter (An alternative Twitter front-end)
After=syslog.target
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple

# set user and group
User=nitter
Group=nitter

# configure location
WorkingDirectory=/home/nitter/nitter
ExecStart=/home/nitter/nitter/nitter

Restart=always
RestartSec=15

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then enable and run the service: systemctl enable --now nitter.service

Contact

Feel free to join our Freenode IRC channel at #nitter, or our Matrix server. You can email me at zedeus@pm.me if you wish to contact me personally.