nixgoat

nixgoat , 28 days ago (edited 28 days ago)

Hi! Dev and OP here.

Yes, I am more than aware that the fediverse can see Threads profiles and posts. However, adding to what T said:

1. Federation is an optional feature, and does not account for profiles which have it disabled. So those simply won't pop up on Mastodon.
2. Threads has not been received well by a huge chunk of the fediverse, including myself, due to Meta essentially collecting data from users outside of Threads without their explicit consent. As such, many instances have defederated from Threads.
3. Federation on Threads is only available in certain regions. To be exact, if you're a Threads user, you cannot enable federation unless you live in the US, Canada, or Japan.

It may be an option for you, but it really depends on the instance your account is in, and who do you want to follow. Shoelace, on the other hand, would only be limited by the capabilities from unauthenticated API endpoints Meta provides, but any public post or profile can be opened.

nixgoat OP , 1 month ago

I'll be suggesting it to them for sure!

nixgoat OP , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

I'm prepared to receive intimidation letters at my door! Thankfully I live in a country (Chile. Can't really hide it, since you can geolocate my server and see that indeed it's hosted there) where it wouldn't be very much valuable for [m3t4] to sue me, since they haven't signed with a law firm here from what I can see. It would be much easier for them to just try and keep their platform closed off, which would mean they kill the open aspect of the platform. It would also be a win for the Fediverse, who has not received it well. Heck, I don't like it as well.

nixgoat OP , 1 month ago

Ok, but what does this mean honestly? I'm sharing libre software you can selfhost. This is within topic.

nixgoat OP , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

It's not. This essentially proxies content from Threads. These kinds of websites are generally nicknamed alternative frontends. It's basically the equivalent of Invidious, Bibliogram, or Libreddit (RIP), but for Threads.

nixgoat OP , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

The primary use case is seeing content from the platform in a privacy-respecting way. As in, no Facebook trackers, no heavy JavaScript, plain HTML and CSS. For example, you can use it if someone sends you a post in Threads.

nixgoat OP , 1 month ago

It's a coincidence! I named it kind of to refer to how a shoelace is composed of several strings.

nixgoat OP , 1 month ago

However, with Mastodon you have to deal with Meta collecting data from your profile, including any relations such as likes and follows. Furthermore, not all accounts from Threads have Fediverse integration enabled, and those who do are limited to the US, Canada, and Japan. This is more anonymous and functional than that. I also plan to add RSS support soon, to have an equivalent to following someone.

nixgoat OP , 1 month ago (edited 28 days ago)

Unfortunately no :(, and it's hard there'll be one soon. Facebook is much more closed off than Instagram or Threads. They really beg for you to have an account, and if someone were to start an alternative frontend which uses burner accounts, they would get blocked immediately AND lose in court, since that bleeds into computer fraud and abuse laws, similar to how Barinsta got taken down.

I think you're much better off getting an account with an aliased email address and using a plugin like Facebook Container to access those groups. Add a good proxy/VPN to this, and it'll be virtually impossible to link it back to anything else you do online. That's what I've done, since I use Facebook Marketplace to buy things from time to time, and it has worked well, with me only getting suggestions from Facebook pages I've already visited within that account, and not from any other website I visit outside of it.

nixgoat OP , 1 month ago

You're right. I was calling it a private frontend when referring to it beforehand, and the repo description states it, but I looked at other projects and they used the phrase "alternative", so I switched to it, since that's the common term.

For now it doesn't have personal feed functionality, but if a lot of people want that I may be able to implement it similarly to how CloudTube does. As in, generate a secret, store it in a cookie, and from there save user data. For now though, I want to prioritize RSS subscriptions.

nixgoat , 1 year ago

great! can't wait for this to drop on the release channel!