Imperfect

privacy frontend appreciation

Inspired by Steve's I love you NewPipe but damn it.

For those unaware, a privacy frontend is an alternative website or app to interface popular websites and/or social media platforms. These can include, but aren't limited to third-party clients for Reddit (yes, these still exist) or other ways to view YouTube videos (such as the mentioned NewPipe app).

As a user of many privacy frontends, I get it. On one hand, I empathize with frontend hurdles being annoying. On the other hand, I'm grateful for having access to them, let alone for multiple platforms.

I resolve most frontend issues with software or instance redundancy when available. For example, if NewPipe is down, I check if Grayjay or other YouTube frontends work well enough. It's not perfect, but I make do more often than not.

Struggling to find a frontend for a website you use? A good start is visiting the LibRedirect website. Not only do they offer a browser extension to automatically redirect to frontends, but all compatible frontends are linked to on the homepage. You would be surprised at how many exist. If you have good starter resources for third-party apps, do let me know.

It helps to think of frontend development as a cat and mouse game like emulator development. Appreciate them to their fullest extent while they're still available. If you can, contribute to or proliferate them however possible. If you're particularly talented, maybe this can inspire you to build the next big frontend.

For that matter, why stop at frontends? For example, I have seen multiple people wonder why nobody has developed an open source version of Tiktok yet. Maybe you can help create that or share what already exists with others?

Want to reach out? Connect with me however you prefer: