LibRedirect

[ph00lt0]

I always used privacy redirect extension to redirect twitter to nitter, youtube to invidious etc.
The project however didn't receive updates in ages and is quite outdated. But today I found out there actually is a really nice fork of the project here: https://github.com/libredirect/libredirect

It's very configurable and works like a charm.

I always agree with using the less extensions is better but this makes your life a lot easier if you want to be able to visit links you receive to these services without the need for an instagram, tiktok, facebook, etc account.

[ghost]

Seems like more of a convenience thing than a privacy/security thing. You could just manually go to whatever alternate frontend you want and paste the link there. Unless it does something that's not possible without it I see no reason to recommend it.

[ghost]

This is like Tommytran's reply.

[ph00lt0]

Well I do agree somewhat with this, I think it still is worth it. Privacy should be accessible and people are not going to change this manually all the time. That's a pain and waste of time. Just like Tommytran now learned out about F-Droidify a client which works a lot better then F-droid. This doesn't help privacy directly but makes your life a lot easier.

[ghost]

I guess I'm just cautious about adding extensions to the recommendations because I really don't want it to get back to the state it was before lol. I guess first we would need to recommend all of the alternate frontends it redirects to, then I could see it maybe being a possibility. And yes being able to see posts without an account is a huge benefit.

[TommyTran732]

Well I do agree somewhat with this, I think it still is worth it. Privacy should be accessible and people are not going to change this manually all the time. That's a pain and waste of time. Just like Tommytran now learned out about F-Droidify a client which works a lot better then F-droid. This doesn't help privacy directly but makes your life a lot easier.

FYI, the recommendation for Droid-ify is not for convenience, but because there is an actual security improvement with it. For one, seamless automatic update works so apps are kept up to date automatically in the background without needing a privileged extension. Two, it does not use an outdated API from the KitKat times with lots of attack surface like the official F-Droid client. While it adds another party to trust, it solves a lot of security problems with the official client.

I would not have recommended it just because of the fancier UI, which is a convenience thing.

[ph00lt0]

@TommyTran732 alright fair enough, I didn't know that yet.

[m77e4t]

Looks good to me. They even have medium to scribe redirection, which on the original privacy redirect extension is still pending for quite a while.

For some reason, the team behind the extension has not put it on chrome web store to be accessible for chromium based browsers. They have listed the workaround of enabling developer mode and then installing it yourself via zip file. But, I dislike this method as they are privacy and security concerns. Google regularly scans extension on its web store to ensure that the extensions are safe to use. Does the team behind the extension have any plans on adding it on chrome web store (or even on edge/opera store)?

Privacy redirect extension or Libredirect extension should be at least recommended on PG. Both of these extensions are really useful for privacy focused crowd.

[ghost]

I meant that more generally, but yes this extension probably won't make you more fingerprintable. I didn't think about it potentially breaking youtube embeds, that would be a usability problem I think.

[merodiro]

1. The thing it does that isn't possible without the extension is redirecting embedded content
2. There was an issue in arkenfox repo Extensions question - redirector v. privacy redirect arkenfox/user.js#1373 (comment) suggesting it that was closed so it might be relevant to this

[ph00lt0]

@mfwmyfacewhen it doesn't break youtube embeds, but it can replace them if you wish. That may be the only thing fingerprintable afaik

[ghost]

hmm yeah that's actually a pretty big one imo. And if you turn that feature off then you're back to a convenience extension.

[ManeraKai]

About why it's not in the chrome web store yet: libredirect/browser_extension#45

[GrimPixel]

I support adding it. The inconvenience is what keeps common people away from caring about privacy, in my opinion. Why are we using any language higher than assembly? Why are we using anything with GUI? It's because of the convenience.

[d4rklynk]

If we got that way, aren't password manager convenient tools ? xD

[cryptocat8]

Wise

[johannesrld]

regarding arkenfox, the maintainer doesn't recommend it [1] [2]

[cryptocat8]

PG should recommend this list: https://github.com/digitalblossom/alternative-frontends

They can be used with "Redirector" extension, or can be manually done too.

[dngray]

Taking place in privacyguides/privacyguides.org#1977

[dngray]

On further discussion we decided to reconsider adding this. The reason is it does introduce a lot of trust to the addon creator, that we really don't want to encourage in a browser that might be used for secure things such as logging into a bank.

Should you use it? Maybe, but be mindful that it comes with a list of instances which we/the author of the extension likely knows nothing about.

About the only usecase I can think where it makes sense is where you want to redirect over Tor without JavaScript. One would not log into their "bank" with the Tor Browser so that would probably make sense. Or perhaps a browser that is configured to use a VPN, but not the one they use with their "known identity".