List out the rules frontends that Libredirect no longer supports.

[toyboatcash]

I have a thought, could we list out the rules somewhere for users to reference for Redirector for frontends that Libredirect no longer supports.

[Cynosphere]

Removing "dead" projects and forcing people to use a second extension feels against the spirit and goals of the project. None of the maintainers or what not clearly understand how open source software works. Please reconsider and do better.

[ManeraKai]

LibRedirect is for ease of use for beginners. If you're advanced enough to host your own Nitter instance with a fake twitter account, then configuring Redirector is not hard. The same has happened with Bibliogram. Supporting dead and unmaintained projects is not one of LibRedirect's goals. I'm happy to add Redirector settings guide for Nitter to the website though.

[Cynosphere]

LibRedirect is for ease of use for beginners.

Most people using LibRedirect and privacy-orientated services are tech savy in some form. They're using it because its easy to use, set it and forget it. Why should I constantly have to redesign my workflow because of services disappearing because of your bias on what is considered "dead" or not?

If you're advanced enough to host your own Nitter instance with a fake twitter account,

There are plenty of instances, advertized or not, that take out this aspect of configuration. You're implying that there aren't any nor that there aren't/won't be forks that don't use accounts.

then configuring Redirector is not hard.

I never said it was. My concern is having to install yet another extension that does the same thing.

Supporting dead and unmaintained projects is not one of LibRedirect's goals.

Why not just move "dead" projects to a page locked behind a "you will not get support" warning until there is something that can replace that service? Why not tell people on update that services are removed instead of having to dig through commits to find out it was removed after they notice that the service isn't redirecting anymore? Even if you don't do the former, your UX needs work.

[saxonww]

I didn't know about Redirector. I was annoyed at being redirected there, but it took me longer to write this reply than it did to entirely replace LibRedirect with Redirector. You don't even have to know regular expressions, it also offers simpler wildcard matching which is often sufficient.

The only downside I've seen so far is that intentional redirects to the redirected site don't 'just work', e.g. if you use Redirector with nitter, the little bird icon at the top won't send you to regular twitter. LibRedirect handled this. It may be an advanced option with Redirector, or it may not be possible.

There's no reason to argue with the author about this. It's their project. Nitter is essentially unmaintained. Adding an 'advanced' section for unsupported redirects is a lot more complicated than removing them. The author's stance on this makes sense.

[Cynosphere]

Complacency goes against freedom of choice, but I'm not going to go on a tangent about that. I am only voicing my concerns out of compassion, not malice. Not everyone is going to know to look at the repo to figure out what's going on.

As I said, it's a UX problem. Even if it's telling people how to use Redirector, then sure whatever, it still needs to be in extension if you truly want to be easy to use and for the layman to understand.

[ManeraKai]

because of your bias on what is considered "dead" or not?

See the description of their matrix room. It's officially dead.

Why not tell people on update that services are removed instead of having to dig through commits to find out it was removed after they notice that the service isn't redirecting anymore?

It's in the release changelog, and in our Mastodon post.

[Cynosphere]

You're purposely ignoring my actual criticism and just going in circles. I'm done, have a nice life.

[ManeraKai]

I never said it was. My concern is having to install yet another extension that does the same thing.

We co-exist with Redirector. We are not a replacement for it. We don't want to have an experimental section in LibRedirect. We already have many redirections. We can't support more, especially dead projects.

There's a 5 month span between v2.8.0 and v2.8.1. I actually released v2.8.1 on my own without proper testing from @IkelAtomig because, he was busy (that's why I messed up and had to release v2.8.2, a hotfix). We don't have the time of all the world. Please understand.

[mirh]

We can't support more, especially dead projects.

Not even old Windows versions are dead as long as they still have a userbase.. And here somehow the same libredirect backends that were just fine until two days ago (and that still do in fact actually works) would be instead? The original author doesn't own the concept, nor the code or its usability.

[Petemir]

None of the maintainers or what not clearly understand how open source software works.

Although I also feel your annoyance on this feature being removed, as it means I have to spend my time looking for workarounds, I argue otherwise: open source means that you can take the code, whatever version you are more comfortable with or need, make whatever edits you want or need, and use it for your particular use case. Likewise, maintainers are also free to do what they need or want, while giving you the freedom to do the same.

The only downside I've seen so far is that intentional redirects to the redirected site don't 'just work', e.g. if you use Redirector with nitter, the little bird icon at the top won't send you to regular twitter. LibRedirect handled this. It may be an advanced option with Redirector, or it may not be possible.

Not straightforward at all, but it's possible to add pattern exceptions to Redirector, so you could modify the URL in the nitter instance's navbar (either on nitter's code and recompiling, or by using a firefox plugin such as greasemonkey), to something unique/different, and use/exclude that pattern on Redirector.

[mirh]

There are no workarounds to look for... I'm still using libredirect 2.8.1 with https://nitter.poast.org/ without any problem.

[IkelAtomig]

Why not just move "dead" projects to a page locked behind a "you will not get support" warning until there is something that can replace that service? Why not tell people on update that services are removed instead of having to dig through commits to find out it was removed after they notice that the service isn't redirecting anymore? Even if you don't do the former, your UX needs work.

Actually, I like the idea of this. But we never had done like that. We always stated what we had removed in our release notes. You don't even need to dig the Commits.

---

@ManeraKai - Maybe we need to add a dedicated page where we list our regex filters for every frontend. Both in the extension and removed and list it on the site or Github wiki.

So, people can use redirector easily.

[IkelAtomig]

I am doing this on my personal free time. Just don't expect it to be done soon enough.