Privacy-Respecting access to Big Tech
Digital privacy and security protect our personal information and data from unauthorized access, misuse (datamining), and theft. Data breaches can have serious consequences for individuals like fraud, reputational damage, legal liability, financial loss, identity theft, and more.
Don’t believe us?:
- In 2020, a cyberattack on the Canadian government exposed the personal information of more than 144,000 people who applied for COVID-19 benefits. The attackers used stolen credentials to access the accounts and change the banking information of the applicants. The breach affected the Canada Revenue Agency, Service Canada, and other federal departments.
- In 2020, a ransomware attack on Deloitte Canada compromised the data of some of its clients, including confidential emails, contracts, and financial information. The attackers demanded a ransom of $14 million to decrypt the data and not leak it online. Deloitte refused to pay and notified its clients of the breach.
- In 2019, a hacker gained access to the personal data of more than 100 million Capital One customers in the United States and Canada. The data included names, addresses, phone numbers, credit scores, bank account numbers, and Social Security numbers. The hacker was arrested and charged with computer fraud and abuse.
- In 2018, a security breach at Facebook exposed the data of 87 million users to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that used the data to influence elections around the world. The data included likes, interests, friends, and political views. The breach sparked a global outcry and led to investigations, lawsuits, and regulatory actions against Facebook.
These examples (and they’re just a few of many) show that data breaches can happen to anyone and any organization, regardless of their size or industry. They also show that data breaches can have far-reaching impacts on individuals’ privacy, security, finances, and even democracy.
Aside from the various tools and resources Rynue has curated to help you with this, we have also provided a list of other services that you may be interested in using or implementing in some way:
WTF is an alternative front-end?
- You’ll see this ALOT on this list. An alternative front-end is a fancy way to describe what you’re seeing/the website. So it’s a web application that provides a different user interface and functionality for an existing online service, such as YouTube, Twitter, or Reddit. Alternative front-ends often aim to improve the user experience, privacy, performance, or accessibility of the original service. They usually rely on the same backend or API as the original service, but they may also use their own servers or proxies to enhance the features or security of the front-end.
Alternative front-ends can offer various other benefits, such as: Reducing the amount of data and bandwidth required to access the online service. Blocking ads, trackers, cookies, and other unwanted elements from the original service. Enhancing the usability, design, and customization of the user interface. Adding new features or options that are not available in the original service (sometimes unlocking paid ones). Protecting the user’s privacy and anonymity by hiding their IP address or location.
YouTube
- Invidious: Invidious is an alternative front-end to YouTube – Lightweight, no ads, no tracking, no JavaScript required
- Home page: https://invidious.io
- Invidious instances (working sites): https://docs.invidious.io/instances/
- Invidious instances API: https://api.invidious.io
- Installation guide for self-hosting: https://docs.invidious.io/installation/
- Piped: An alternative to Invidious (we recommend Invidious)
- Official instance: https://piped.video
- Public instances: https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped/wiki/Instances
- Installation guide for self-hosting: https://github.com/TeamPiped/Documentation/blob/main/content/docs/self-hosting/index.md
- FreeTube: Open source YouTube desktop player for privacy on Windows, Mac and Linux
- Official Instance: https://freetubeapp.io/
- NewPipe: An incredible Youtube alternative front-end app for Android
- uYouPlus: uYouPlus (uYou+) is an alternative YouTube app for Apple’s iOS and iPadOS
- Youtube-dl: Command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and other video sites
- SmartTubeNext: SmartTubeNext is an advanced YouTube app for Android TVs and TV boxes, free and open source. It is not a live TV client and does not support “YouTube TV”
YouTube Music
- Beatbump: An alternative frontend for YouTube Music created using Svelte/SvelteKit, powered by Cloudflare Workers
- Official instance: https://beatbump.ml/
- AudioTube: Client for YouTube Music. Plasma-mobile project with an interface designed for Linux phones
- Nitter: Alternative Twitter front-end – Lightweight, no ads, no tracking, no JavaScript required
- Official instance: nitter.net
- Public instances: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances
- Example: Troy Hunt on Twitter and Nitter
- Harpy: Android, alternative front-end for Twitter, built with Flutter/Dart
- Fritter: A free, open-source Twitter client for Android
- Teddit: Alternative Reddit front-end focused on privacy – Lightweight, no ads, no JavaScript, unofficial API
- Official instance: https://teddit.net
- Public instances: https://github.com/teddit-net/teddit#instances
- Github mirror repository
- Example: /r/Privacy on Reddit and Teddit
- Infinity: Reddit Alternative Front-End client for Android
- Available on F-Droid
- junipf/reddit-frontend: A reddit front-end written in React
- Official instance: https://jpf-reddit.netlify.app
TikTok
- ProxiTok: Open source alternative frontend for TikTok made with PHP
- Official instance: https://proxitok.pabloferreiro.es/
Imgur
- Rimgo: Self-hosted frontend for Imgur ritten in Go
- Public instances: https://codeberg.org/video-prize-ranch/rimgo#instances
- Rimgu: Self-hosted alternative frontend/ proxy for Imgur
Spotify (We REALLY recommend Deezer over this, and it has Deemix)
- psst: Fast and multi-platform Spotify client with native GUI
- Spotiqueue: Minimalistic queue-oriented macOS-native client for Spotify, with Guile Scheme scriptability
- spot: Gtk/Rust native Spotify client for the GNOME desktop. Only works with premium accounts
Apple Music (We REALLY recommend Deezer over this, and it has Deemix)
- Cider: Cross-platform Apple Music experience based on Electron and Vue.js written from scratch with performance in mind
Bandcamp
- Tent: A simple alternative front-end for Bandcamp that does not require JavaScript and proxies all requests
Twitch
- streamlink-twitch-gui: Multi platform Twitch.tv browser for Streamlink
- Twire: Alternative and open source Twitch client for Android
Discord
- gtkcord4: A lightweight Discord client written in Golang which uses GTK3 for the user interface
Google Search (use Rynue Search)
- Searx: Searx is a free privacy-respecting internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled. Additionally, searx can be used over Tor for online anonymity
- Public instances: https://searx.space
- SearXNG: SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from various search services and databases. Users are neither tracked nor profiled (SearXNG is a fork of searx)
- LibreX: Privacy respecting free meta search engine (free as in freedom)
- Small and simple meta search engine, fetches and anonymizes results from Google only, has API support, allows redirects to Invidious/ Bibliogram/ Nitter/ Libreddit
Google Translate
- Lingva Translate: Alternative front-end for Google Translate, serving as a free and open-source translator with over a hundred languages available
- Official instance: lingva.ml
- Public instances: https://github.com/TheDavidDelta/lingva-translate#instances
- SimplyTranslate: Provide fast and private translations to the user without wasting much overhead for extensive styling or JavaScript. Supports Google Translate, DeepL, ICIBA and LibreTranslate.
- Official instance: simplytranslate.org
- Home page and public instances: https://simple-web.org/projects/simplytranslate.html
- SimplyTranslate Mobile: Unofficial Android client of SimplyTranslate.
- Available on F-Droid
- SlimSocial: Android, alternative front-end for Facebook, built with Java
- Frost: An extensive and functional third party app for Facebook (Android app)
Facebook Messenger
- Caprine: Unofficial and privacy-focused Facebook Messenger app with many useful features
Mastodon
- Sengi: cross-platform multi-account Mastodon & Pleroma desktop client
- TheDesk: cross-platform Mastodon & Misskey desktop client
- Tusky: lightweight Android Mastodon client
- Fedilab: multi-account Android Mastodon client
- Pinafore: Alternative web client for Mastodon, focused on speed and simplicity Unmaintained
- Hyperspace: cross-platform Mastodon client for the fediverse written in TypeScript and React In maintenance mode
Medium
- Scribe: Alternative front-end to Medium.com
- Official website: https://scribe.rip
- Libmedium: Alternative front-end to Medium.com
- Official website: https://libmedium.batsense.net
IMDb
- libremdb: A FOSS alternative front-end to IMDb.
- Official instance: https://libremdb.iket.me/
- Public Instances: https://github.com/zyachel/libremdb#instances
Quora
- Quetre: A libre front-end for Quora
- Official website: https://quetre.iket.me/
- Public instances: https://github.com/zyachel/quetre#instances
Reuters
- Neuters: An alternative front-end to Reuters.com. It is intented to be lightweight and fast, and was heavily inspired by Nitter
- Official instance: https://neuters.de
Apple AirPlay
- RPiPlay: An open-source AirPlay mirroring server for the Raspberry Pi. Supports iOS 9 and up.
- air-pi-play: Turn a Raspberry Pi into an Airplay server using RPiPlay to enable screen mirroring on tvs, monitors and projectors.
Shazam
- SongRec: Open-source Shazam client for Linux, written in Rust
Other services
- Wikiless: A free open source alternative Wikipedia front-end focused on privacy
- Official instance: https://wikiless.org/
- Public instances: https://github.com/Metastem/wikiless
- Librarian: Alternative frontend for LBRY / Odysee.com
- Public instances: https://codeberg.org/librarian/librarian#instances
Redirection
- libredirect: A web extension that redirects popular sites to alternative privacy-friendly frontends and backends. Actively maintained fork of Privacy Redirect that supports Youtube, Youtube Music, Twitter, TikTok, Imgur, Reddit, Searx, Google Translate, Google Maps, Wikipedia, and Medium
- Farside: Farside provides links that automatically redirect to working instances of privacy-oriented alternative frontends, such as Nitter, Libreddit, etc. This allows for users to have more reliable access to the available public instances for a particular service, while also helping to distribute traffic more evenly across all instances and avoid performance bottlenecks and rate-limiting.
- UntrackMe: UntrackMe transforms Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and Medium and Wikipedia links to links of open source, privacy friendly front-ends. Converts Google Maps links to OpenStreetMap links. Removes tracking parameters from any url. Then delegates the action to other apps that are capable of handling them. (Android app)
Related projects
- uBlock Origin: An efficient blocker for Chromium and Firefox. Fast and lean
- StreetComplete: Easy to use OpenStreetMap editor for Android
- Pluja’s Awesome Privacy: A curated list of services and alternatives that respect your privacy.
- 12ft.io / 12ft Ladder: 12ft Ladder is a free service for reading news articles. Prepend 12ft.io/ to the URL of any paywalled page, and we’ll try our best to remove the paywall and get you access to the article.
- Note: The source code of 12ft Ladder is not available under a free/open-source license