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Libreddit

An alternative private front-end to Reddit

⚠️ SHUT DOWN ⚠️

As of July 12th, 2023, Reddit's API changes, that were designed to kill third-party apps and content scrapers who don't pay large fees, went into effect for projects like Libreddit. Read the full announcement here.

screenshot

10-second pitch: Libreddit is a portmanteau of "libre" (meaning freedom) and "Reddit". It is a private front-end like Invidious but for Reddit. Browse the coldest takes of r/unpopularopinion without being tracked.

  • 🚀 Fast: written in Rust for blazing-fast speeds and memory safety
  • ☁️ Light: no JavaScript, no ads, no tracking, no bloat
  • 🕵 Private: all requests are proxied through the server, including media
  • 🔒 Secure: strong Content Security Policy prevents browser requests to Reddit

I appreciate any donations! Your support allows me to continue developing Libreddit.

Buy Me A Coffee Donate using Liberapay

Bitcoin: bc1qwyxjnafpu3gypcpgs025cw9wa7ryudtecmwa6y

Monero: 45FJrEuFPtG2o7QZz2Nps77TbHD4sPqxViwbdyV9A6ktfHiWs47UngG5zXPcLoDXAc8taeuBgeNjfeprwgeXYXhN3C9tVSR

Instances

🔗 Want to automatically redirect Reddit links to Libreddit? Use LibRedirect or Privacy Redirect!

Follow this link for an up-to-date table of instances in Markdown format. This list is also available as a machine-readable JSON.

Both files are part of the libreddit-instances repository. To contribute your self-hosted instance to the list, see the libreddit-instances README.

About

Find Libreddit on 💬 Matrix, 🐋 Docker, :octocat: GitHub, and 🦊 GitLab.

Built with

  • Rust - Programming language
  • Hyper - HTTP server and client
  • Askama - Templating engine
  • Rustls - TLS library

Info

Libreddit hopes to provide an easier way to browse Reddit, without the ads, trackers, and bloat. Libreddit was inspired by other alternative front-ends to popular services such as Invidious for YouTube, Nitter for Twitter, and Bibliogram for Instagram.

Libreddit currently implements most of Reddit's (signed-out) functionalities but still lacks a few features.

How does it compare to Teddit?

Teddit is another awesome open source project designed to provide an alternative frontend to Reddit. There is no connection between the two, and you're welcome to use whichever one you favor. Competition fosters innovation and Teddit's release has motivated me to build Libreddit into an even more polished product.

If you are looking to compare, the biggest differences I have noticed are:

  • Libreddit is themed around Reddit's redesign whereas Teddit appears to stick much closer to Reddit's old design. This may suit some users better as design is always subjective.
  • Libreddit is written in Rust for speed and memory safety. It uses Hyper, a speedy and lightweight HTTP server/client implementation.

Comparison

This section outlines how Libreddit compares to Reddit.

Speed

Lasted tested Nov 11, 2022.

Results from Google PageSpeed Insights (Libreddit Report, Reddit Report).

Libreddit Reddit
Requests 60 83
Speed Index 2.0s 10.4s
Time to Interactive 2.8s 12.4s

Privacy

Reddit

Logging: According to Reddit's privacy policy, they "may [automatically] log information" including:

  • IP address
  • User-agent string
  • Browser type
  • Operating system
  • Referral URLs
  • Device information (e.g., device IDs)
  • Device settings
  • Pages visited
  • Links clicked
  • The requested URL
  • Search terms

Location: The same privacy policy goes on to describe that location data may be collected through the use of:

  • GPS (consensual)
  • Bluetooth (consensual)
  • Content associated with a location (consensual)
  • Your IP Address

Cookies: Reddit's cookie notice documents the array of cookies used by Reddit including/regarding:

  • Authentication
  • Functionality
  • Analytics and Performance
  • Advertising
  • Third-Party Cookies
  • Third-Party Site

Libreddit

For transparency, I hope to describe all the ways Libreddit handles user privacy.

Server

  • Logging: In production (when running the binary, hosting with docker, or using the official instances), Libreddit logs nothing. When debugging (running from source without --release), Libreddit logs post IDs fetched to aid with troubleshooting.

  • Cookies: Libreddit uses optional cookies to store any configured settings in the settings menu. These are not cross-site cookies and the cookies hold no personal data.

Official instance (libreddit.spike.codes)

The official instance is hosted at https://libreddit.spike.codes.

  • Server: The official instance runs a production binary, and thus logs nothing.

  • DNS: The domain for the official instance uses Cloudflare as the DNS resolver. However, this site is not proxied through Cloudflare, and thus Cloudflare doesn't have access to user traffic.

  • Hosting: The official instance is hosted on Replit, which monitors usage to prevent abuse. I can understand if this invalidates certain users' threat models, and therefore, self-hosting, using unofficial instances, and browsing through Tor are welcomed.

Installation

1) Cargo

Make sure Rust stable is installed along with cargo, Rust's package manager.

cargo install libreddit

2) Docker

Deploy the Docker image of Libreddit:

docker pull libreddit/libreddit
docker run -d --name libreddit -p 8080:8080 libreddit/libreddit

Deploy using a different port (in this case, port 80):

docker pull libreddit/libreddit
docker run -d --name libreddit -p 80:8080 libreddit/libreddit

To deploy on arm64 platforms, simply replace libreddit/libreddit in the commands above with libreddit/libreddit:arm.

To deploy on armv7 platforms, simply replace libreddit/libreddit in the commands above with libreddit/libreddit:armv7.

3) AUR

For ArchLinux users, Libreddit is available from the AUR as libreddit-git.

yay -S libreddit-git

4) NetBSD/pkgsrc

For NetBSD users, Libreddit is available from the official repositories.

pkgin install libreddit

Or, if you prefer to build from source

cd /usr/pkgsrc/libreddit
make install

5) GitHub Releases

If you're on Linux and none of these methods work for you, you can grab a Linux binary from the newest release.

6) Replit/Heroku/Glitch

Warning

These are free hosting options, but they are not private and will monitor server usage to prevent abuse. If you need a free and easy setup, this method may work best for you.

Run on Repl.it Deploy Remix on Glitch

Deployment

Once installed, deploy Libreddit to 0.0.0.0:8080 by running:

libreddit

Instance settings

Assign a default value for each instance-specific setting by passing environment variables to Libreddit in the format LIBREDDIT_{X}. Replace {X} with the setting name (see list below) in capital letters.

Name Possible values Default value Description
SFW_ONLY ["on", "off"] off Enables SFW-only mode for the instance, i.e. all NSFW content is filtered.
BANNER String (empty) Allows the server to set a banner to be displayed. Currently this is displayed on the instance info page.
ROBOTS_DISABLE_INDEXING ["on", "off"] off Disables indexing of the instance by search engines.
PUSHSHIFT_FRONTEND String www.unddit.com Allows the server to set the Pushshift frontend to be used with "removed" links.

Default User Settings

Assign a default value for each user-modifiable setting by passing environment variables to Libreddit in the format LIBREDDIT_DEFAULT_{Y}. Replace {Y} with the setting name (see list below) in capital letters.

Name Possible values Default value
THEME ["system", "light", "dark", "black", "dracula", "nord", "laserwave", "violet", "gold", "rosebox", "gruvboxdark", "gruvboxlight"] system
FRONT_PAGE ["default", "popular", "all"] default
LAYOUT ["card", "clean", "compact"] card
WIDE ["on", "off"] off
POST_SORT ["hot", "new", "top", "rising", "controversial"] hot
COMMENT_SORT ["confidence", "top", "new", "controversial", "old"] confidence
SHOW_NSFW ["on", "off"] off
BLUR_NSFW ["on", "off"] off
USE_HLS ["on", "off"] off
HIDE_HLS_NOTIFICATION ["on", "off"] off
AUTOPLAY_VIDEOS ["on", "off"] off
SUBSCRIPTIONS +-delimited list of subreddits (sub1+sub2+sub3+...) (none)
HIDE_AWARDS ["on", "off"] off
DISABLE_VISIT_REDDIT_CONFIRMATION ["on", "off"] off

You can also configure Libreddit with a configuration file. An example libreddit.toml can be found below:

LIBREDDIT_DEFAULT_WIDE = "on"
LIBREDDIT_DEFAULT_USE_HLS = "on"

Examples

LIBREDDIT_DEFAULT_SHOW_NSFW=on libreddit

LIBREDDIT_DEFAULT_WIDE=on LIBREDDIT_DEFAULT_THEME=dark libreddit -r

Proxying using NGINX

Note

If you're proxying Libreddit through an NGINX Reverse Proxy, add

proxy_http_version 1.1;

to your NGINX configuration file above your proxy_pass line.

systemd

You can use the systemd service available in contrib/libreddit.service (install it on /etc/systemd/system/libreddit.service).

That service can be optionally configured in terms of environment variables by creating a file in /etc/libreddit.conf. Use the contrib/libreddit.conf as a template. You can also add the LIBREDDIT_DEFAULT__{X} settings explained above.

When "Proxying using NGINX" where the proxy is on the same machine, you should guarantee nginx waits for this service to start. Edit /etc/systemd/system/libreddit.service.d/reverse-proxy.conf:

[Unit]
Before=nginx.service

Building

git clone https://github.com/libreddit/libreddit
cd libreddit
cargo run