Alternate frontends and apps
ballsofsteel.codeberg.page

Hey there👋

This is a type of website, I’ve been wanting to create for a long time. This website displays various frontends for popular services. Not only are these great for your privacy but these are actually perform very well. The pages load quickly and often use minimum or no javascript.

Another thing I want to say is that I am not a web developer. There are a lot of mistakes in what I have done. Probably what I wrote makes me look like an idiot

So please no crush me

I would appreciate if you could contribute to this project and clean it up and make it better.

  • beta_tester
    10·
    3 years ago

    If you still use google services like google translate but with another front end, you still give google all the power. You don’t support an alternative and there never will be one, if you still use google.

      • beta_tester
        5·
        3 years ago

        I agree. I support firefox.

        What I do not know is which browser or engine is actually better? Because if chromium is actuall better wouldn’t it be benefitial (even for firefox) to fork it and just go their own ways after the fork? But as I said, I have not the expertise to judge that.

        • obbeel
          3·
          3 years ago

          If you fork Chromium, you’re subjected to all that it has coded before, after all you’ll use it as a base. Also, to the Chromium license.

          Chromium is better than Firefox in some ways, but I think it’s less work to fork from Firefox, if you want a anti big tech alternative. Bromite is a Chromium fork that supposedly works for privacy, but I don’t know.

          I use Pale Moon, which forks from Firefox 68. Still trying to make extensions work, but maybe it’s worth the extra work.

          • beta_tester
            2·
            3 years ago

            The chromium licensing might be a problem. Bromite is good but it’s only on android and 1. I’d like to support firefox. I use mull.

            What’s the advantage of pale moon? A very good pre hardened firefox fork is librewolf. All extensions work.

            • obbeel
              2·
              3 years ago

              I use Pale Moon because it’s somewhat popular, because it is an independent fork, and people who care about privacy seem to like it. I changed from Firefox because, with all the deals with Google, I don’t trust Mozilla/Firefox as an Open Source Project anymore. I want something developed by people who actually care about these things (privacy, freedom, etc.), not development bound by contracts with Big Tech.

              GNU IceCat might be cool too.

  • Kookaburra
    5·
    3 years ago

    I think Startpage is a frontend for Google results (last time I tested, the results on the first page were the same). The only thing I’m not sure if it is dangerous to use it (I use DDG and if I can’t find anything, then I go with Startpage). @the_tech_beast@lemmy.ml is right, they are owned by an ads page now and the whole thing smells fishy.

    Also, I recommend using the Privacy Redirect extension. Supports redirects from Twitter, YT, IG, GTranslate, Maps, Reddit, Wikipedia or any search you perform, to an alternative frontend

      • Kookaburra
        1·
        3 years ago

        Thank you, didn’t know about that one. Need to test it to see if the local results are shown as expected (this is the main reason I have to rely on Google results)

      • Kookaburra
        2·
        3 years ago

        Indeed. just edited the previous comment. Didn’t know about that.

  • Danileonis
    2·
    3 years ago

    Thanks for the effort! Sadly there is not a reddit alternative where I can log (similar to Slide or Infinity for Android).

  • pineapple@sopuli.xyzOP
    2·
    3 years ago

    The website uses chota css, that is the framework that joinlemmy website also uses. So that is why this looks similar to lemmy.

  • pineapple@sopuli.xyzOP
    1·
    3 years ago

    I would have used jekyll, that would have made this a much better experience.

    But then I will have spend time learning and setting it up.

  • beta_tester
    32·
    3 years ago

    If you use a different front end you give an unknown identity your ip data. E.g. the piped website. I have no idea who that is. Why should I use that? He can insert any video he likes. It’s different from e.g. newpipe. With newpipe there is no other party involved than you and google. Yes, they could hide something in the code, but you can inspect it yourself.

    Or for google translate, you still send the data to google. Maybe not the data when you write it, but as soon as you press enter, google will have that data. You should use an alternative, e.g. linguee, deepl. I’m not saying it’s perfect but it’s better than giving all your data to google, and it’s actually better than google.

    The site is nested. Imo it wiuld be better to clean it.

    E.g.

    Google Alternatives

    Google Translate

    • deepl. Deepl is …

    Youtube

    • newpipe. Blabla…
    • Zerush
      3·
      3 years ago

      Respect Piped, it dont use googlevideoAPI like any other front end do. It’s a OpenSource and selfhosted app, with 2 public instances https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped Respect a Deepl, its proprietary and freemium, free version is limited. The only valid FOSS translator i’ve found is the desktop app Tunlookup, but it’s only for Win and Mac, maybe in Linux with Wine (Linux version maybe later say dev). https://thephucit.github.io/tunlookup/ All other are very limited, buggy or paid apps.

      • beta_tester
        2·
        3 years ago

        You can selfhost it, but what’s the point? Don’t you still get all the recommendations from google?

        • pineapple@sopuli.xyzOP
          2·
          3 years ago

          Piped proxies the videos. So your ip address is not revealed to google, the servers ip address is. Also thousands of other users may also use the main server. So it becomes much more difficult to track you.

          • beta_tester
            1·
            3 years ago

            Wasn’t that my point in the first place? You need to trust piped. If you selfhost, it’s just you

      • beta_tester
        1·
        3 years ago

        Yes, it’s proprietary but there is no real foss alternative that is actually that good. I’ll have a look into tunlookup but if it’s only for win and mac it’s not that practicle. Everyone needs a solution, at least for android. Reducing the power of google is more important than foss/proprietary and linguee doesn’t abuse it’s power in the sense thst google does.

        • Zerush
          1·
          3 years ago

          The inbuild translator in Vivaldi is from Lingvanex, good for page translations. Tunlookup is a Desktop app, but work the same as an extension do, selected text apears in the translator when you open it with the fast keys or clicking in the icon. For me it works better than Deepl. I think the same, avoid Google is more important as FOSS or not, but is better use FOSS if it’s equal or better than proprietary apps. In Vivaldi I can view YT in it’s feed reader, which use it embedded anonymously, otherwise I use most Piped or the desktop client FreeTube, both use proxie.

    • pineapple@sopuli.xyzOP
      3·
      3 years ago

      You can also inspect the code of Piped. If you don’ t trust it, you can always self host piped. There are also several other instances to choose from.

      Keep in mind that newpipe does not proxy the videos. So google is still sees your ip address.

      About the other things, you said. Yeah I will think about it. Nesting the google apps seem like a good idea.

  • the_tech_beast
    1·
    3 years ago

    On mobile the buttons look squished together. On desktop it looks fine.