Nitter

Nitter
DeveloperZedeus (and contributors)
Release19 June 2019 (2019-06-19)
Final release
2026.03.15-7ce29bd / 15 March 2026 (2026-03-15)
Written inNim, SCSS, Python, CSS, JavaScript
Operating systemUnix-like
PlatformWeb
LicenseAGPLv3+[1]
Websitenitter.net Edit this at Wikidata
Repositorygithub.com/zedeus/nitter
As of29 October 2023 (2023-10-29)

Nitter is a discontinued free and open source alternative frontend for Twitter, focusing on privacy and performance.[2][3] Nitter is designed to allow access to Twitter without tracking, advertisements, or the need for an account. It only supports browsing, and cannot be used to sign in or interact with the Twitter community. Users can view user profiles, replies, media, and individual Tweets alongside their comments and Quote Tweets. Nitter also allows for searching by keywords, hashtags, usernames, locations, media and dates and supported the same formatting as Twitter's native advanced search function. It also supports creating RSS feeds for Twitter profiles.

Features

The user interface is designed to be minimalist and resemble the classic Twitter desktop layout.[3][4] Since users can't log in to Twitter through Nitter, Nitter has no notifications, no home feed, and no ability to tweet. By default, Nitter has no infinite scroll, although an experimental feature allowed for the usage of infinite scroll.[5] It has no ads or tracking, and the timeline is in chronological order.[4] Nitter relies on a glitch that allowed creating a large amount of "guest accounts" using proxy servers in order to fetch content.[6] It now relies on using registered account tokens to access the site, as Twitter has removed the ability to create guest accounts, and heavily restricts access to logged-out users.

In addition to the former official web instance, there are unofficial public web instances, as well as community-contributed mobile apps and browser extensions.[7][5]

Nitter was funded by donations as well as a grant from the NLnet Foundation's NGI fund.[8]

History

Nitter was temporarily discontinued between February 2024 and February 2025. The developer had announced the project was "dead" after Twitter removed the guest account feature, on which Nitter relied, in January 2024.[6] Some instances had previously stopped working some months before due to changes to the Twitter API.[9] The developer stated instances could be self-hosted by having users use their own account, at the risk of the account being banned.[10]

On 6 February 2025, Zedeus announced on GitHub Discussions that development on the project would be resuming.[11]

Cease and desist

On 24 August 2026, a cease and desist was sent to Nitter and its instances by X Corp, accusing Nitter of scraping and demanding a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project's repository. The developer is seeking legal advice, and stated that "development has stopped for the time being".[12] On 25 August 2026, the GitHub project was archived.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Alternative Twitter front-end". 30 June 2019. Retrieved 9 April 2023 – via GitHub.
  2. ↑ "About". Nitter. Archived from the original on 21 August 2026. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  3. 1 2 "Get 'Old Twitter' back, or something like it, with these alternative approaches". INQUIRER.net. 3 June 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  4. 1 2 Maxwell, Tom. "Nitter is a new front-end for Twitter that helps hide you from advertisers". Input. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  5. 1 2 Pot, Justin (6 February 2023). "This Tool Makes Twitter More Bearable to Read". Wired. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
  6. 1 2 Brodkin, Jon (15 February 2024). "Twitter front-end Nitter dies as Musk wins war against third-party services". Ars Technica. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
  7. ↑ Brinkmann, Martin (16 March 2022). "LibRedirect loads privacy-friendly sites automatically when you load YouTube, Search, TikTok and other sites". gHacks Technology News. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  8. ↑ "NLnet; Nitter". nlnet.nl. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
  9. ↑ Sarabia, Chema (19 February 2024). "You can no longer access Twitter without an account: Elon Musk has won". Softonic. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
  10. ↑ "nitter.net certificate expired on 15:08:30 GMT · Issue #1155 · zedeus/nitter". GitHub. Retrieved 31 January 2024.
  11. ↑ "nitter.net is back · zedeus nitter · Discussion #1212". GitHub. Retrieved 10 February 2025.
  12. ↑ Perez, Sarah (24 August 2026). "X sends cease-and-desist to open source project Nitter over alleged scraping". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 25 August 2026. Retrieved 25 August 2026.
  13. ↑ Zed (25 August 2026), zedeus/nitter, retrieved 25 August 2026
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