Libreddit

An alternative private front-end to Reddit

Libre + Reddit = Libreddit

• 🚀 Fast: written in Rust for blazing fast speeds and safety
• ☁️ Light: no JavaScript, no ads, no tracking
• 🕵 Private: all requests are proxied through the server, including media
• 🔒 Safe: does not rely on Reddit OAuth or require a Reddit API Key
• 📱 Responsive: works great on mobile!

Like Invidious but for Reddit. Browse the coldest takes of r/unpopularopinion without being tracked.

Contents

• Screenshot
• Instances
• About
  • Elsewhere
  • Info
  • In Progress
  • Teddit Comparison
• Comparison
  • Speed
  • Privacy
• Installation
  • Cargo
  • Docker
  • AUR
  • GitHub Releases
• Developing
  • Deployment
  • Building

Screenshot

Instances

Feel free to open an issue to have your selfhosted instance listed here!

• libredd.it 🇺🇸 (Thank you to YeapGuy!)
• libreddit.spike.codes 🇺🇸

About

Elsewhere

Find Libreddit on...

• 💬 Matrix: #libreddit:matrix.org
• 🐋 Docker: spikecodes/libreddit
• :octocat: GitHub: spikecodes/libreddit
• 🦊 GitLab: spikecodes/libreddit

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 functionalities but still lacks a few features that are being worked on below.

In Progress

• Searching

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 Actix Web, which was benchmarked as the fastest web server for single queries.
• Unlike Teddit (at the time of writing this), Libreddit does not require a Reddit API key to host.

Comparison

This section outlines how Libreddit compares to Reddit.

Speed

Lasted tested December 21, 2020.

Results from Google Lighthouse (Libreddit Report, Reddit Report).

	Libreddit	Reddit
Requests	22	70
Resource Size	135 KiB	2,222 KiB
Time to Interactive	1.7 s	11.5 s

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 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.

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 troubleshooting but nothing else.

DNS: Both official domains (libredd.it and libreddit.spike.codes) use Cloudflare as the DNS resolver. Though, the sites are not proxied through Cloudflare meaning Cloudflare should not have access to user traffic.

Cookies: Libreddit uses no cookies currently but eventually, I plan to add a configuration page where users can store an optional cookie to save their preferred theme, default sorting algorithm, or default layout.

Hosting: The official instances (libredd.it and libreddit.spike.codes) are hosted on Repl.it which likely monitors some aspect of usage for preventing abuse. I can understand if this invalidates certain users' threat models and therefore, selfhosting and browsing through Tor are welcomed.

Installation

A) Cargo

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

cargo install libreddit

B) Docker

Deploy the Docker image of Libreddit:

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

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

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

C) AUR

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

Install:

yay -S libreddit-git

D) 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. Currently, Libreddit does not have Windows or macOS binaries but those will be available soon.

Deployment

Once installed, deploy Libreddit (unless you're using Docker) by running:

libreddit

Specify a custom address for the server by passing the -a or --address argument:

libreddit --address=0.0.0.0:8111

To disable the media proxy built into Libreddit, run:

libreddit --no-default-features

Building

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