cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/37402366

This is the main reason I completely ditched Reddit, if you use the new Reddit interface instead of the old one (old.reddit.com), you’ll see a constant request being made to “https://www.reddit.com/svc/shreddit/events” (open your DevTools > Network tab, can’t see on Firefox idk why).

The problem is, if you add this to your Ublock Origin filters the website won’t load properly, that’s why uBO team didn’t block it already.

You’ll notice this request isn’t only being made from a interval but also when you do basically any action in the site, like pausing or resuming a video (send timestamps of when did you pause or resumed).

It sends other kind of data like what subjects you’re seeing when closed a tab or the related subjects of a post you click, this all can be used to trace a perfect profile of you and things you like.

You can avoid that using the old.reddit but it still has the same kind of tracker, even tho you can block it here without major issues.

By my analysis, old Reddit interface does the same but to a random URL path that always starts with “reddit.com/api/something”. Ex.: reddit.com/api/friends So you can block anything that starts with “www.reddit.com/api” in your custom filters (after all you’re using old.reddit.com), then you’re mostly free from Reddit trackers (more or less). Side effect is, you won’t be able to use the chat in the old interface.

    • lattrommi@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      20 minutes ago

      My city subreddit doesn’t have a lemmy and since i don’t have any other social media, it’s the only place i can learn about local happenings that aren’t catered towards the elderly or children.

    • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      4 hours ago

      I need to use it to look stuff up once in a while, but I try to avoid it whenever possible because of the ridiculous amount of fucking about it takes just to make that site usable. It used to need reddit enhancement suite, then they brought in the new reddit so then it was RES and a thing to force it to use old reddit, now they’re blocking VPNs and most of the old apps so now if I have to go there I try to just use a random Redlib instance.

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      15·
      17 hours ago

      Esoteric questions that’ve been answered on exactly one search-indexed website on the “public” internet (e.g. not Discord or forums requiring login)

      :(

      (This doesn’t happen for y’all essentially every single week?)

      Edit: shoutout to adding farside.link/ before the reddit URL

    • Pearl@lemmy.ml
      10·
      18 hours ago

      Their network effect is pretty strong. Plenty of community information silos built up. They have paid admins mass banning bots. Their new AI search summarizes answers for your questions and sources reddit comments.

      Best way forward is to ask questions outside of the walled garden

  • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
    73·
    22 hours ago

    I just use reddit as reference anymore, usually through redlib. Reddit became a seething cauldron of festering carcasses a long time ago, and I have no desire to jump through all their hoops just to use their servers, much like YT and a growing number of other sites. I just don’t have the patience to reconfigure my network just so I can use those outlets. Sad tho. It used to be a decent social media platform until it wasn’t. C’est la vie. Such is the way of the internet.

      • knomie@feddit.org
        3·
        14 hours ago

        That looks great.

        But aren’t more addons bad for fingerprinting? I often read the recommendation to use as few addons as possible.

        • PiraHxCx@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          4 hours ago

          I asked them exactly that hehe
          So, technically the sites you are redirecting from will never know you tried to access them and the addon is not interacting with any page, but the dev didn’t address/think of probing. I don’t have enough tech knowledge to confirm the addon won’t react to anything, thus making itself known. I don’t know which probing techniques there are and how all those resist-fingerprint and sandboxing settings from privacy-conscious browsers work against it… it does, however, sound like a sophisticated and resource-consuming method that I don’t think they would be using on regular internet unless they have specific targets, so if they have such probing techniques they are probably using it on IPs going through the TOR network (and you shouldn’t use any addon on Tor anyway).
          It’s all about your threat model, if you just want to avoid regular tracking and profiling the addon should be fine, now if you are afraid of some sophisticated and resourceful threat actors targeting you, don’t take your chances with any addon.

          • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            4 hours ago

            I clicked on it out of curiosity and it just went to a page saying it was invite only and then asked for my email so I just closed the tab lol.

              • Scott@lem.free.asEnglish
                2·
                3 hours ago

                I’m a “Groundbreakier” on the new Digg (just the initial wave of people that signed up). It’s nothing nefarious but it’s also nothing special yet.

                There are grand claims of being an antidote to the more toxic corners of the Internet but so far it’s a bit of a damp squib.

                I do hope they pull it off but at the moment it’s a poor cousin of Lemmy, IMHO.

      • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        18 hours ago

        These things change.

        In the words of George Harrison: All things must pass, all things must pass away

    • turdcollector69@lemmy.world
      9·
      22 hours ago

      I feel much the same, I want to completely unplug more and more with each passing day.

      It may just be low blood sugar fueled pessimism but I don’t see anything actually replacing these massive sites.

      It’s like trying to get into old multiplayer games where the few players left have a massive experience advantage that makes the barrier to entry impossibly high.

      I think the best response is to just not participate anymore.

      I’m far from that goal, hopefully enshittification will force my hand and push me offline for good.

      • irmadlad@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        19 hours ago

        I think the best response is to just not participate anymore.

        I’ve pretty much felt that way for a very long time now. If all my efforts breaks your site, or prevents me from accessing it entirely, I just don’t bother. For one, the information is, more than likely, replicated somewhere else, if not a direct quote of the article, then pretty much the same data worded differently. It might just be a bit further down on the search page.

    • frongt@lemmy.zip
      4·
      22 hours ago

      Such is capitalism. Plenty of stuff is still running fine without turning a profit for the shareholders.

  • Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    24·
    21 hours ago

    I dunno if it interests anyone out there, but if the real thing you like reddit for is the answers to weird problems, and you have a couple terabytes to spare, you can get a torrent that has all of it to store locally, and they get updated every now and then. I haven’t tried it yet, so YMMV, but the actual use of the platform for me is answers to obscure questions, so maybe worth a shot if you have the space

      • Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        15·
        21 hours ago

        I can’t vouch that everything on the site is 100 percent legit, but if you search academic torrents and look up reddit, you’ll find different repositories for them on there

  • yucandu@lemmy.world
    3·
    17 hours ago

    I just use the Opera or Brave browser for Reddit and nothing else, with the free VPN turned on.

  • pivot_root@lemmy.world
    6·
    20 hours ago

    You can block it with a carefully-crafted userscript that hooks the fetch API and returns fake responses for the svc event, but then Reddit starts flagging your IP address as a bot and demands you log in to an account to prove otherwise. You can’t win.