The Official Power User Tips, Tricks & Productivity Thread

[bnew]

Nitter is great. I would recommend LibRedirect (a fork of Privacy Redirect) as an addon to automatically redirect various sites to their alternative frontends

GitHub - libredirect/browser_extension: A browser extension that redirects popular sites to alternative privacy friendly frontends

A browser extension that redirects popular sites to alternative privacy friendly frontends - libredirect/browser_extension

github.com

atm I'm just using it for Twitter -> Nitter (unixfox/namazso instances), TikTok -> ProxiTok, Medium -> Scribe

but it covers several other sites.

for my use case the bookmarklet works better for me. Nitter search is kinda buggy or I haven't used it correctly. I search twitter alot and I have some custom duckduckgo bangs in via the Redirector extension.

I do have it installed on one of my browser instances but I don't use that instance often. I configured the Redirector extension to automatically redirect to nitter when ever I click on a twitter profile '/media' url.

GitHub - einaregilsson/Redirector: Browser extension (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Edge) to redirect urls based on regex patterns, like a client side mod_rewrite.

Browser extension (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Edge) to redirect urls based on regex patterns, like a client side mod_rewrite. - GitHub - einaregilsson/Redirector: Browser extension (Firefox, Chrome, O...

github.com

example screenshot.

 

[Macallik86]

Ahhh that is a souped up, more customizable version of Chrome's search engine options.

Chrome's is more like a director instead of a redirector in that it doesnt manipulate existing links but it does allows you to query any website's search engine directly, as a time saver, I have a bunch of search engine shortcuts including Coli:

Some of the websites and the shortcuts I type into the address bar to toggle them:

Example using Coli

Results

 

[bnew]

Ahhh that is a souped up, more customizable version of Chrome's search engine options.

Chrome's is more like a director instead of a redirector in that it doesnt manipulate existing links but it does allows you to query any website's search engine directly, as a time saver, I have a bunch of search engine shortcuts including Coli:

Some of the websites and the shortcuts I type into the address bar to toggle them:

Spoiler: .

Example using Coli

Results

how did you set that up?

 

[Macallik86]

how did you set that up?

 

[bnew]

Login reminder popup remover (developement ceased - not up to date)

Removes the nagging login popups and banners from mobile and desktop versions of Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, Quora, VK, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitch and from the mobile versions of Youtube and TikTok.

greasyfork.org

 

[Macallik86]

Do yall typically download videos in webm format?

As an 80s baby it feels weird not downloading an MP3/MP4 so when using yt-dlp, I edited the config file to manually change the file to an MP4. It's been breaking for the last few weeks and today I went back to webm and it's working again.

So I know now that webm works well w/ mpv player, but I figure that mpv is like vlc in that it will take anything that you throw it at. Is webm basically the future? Is webm to mp4 what blu rays are to dvds?

Edit:

Spoiler: Here's a young breh breaking it down

 

[bnew]

Do yall typically download videos in webm format?

As an 80s baby it feels weird not downloading an MP3/MP4 so when using yt-dlp, I edited the config file to manually change the file to an MP4. It's been breaking for the last few weeks and today I went back to webm and it's working again.

So I know now that webm works well w/ mpv player, but I figure that mpv is like vlc in that it will take anything that you throw it at. Is webm basically the future? Is webm to mp4 what blu rays are to dvds?

I got a lot of videos in webm format and mpv is my default player for them, vlc is my default for all other video files. webm is just a container like .mkv, it also has pretty decent compression.

webm is royalty-free which is key to it's adoption for display on websites and software tools.

with H.264 mp4 as better quality.

 

[Macallik86]

I got a lot of videos in webm format and mpv is my default player for them, vlc is my default for all other video files. webm is just a container like .mkv, it also has pretty decent compression.

Gotcha. Did some more digging and saw that Apple's ecosystem along w/ YouTube don't like webm as much, but I'm locked into Android/mpv indefinitely at this point so it's whatever.

On a somewhat related note, bnew did you edit your config file for mpv btw? I've been using the video speed controller extension for years (I struggle watching 1x content nowadays ) & just copied my keyboard shortcuts to mpv for the most part. I dug deeper w/ some of the lua scripts to track history as well but it got too convoluted.

 

[bnew]

Gotcha. Did some more digging and saw that Apple's ecosystem along w/ YouTube don't like webm as much, but I'm locked into Android/mpv indefinitely at this point so it's whatever.

On a somewhat related note, bnew did you edit your config file for mpv btw? I've been using the video speed controller extension for years (I struggle watching 1x content nowadays ) & just copied my keyboard shortcuts to mpv for the most part. I dug deeper w/ some of the lua scripts to track history as well but it got too convoluted.

I haven't messed with mpv configs and I adjust the playback speed of videos with my mouse instead of using keyboard shortcuts. years ago I use to have extensions for it, but html5 being widely adopted made extensions unnecessary.

 

[Macallik86]

Added Perplexity AI as a search engine so that I can quickly ask ChatGPT questions through the address bar instead of having to navigating to the bot's official page. Thought about the extension that appends the output to you Google/Firefox Search results but seems like overkill for now.

On another note, the Perplexity search engine have something called "Bird SQL" where you ask a Twitter question and it will repurpose your question into a SQL query and return the results. I've yet to find a meaningful use case for it outside of times that celebrities put their foot in their mouth, but it is hella efficient (albeit a bit slow).

Spoiler

 

[Macallik86]

I was today years old when I found out that rss.app turns any website into an rss feed. From there, I just drop the xml link into the rss app that I use (Feedly) and I'm good to go.

Some examples of areas that will be redirected:

• Many websites don't have an RSS feed but I can't be bothered to regularly check for updates. Now, I can just turn the blog/articles page into an rss feed.
• For productivity ppl that I follow (ie James Clear), I can set up an RSS feed to get their content, while unsubscribing from intrusive marketing emails
• For forums that I don't visit frequently, I can now set an RSS feed on the threads that I care about w/o getting emails for each reply
• The website allows for rss feeds on Twitter/Youtube so I can get relevant tweets/videos pushed to me w/o the mindless scrolling
• Setting up an RSS feed on the profile page of organizers on Eventbrite so that I have the potential to get alerts before the early bird tix sell out, etc

 

[Macallik86]

If you are 'watching' a long YouTube video that doesn't need visuals (ie: lectures, Ted Talks, general learning materials, etc) then use HuffDuff to turn the video into an audio file. Then you can get the same content while you are going for a run, washing the dishes or doing something more productive than sitting and watching YouTube.

Even better, you can get a podcast/RSS link to your feed of saved audio that you can subscribe to in your podcast player. So, every time you convert a video to an audio file, it will be pushed to your phone like it's a newly released podcast episode.

Spoiler

 

[bnew]

I was today years old when I found out that rss.app turns any website into an rss feed. From there, I just drop the xml link into the rss app that I use (Feedly) and I'm good to go.

Some examples of areas that will be redirected:

• Many websites don't have an RSS feed but I can't be bothered to regularly check for updates. Now, I can just turn the blog/articles page into an rss feed.
• For productivity ppl that I follow (ie James Clear), I can set up an RSS feed to get their content, while unsubscribing from intrusive marketing emails
• For forums that I don't visit frequently, I can now set an RSS feed on the threads that I care about w/o getting emails for each reply
• The website allows for rss feeds on Twitter/Youtube so I can get relevant tweets/videos pushed to me w/o the mindless scrolling
• Setting up an RSS feed on the profile page of organizers on Eventbrite so that I have the potential to get alerts before the early bird tix sell out, etc

yeah I hate that so many sites have removed RSS support, I hate that firefox removed support for it too.

theres also a open source project that aims to do the same.

RSS-Bridge

The RSS feed for websites missing it

rss-bridge.github.io

the list of sites/bridges it supports.

rss-bridge/bridges at master · RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge

The RSS feed for websites missing it. Contribute to RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

An RSS-Bridge instance

RSS-Bridge

RSS-Bridge

rss-bridge.org

A list of public instances running RSS-bridge

Public Hosts - RSS-Bridge

The RSS feed for websites missing it

rss-bridge.github.io

 

[Macallik86]

Just got hit w/ the 'your trial is up' message from rss.app. They aint say shyt about a trial the entire signup process.

Gonna pivot to Rss Bridge now

 

[bnew]

Fluent Reader

hyliu.me

GitHub - yang991178/fluent-reader: Modern desktop RSS reader built with Electron, React, and Fluent UI

Modern desktop RSS reader built with Electron, React, and Fluent UI - GitHub - yang991178/fluent-reader: Modern desktop RSS reader built with Electron, React, and Fluent UI

github.com

Modern desktop RSS reader. Open-source.​

Fluent Reader is a local, cross-platform news aggregator with a fresh look. Bring all your favorite sources with you and read distraction-free.

Search. Filter.​

Find anything you want with the power of regular expressions. Search in both titles and full contents of articles. Mark articles as starred, hidden, or unread and filter as they arrive with custom rules based on regular expressions.

Privacy first.​

All your data stays with you.​

All cookies cleared upon exit.​

XSS blocked in an isolated context.​

No personal information collected, ever.​

Behavior tracking limited.​

Strict Content Security Policy enforced.​

Proxy support with PAC.​

download links

Releases · yang991178/fluent-reader

Modern desktop RSS reader built with Electron, React, and Fluent UI - yang991178/fluent-reader

github.com

This RSS reader isn't the most full featured but I mainly use it to scroll image heavy feeds.