Farside

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A redirecting service for FOSS alternative frontends. [Farside](https://farside.link) provides links that automatically redirect to working instances of privacy-oriented alternative frontends, such as Nitter, Libreddit, etc. This allows for users to have more reliable access to the available public instances for a particular service, while also helping to distribute traffic more evenly across all instances and avoid performance bottlenecks and rate-limiting. ## Demo Farside's links work with the following structure: `farside.link//` For example:
Service Page Farside Link
Libreddit /r/popular https://farside.link/libreddit/r/popular
Teddit /r/popular https://farside.link/teddit/r/popular
Nitter User Profile https://farside.link/nitter/josevalim
Invidious Home Page https://farside.link/invidious
Piped Video Page https://farside.link/piped/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU
Bibliogram User Profile https://farside.link/bibliogram/u/kbdfans
Whoogle Search "Elixir" https://farside.link/whoogle/search?q=elixir&lang_interface=en
SearX Search "Redis" https://farside.link/searx/search?q=redis
SearXNG Search "EFF" https://farside.link/searxng/search?q=EFF
SimplyTranslate Translate "hola" https://farside.link/simplytranslate/?engine=google&text=hola
Lingva Translate "bonjour" https://farside.link/lingva/auto/en/bonjour
Rimgo View photo album https://farside.link/rimgo/a/H8M4rcp
Scribe View Medium post https://farside.link/scribe/@ftrain/big-data-small-effort-b62607a43a8c
Note: This table doesn't include all available services. For a complete list of supported frontends, see: https://farside.link Farside also accepts URLs to "parent" services, and will redirect to an appropriate front end service, for example: - https://farside.link/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ will redirect to a [Piped](https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped) or [Invidious](https://github.com/iv-org/invidious) instance - https://farside.link/reddit.com/r/popular will redirect to a [Libreddit](https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit) or [Teddit](https://codeberg.org/teddit/teddit) instance - etc. ## How It Works The app runs with an internally scheduled cron task that queries all instances for services defined in [services.json](services.json) every 5 minutes. For each instance, as long as the instance takes <5 seconds to respond and returns a successful response code, the instance is added to a list of available instances for that particular service. If not, it is discarded until the next update period. Farside's routing is very minimal, with only the following routes: - `/` - The app home page, displaying all live instances for every service - `/ping` - A passthrough "ping" to redis to ensure both app and redis are working - `/:service/*glob` - The main endpoint for redirecting a user to a working instance of a particular service with the specified path - Ex: `/libreddit/r/popular` would navigate to `/r/popular` - If the service provided is actually a URL to a "parent" service (i.e. "youtube.com" instead of "piped" or "invidious"), Farside will determine the correct frontend to use for the specified URL. - Note that a path is not required. `/libreddit` for example will still redirect the user to a working libreddit instance - `/_/:service/*glob` - Achieves the same redirect as the main `/:service/*glob` endpoint, but preserves a short landing page in the browser's history to allow quickly jumping between instances by navigating back. - Ex: `/_/nitter` -> nitter instance A -> (navigate back one page) -> nitter instance B -> ... - *Note: Uses Javascript to preserve the page in history* When a service is requested with the `/:service/...` endpoint, Farside requests the list of working instances from Redis and returns a random one from the list and adds that instance as a new entry in Redis to remove from subsequent requests for that service. For example: A user navigates to `/nitter` and is redirected to `nitter.net`. The next user to request `/nitter` will be guaranteed to not be directed to `nitter.net`, and will instead be redirected to a separate (random) working instance. That instance will now take the place of `nitter.net` as the "reserved" instance, and `nitter.net` will be returned to the list of available Nitter instances. This "reserving" of previously chosen instances is performed in an attempt to ensure better distribution of traffic to available instances for each service. Farside also has built-in IP ratelimiting for all requests, enforcing only one request per second per IP. ## Regarding Cloudflare Instances for each supported service that are deployed behind Cloudflare are not included when using [farside.link](https://farside.link). If you would like to also access instances that use Cloudflare (in addition to instances that do not), you can either use [cf.farside.link](https://cf.farside.link) instead, or deploy your own instance of Farside and set `FARSIDE_SERVICES_JSON=services-full.json` when running. If you do decide to use [cf.farside.link](https://cf.farside.link) or use the full instance list provided by `services-full.json`, please be aware that Cloudflare takes steps to block site visitors using Tor (and some VPNs), and that their mission to centralize the entire web behind their service ultimately goes against what Farside is trying to solve. Use at your own discretion. ## Development - Install [redis](https://redis.io) - Install [elixir](https://elixir-lang.org/install.html) - (on Debian systems) Install [erlang-dev](https://https://packages.debian.org/sid/erlang-dev) - Start redis: `redis-server` - Install dependencies: `mix deps.get` - Initialize redis contents: `mix run -e Farside.Instances.sync` - Run Farside: `mix run --no-halt` - Uses localhost:4001 ### Environment Variables
Name Purpose
FARSIDE_TEST If enabled, bypasses the instance availability check and adds all instances to the pool.
FARSIDE_PORT The port to run Farside on (default: `4001`)
FARSIDE_REDIS_PORT The Redis server port to use (default: `6379`, same as the default for Redis)
FARSIDE_SERVICES_JSON The "services" JSON file to use for selecting instances (default: `services.json`)