The developer wrote a good post on Reddit, which I will mainly quote here:
10 second pitch: Libreddit is a portmanteau of “libre” (meaning freedom) and “Reddit”. It is a private front-end like Invidious but for Reddit. Browse the coldest takes of r/unpopularopinion without being tracked.
🚀 Fast: written in Rust for blazing fast speeds and memory safety
☁️ Light: no JavaScript, no ads, no tracking, no bloat
🕵 Private: all requests are proxied through the server, including media
🔒 Secure: strong Content Security Policy prevents browser requests to Reddit
How does Libreddit enhance my privacy?
Reddit tracks a lot of data but Libreddit logs nothing and uses no JavaScript by default so client-side monitoring isn’t possible. There are 35 community-hosted instances that can be used to access Libreddit; one can spread their traffic across multiple for even more privacy. 7 of our instances are .onion hidden services so you can browse Libreddit using Tor.
Can I use it to login to Reddit?
Libreddit doesn’t currently support logins but using cookies, users can subscribe to subreddits, follow users, and import their subscriptions from Reddit.
Does Libreddit have any features not offered by Reddit?
On top of the minimalist design, Libreddit is very customizable with:
- 10 themes to choose from
- A toggle to enable Wide UI (for those of you who like to maximize your screen space)
- Filters so you can hide certain subreddits or users from your feeds
Instances: up-to-date table of instances -> https://github.com/libreddit/libreddit-instances/blob/master/instances.md
Not every instance is equally fast for you, similar to Lemmy. Try out a few.
GitHub: https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit
For PC, I recommend the add-on LibRedirect, which automatically converts a Reddit link to a Libreddit link. This way, Reddit doesn’t get any traffic from you, even if you want to access the page via a Google search.
I appreciate the concept, but I don’t even want to give Reddit page views anymore.
I’ve moved on from various platforms before, but I’ve never done so feeling so thoroughly pissed off at the platform itself. (I never had a Twitter account, or that would likely be neighbors with Reddit in this category)
Fair enough. With libreddit, you don’t give Reddit any traffic or views, because the libreddit instance already scraped all information.
So that means it’s good to follow my niche topics that didn’t make it to Lemmy and likely won’t anytime soon, but it comes with the price with not being able to contribute?
Maybe that’s a thing I can get behind.