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https://github.com/benbusby/farside

A smart redirecting gateway for various frontend services
https://github.com/benbusby/farside

elixir privacy redirect

Last synced: 9 days ago
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A smart redirecting gateway for various frontend services

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README 

        


Farside










[![Latest Release](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/benbusby/farside?label=Release)](https://github.com/benbusby/farside/releases)

[![MIT License](https://img.shields.io/github/license/benbusby/earthbound-themes.svg)](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

[![Elixir CI](https://github.com/benbusby/privacy-revolver/actions/workflows/elixir.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/benbusby/privacy-revolver/actions/workflows/elixir.yml)



  

    SourceHut

    GitHub

  






Contents

1. [About](#about)

2. [Demo](#demo)

3. [How It Works](#how-it-works)

4. [Cloudflare](#regarding-cloudflare)

5. [Development](#development)

    1. [Compiling](#compiling)

    1. [Environment Variables](#environment-variables)



## About



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.



Farside also integrates smoothly with basic redirector extensions in most

browsers. For a simple example setup,

[refer to the wiki](https://github.com/benbusby/farside/wiki/Browser-Extension).



## 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

    

    

        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

- `/: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 the db and returns a random one from the list

and adds that instance as a new entry in the db 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 [elixir](https://elixir-lang.org/install.html)

- (on Debian systems) Install [erlang-dev](https://packages.debian.org/sid/erlang-dev)



To run Farside without compiling, you can perform the following steps:



- Install dependencies: `mix deps.get`

- Initialize db contents: `FARSIDE_CRON=0 mix run -e Farside.Instances.sync`

- Run Farside: `mix run --no-halt`

  - Uses localhost:4001



### Compiling



You can create a standalone Farside app using the steps below. In the example, the

Farside executable is copied to `/usr/local/bin`, but can be moved to any preferred

destination. Note that the executable still depends on the C runtime of the machine

it is built on, so if you want a more portable binary, you should build Farside on a

system with older library versions.



```

MIX_ENV=cli && mix deps.get && mix release

cp _build/cli/rel/bakeware/farside /usr/local/bin

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/farside

farside

```



### 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_DATA_DIR

        The path to the directory to use for storing instance data (default: `/tmp`)

    

    

        FARSIDE_SERVICES_JSON

        The JSON file to use for selecting instances (default: `services.json`)

    

    

        FARSIDE_CRON

        Set to 0 to deactivate the scheduled instance availability check (default on).