In the same vein as adblocking, the fundamental question here is, does a service have the right to control how you DON'T use their service? Are you legally obligated to be mentally influenced by adverts and cannot close your eyes or look away?

I'd love to see the EFF or similar take on Big (Ad)tech and settle this in court.

They've gone after youtube-dl and lost, Invidious is still there, etc.

A somewhat related legal case from long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hush-A-Phone_v._United_States

Why does it have to work long term? Claude Code probably built it in 2 hours. Sell it for as long as it works. If it provides some value to some people during that time, good for them.

Selling it is one thing. Making it a subscription is just crazy to me.

Fair question. The honest answer is I don't know if Instagram or YouTube will try to shut this down. They haven't so far, but that doesn't mean they won't. They can try to come after me:) But seems like they are the ones losing in court currently for making their own apps so addicting. Wouldn't be a good look to come after such apps.

The subscription model exists partly because of this — if it stops working, you stop paying. The lifetime option is a bet on my part that I can keep maintaining it. If I can't, that's on me. But since this is an app I use daily myself I am extremely motivated to fix every bug and keep the app excellent and all filters working.

> What's your basis for thinking this will work long term?

Even if this approach doesn't work long term, the important thing is to establish product-market fit, and to get enough people committed to the idea that your product is their gateway out of the closed platforms.

I can think of at least three different ways to set up a system that can go around the API restrictions and re-serve the data to a different client that the user can control. But if I go and implement any of those, someone will try it and give up on my product until that approach gets shut down.

By selling lifetime subscriptions, the users get invested in the success of the product as well and they will be more willing to fight the restrictions that the companies impose with you.

You can't have extensions in mobile browsers, right? While this seems like it targets mobile users.

If anyone pays for this they deserve to be scammed.

Why wouldn’t making a paid web browser be legal?

Beeper is a good solution. To bad I still have Instagram next to it and prefer it because my friends send me reels anyway

This seems like a really cool solution! Does it adhere to TOS of the services?

how does beeper handles things like discord threads/channels etc? and rich previews of stuff like links, embeds, and whatnot? I'm curious about it!

The app works great, but my god the dark patterns are wildly aggressive. I was very close to uninstalling when setting up YouTube because a pricing page pops up that gives no free option, but if you click the hidden x on the top left you can continue as a free user. I like the functionality (finally restricted my YouTube to subscriptions only), but the app feels super scummy. I’d be more inclined to pay $2/mo if it didn’t seem sketchy.

Well, you don't even have to fight these patterns or these apps

Just stop using these stupid apps overall. 95% of the content you find on them is useless. And today, a staggering amount of content is also fake AI crap. Save your sanity and time and remove these apps.

I uninstalled the app and use a bookmark to https://www.instagram.com/?variant=following

It’s an ad-free chronological feed of posts only from accounts I follow.

Android has good patches for everything except X thanks to Elon's meddling. There's a cumbersome workaround but I'm just choosing to use it within brave, or other PWAs offerings.

Untrap is solid. For Firefox I use Unhook

Thanks! If one can't completely quit cigarettes, I'd prefer they smoke on a healthier one.

I don't make the choice of how individuals in my social circle uses to communicate. Giving up being in contact with some of my friends/acquaintances is too bad a trade-off.

Unfortunately not really an option in a lot of business. There's a ton of services where Instagram is both your portfolio and an important first point of contact.

I made a similar app, it’s called “Only DMs” free on the app store :)

Thank you! I am shipping the YouTube redirect issue in the next update. Currently you can circumvent it by going back to dull and trying again after being redirected, but it's super annoying and I will fix!

I hate how we have bundled useful things alongside addiction building media. It’s like if supermarkets had drugs next to the vegetables.

You can’t just leave your phone at home because you need it to 2FA at work or maps. But then you end up scrolling shorts and other junk.

I think it lasts for about a month.

I haven't even seen this option? Where is it

Instagram and Facebook support for once

On firefox i use unhook for youtube. solves the shorts issue but im sure a lot of people would be less okay with what i prefer youtube to be, a search bar with nothing else.

My biggest wish was that you could disable reels/shorts, etc on the native apps. But unless there is some regulation, it won't happen. I actually made a citizen's suggestion to EU some time ago, but that did not pan out.

A Safari extension could handle some of it, but Dull also does usage tracking, time limits, quiet hours, and grayscale mode which all need to live at the app level. The filtering itself could be an extension, but the broader goal is reducing how much time you spend there, not just hiding elements. For example we added a feature in today's update that let's you choose what is the intention of opening app. Like if intention is to open DMs then you open just to DMs. Another way of reducing distractions.

Instagram is not predominantly used on Safari, so Safari doesn't sound like the best place to implement something like this.

There's also time limits, challenges before opening apps to create fiction, quiet hours so u don't scroll at night, usage tracking, opening with intention so it asks what u wanna do in the app, and then let's u for example only stay in DM's tab.

Interesting request. I haven't looked into WeChat's web version but I'll check if the short video content is filterable. No promises but noted. We've also gotten requests for Snapchat and TikTok.

Thank you so much!

Yeah, Facebook through Dull gives you marketplace and groups without the news feed and suggested content. It's probably the cleanest version of Facebook I've used in years.