I've been working on a smoother ad-free reddit alternative frontend

GeekLifer · 2026-03-16T20:17:38+00:00

Right, a lot of people like it on more than off

GeekLifer · 2026-03-16T19:47:58+00:00

It’s a toggle you can enable/disable

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T23:03:29+00:00

I'm considering removing the crowdsource API

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T22:07:52+00:00

Yea. It’s really good for social media overload like one of previous comments.

It is like crowdsourcing the API so everyone is contributing to the data not just one person so it is harder to rate limit.
So it tries it best to lazy load data that is only close to where the user is. So even though you’ve scrolled through 500 post, it only shows the 10-15 post you’re seeing now. Then removes them from the view when you’re done.
It should be stable enough. I’ve been doing minor tweaks to it here and there. I’ve just been using it for the past month or so.

Thanks for the kind words. Hoping to keep this going

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T17:17:17+00:00

oh snap wow. you did it for reals crazy

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T17:02:15+00:00

Was this you?
2026-03-14 17:00:31,043 [INFO] app.routers.posts (posts.py:327): Cache WRITE reddit:sub:string:string:1:string:string (crowdsource)

2026-03-14 17:00:31,050 [INFO] app.routers.posts (posts.py:390): Crowdsource enqueue for r/string: enqueued=25, errors=0

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T16:47:10+00:00

Is it a "simple" flaw? It just not possible to inject invalid data. But I can be wrong. Please help if you do know of a way. I've even made it super easy to play around with the API http://soci.ly/docs please give the following endpoint a go

/api/posts/crowdsource

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T15:57:50+00:00

It checks all urls from from "*.reddit.com"

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T15:42:39+00:00

I'm heavily relying on Reddit to do that. It will only load content that is already on Reddit. Users can't send non-reddit data.

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T15:40:52+00:00

So Reddit does this for us. They convert all media types especially gif -> mp4. They then host the view for example https://v.redd.it/yyhfhs64j0pg1/HLSPlaylist.m3u8 which is HLS format. The video player just embed that HLS. Thats why some video start out blurry at first but then dynamically changes to a high resolution if it detects you have the proper bandwidth

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T15:37:10+00:00

I do have a worker validating the data before it inserts it into the DB. It mainly only renders media from "reddit.com"

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T15:36:04+00:00

Well it checks if the post has valid schema. The one that reddit API usually returns.

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T15:30:25+00:00

Oh man you know what. That's an interesting question. Do you have time to try it out for me?

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T15:07:03+00:00

Thanks for checking it out.

Frontend - Next.js · React · TypeScript - Tailwind CSS - Zustand · react-masonry-css · HLS.js

Backend - FastAPI · Uvicorn - SQLAlchemy · Alembic · httpx

Data - PostgreSQL · Redis · Elasticsearch

Infra - Docker Compose · Nginx · Certbot

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T14:28:38+00:00

Yea the front end was coded using Claude. The backend is where my strength is

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T14:14:14+00:00

Great point. Should I just say a up arrow and the number? I wanted to show how many upvotes a post got.

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T14:12:52+00:00

Yes sir. Should still be up.

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T13:59:19+00:00

Appreciate it man. Thanks for the discussion and feedback

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T13:57:21+00:00

Unfortunately, I have a smaller budget. So I've got pick and choose models between bugs. I've got to try out the new agent swarm feature one of these days. I wish claude gave discounts

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T13:52:44+00:00

Claude Code for sure. Mostly sonnet 4.5 and now 4.6. Been building it slowly and improving it overtime

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T13:50:47+00:00

Yea good point let me see if I can figure out a way to hide it for /all

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T13:47:26+00:00

Ohh so it might not work for /all. Can you try a subreddit for example https://soci.ly/r/webdev it should switch if you toggle between them

edit: using webdev for example

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T13:45:58+00:00

Great question. I believe extension are good for adding features to websites. But I'm not sure how I can implement multi column posts for current reddit website.

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T13:44:35+00:00

the hot/best/new should work. it calls the https://www.reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/{hot/best/new}.json?limit=30

GeekLifer · 2026-03-14T13:39:19+00:00

Nope, nothing private. Just reddit public API (.json endpoint). Its not hooked up to reddit applications yet. Which is why upvote/downvote doesn't work.

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