16
votes
Decluttering X and Bsky feeds
One thing that drivers me crazy is how cluttered my social feeds are these days due to all the photos and videos and link previews. It just takes up so much screen space these days.
Is there anyway to turn the photos/videos/previews into normal links like old school twitter? Maybe a chrome extension?
I don't have anything to recommend, but Bluesky has an open API so it seems like it should be possible to build an alternate client. It might be a fun project for someone?
Maybe so, and great reminder on the API - totally forgot. I know the guys over at Tapbots are working on a bsky app (Phoenix). Their mastadon app can do this, so I would assume their bsky app will do the same. Should come out sometime this year.
I've basically avoided twitter and it's spawn like the plague because the information density is terrible. Just a ton of wasted space on "aesthetics" that make it take longer to get the info you want, if not outright ads and other bullshit.
With that said, you might want to look into RSS feeds and the like. I don't have any from twitter (not sure if you can anymore? I recall them breaking that on purpose) and dunno if it works for bsky, but if it does it can make things MUCH more information dense and gives you a lot more control over your media feeds.
RSS feed option has been removed. There are a few 3rd parties that can do it, but very clunky.
And, just to note, I had once used X Search for info, but you're right about the Info Density. However, I do follow a handful of accounts that have thus far been very reliable on info. Plus, there are a few accounts that I really enjoy that are not on BSKY.
The ads are getting silly at this point, 110% agree on that.
I am fairly confident it is technically possible to make such an extension or do it as user script. I have made numerous scripts and extensions over the years to make websites more to my liking. If someone already did so I don't know, I don't use either platform.
As a bit of devils advocate, are you still on X because you are getting any value out of it or out of habit/inertia?
Good call on the script, I am sure Claude can figure something out. Will look into that next chance I can.
I mentioned it in another comment, I am very specific on who I follow there. People I know, accounts I enjoy, or sources I trust. I do not like the "for you" page at all and the search/trending I rarely check.
I mean, it might also be worth it to see if someone did the work already.
I poked around, and there are a few extensions or scripts, but X has changed their backend a few times and it's very unpolished looking. Will keep poking around.
On mobile, QuaX is still an actively supported viewer for X.
https://github.com/Teskann/QuaX
Not sure if there's anything comparable for Bluesky.
Thank you! Checking it out now!
This is a problem I have too. Often I'll see a Blue Sky post that is a screenshot of X where someone posted a screenshot of Substack where someone was talking about a screenshot from Truth Social. I mean come on? At what point in the social media turducken can we stop. I really wish there was a way to turn off ANY images that had text in them.
This would be slick, Image to Text conversions.
Extension wise most of what I can find on bluesky is removing reposts and a few things like that. Also moderation lists that mute/hide pics without alt-text. Nothing that explicitly hides images or link previews. I'm wondering if there's just a straight browser that offers a text only or image blocking option.
Also apparently this is the preference some people have for Threads but I haven't used it to compare.