Nitter lives to proxy another day after taking legal advice

PERSONAL TECh

Public instance XCancel uncancelled after X Corp’s cease-and-desist campaign, with others promised shortly

The Nitter project will continue following legal counsel, confirming that XCancel—a public instance built from its open‑source code—will be back online.

As of September 7, nitter.net posted an announcement: “Following legal advice, the Nitter project will continue. This instance and others will be back up and running shortly.” XCancel, which mirrors the service, was operational again.

Nitter provides a free, open‑source front end for reading posts on X (formerly Twitter) without requiring an account or JavaScript. The project promises zero ads and no tracking.

Running Nitter can be a game of cat‑and‑mouse: X frequently changes its API, forcing instance operators to adapt. In January 2024 the maintainer, zedeus, declared the project dead after X disabled guest access. Nitter returned at the start of 2025 by using account sessions, though the maintainer warned that “hosting an instance is nowhere near as easy as it used to be.”

On 24 August, X deployed its legal team and sent cease‑and‑desist letters demanding the permanent removal of Nitter instances and its repository. The repository was archived, and most instances went offline for several weeks.

Now the project says it will press on. The main nitter.net instance has not yet resumed normal service, but zedeus indicated that “an announcement will be made within a week, once we’re able to reveal more information.”

The Register asked X for comment but had not received a response at the time of writing.

Nitter and similar front ends let users read X’s public posts without an account or the platform’s tracking mechanisms. They do not support publishing; only reading.

The specific legal advice that prompted the continuation, and whether X will pursue further action against the project, are expected to become clearer once zedeus issues the forthcoming announcement.

Source link