How to bypass Twitter's login prompt and access content without account
Added information, including a statement from Elon Musk about the situation.
Internet users who want to access content on Twitter without account may have noticed that Twitter is now redirecting some attempts to do so to its login page.
Twitter content is often linked in other publications. Users who follow these links may notice that they can't read the content anymore without a Twitter account.
It is unclear if Twitter is limiting access regionally or rolling out the change currently to all anonymous users. The access issue seems to affect topics and not individual threads at the time, at least on our test systems and confirmed by our colleagues over at Deskmodder.
Twitter redirects users to https://twitter.com/i/flow/login and displays the login overlay on the screen. Users may sign-in to Twitter or sign-up for an account using it.
Twitter is not the only online service that is preventing access to anonymous users. Notable other services include Pinterest, Reddit or Quora.
Update: it appears that changes that Twitter has made on July 1, 2023 are blocking Nitter access to the service. It is unclear at this point if there is a workaround. We will update the guide once new information comes to light.
Update 2: Elon Musk states that this is a "temporary emergency measure" to block data pillaging. He wrote: "Temporary emergency measure. We were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!"
How to read Twitter tweets and topics without account
Accessing Twitter directly without account results in a fairly limited experience. Some users may help themselves by creating an account using a throwaway email address or email alias, but there is a better way for quick access to Twitter content: using Nitter.
Nitter is a free and open source frontend for Twitter that returns Twitter content without advertisement or tracking. Best of all, all it takes is to replace the twitter domain name in the address with a working Nitter address.
Take this tweet from Ghacks's official Twitter page as an example: https://twitter.com/ghacks/status/1674676447384838148
To display it using Nitter, simply replace twitter.com with nitter.it to get https://nitter.it/ghacks/status/1674676447384838148
The page opens and you can read the tweet just fine, all without account, ads or tracking. You can check the official list of Nitter instances here and select the instance that you want to use. Instances may go down at times, but there are plenty to choose from. Nitter works with individual tweets but also topics and searches.
The browser extension LibRedirect automates the process for Twitter and a number of other sites.
Closing Words
More and more Internet services are limiting anonymous access to their content; this serves a number of purposes, including improved user tracking and the ability to upsell services, such as Twitter Blue, to users. Twitter, Reddit and co may do whatever they please with their sites, but users may also react to these developments: from bowing down to the pressure and signing up for an account over finding ways to bypass the restrictions to ignoring the site from that moment on.
Now You: do you use Twitter without an account?
Why can’t people like you who write this webs**t just COME TO THE F**ING POINT. What is with all the F***ING waffle. You are not Ernest Hemingway.
Do you think a normal user like me and millions who are ignorant in technology will understand tjis formula you have to help your users why will be outside X why i do not understand
Could you write in a coherent way?
Nitter doesn’t work and there are apparently no other solutions to accessing content on X/Twitter without being logged in (as I write this: 07oct23).
I have an old login that I never used so I might give this a shot but honestly… I wish people would stop linking to sites with paywalls, sites that are locked w/ signing in. We empower these sites to continue to limit access, we are our own worst enemies.
Article URL : https://www.ghacks.net/2023/06/30/how-to-bypass-twitters-login-prompt-and-access-content-without-account/%5D
Article Title : “How to bypass Twitter’s login prompt and access content without accoun”
@James, most Niter instances indeed fail to work, or to work reliably, but not all. There is a workaround though with a sleek project called ‘Fairside” : “A redirecting service for FOSS alternative frontends” as mentioned on [https://github.com/benbusby/farside]. Practically speaking it holds an updated list of frontends that are active of course and which work correctly, available at [https://farside.link/] for lists to instances other than Cloudflare-based, and [https://cf.farside.link/] for lists including Cloudflare-based instances. These frontends’ lists include one dedicated to Nitter instances.
The nicest feature of Fairside it that you can call it to have it redirect you to a working instance.
For instance, [https://farside.link/nitter] will open a working instance of Nitter. reliable in my experience.
You may as well include search parameters, for instance, [https://farside.link/nitter/search?f=users&q=%s] for searching a user on Twitter/Nitter.
Does the job, not as easily as Nitter did before Twitter (X) policy changes, but it does it.
Works nicely. Give it a try!
How to bypass Twitter’s login prompt ?
Is there an other API to ckeck accounts of twitter ? Or it’s totally impossible ?
1 point by Traittor 2 days ago | prev | next [–]
I just made an updated tool that should work
Replace http://twitter.com by http://traittor.net
http://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675187969420828672
to
http://traittor.net/elonmusk/status/1675187969420828672
Is normally bypassing no registered account and limit by day.
Unfortunately it does not work with all the tweets and especially the recent ones
Have fun :)
Can you view the comments via this method?
What the hell does “data pillaging” even mean to this dunce?
@ Anonymous,
With regard to severe weather alerts you might try this site: https://www.meteoalarm.org/en/live/
Twitter is a horrible service, and Elon Musk is a horrible person desperately in need of counseling (but he’s such a mean-spirited and selfish narcissist, he’s unlikely to listen to a therapist).
I’ll never create a Twitter account, so if Nitter is gone, I’ll never see a tweet again, which is fine by me.
“There is nothing so permanent as a temporary emergency programme”
I thought Elon was doing a really good job of making twitter more accessible, ending the censorship regime which had sprung up under the previous management, and letting people with a wider variety of opinions have a chance to speak… Seems he has undone all of that now, why would someone want to speak freely when only the tiny number of people who can be dumb enough to set up an account and bothered enough to log in will ever see that free speech. I liked was Musk was up to, I don’t now.
A.I. progs etc scraping sites for data crunching is sus
Using another company’s front-end is not a solution. The dictator taketh, and the dictator taketh away again. This numbskull is just going to run Twitter further into the ground. To which I say:
HOORAY!
Sez the Chief Twit: “Temporary emergency measure. We were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!”
Remember when Twitter (and Nitter) basically Just Worked? That was *before* E-lon bought Twitter and proceeded to wreck it.
If Musky want to learn what’s really “degrading service for normal users” he should try self-knowledge.
Do you think Musk is taking direction from Western governments to limit social media? Awfully coincidental that riots have been ongoing in France. One wonders like the Truckers from Canada the lengths governments will go to control the narrative.
Nitter online status list: https://xnaas.github.io/nitter-instances/
TelV:
Yeah, except that whether an instance is up or not is now entirely moot, since Elon effectively broke the API Nitter uses/used.
One option is to create a throwaway email account on email.com (not gmail!) or proton.me/mail.
For extra privacy and ad-blocking, I use the following Chrome extensions with great success.
Canvas Blocker – Fingerprint Protect
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/canvas-blocker-fingerprin/nomnklagbgmgghhjidfhnoelnjfndfpd
Privacy Badger
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp
uBlockOrigin
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm
*Correction: Meant mail.com (not email.com!)
I’ve been using Twitter less and less already, haven’t logged in in months. Still, a lot of people use the website to update their customers, partners, fans, constituents, I would still occasionally take quick peeks for these updates.
And that’s really the point of twitter, quick peeks. it’s got a 140 character limit for a reason. Face book/instagram did something like this before, it was annoying then too, but Meta at least let users look at the most recent activity, before making one sign in, if one, you know, cared about keeping up to that extent. Well, I wasted enough time finding up why twitter wasn’t working. I’ll be using twitter even less now.
Welcome to the new weird Twitter unexpected complete fiasco!
No longer Nitter works no longer can access Twitter itself! LOL
Anyway it doesn’t care anymore, Twitter is a dump!
IRC becomes more and more attractive again .. good old times. screw all that embeds
Glad I don’t use Twitter for anything anymore.
Twitter is a Socially Transmitted Disease, like all social media.
Nitter is not working right now. Check the links provided in the article.
According to the nitter github, all unautenticated access as been suspended.
Most instances no longer work, and the rest will probably stop working soon.
Musk tweeted that this is a “temporary emergency measure”. But we know what “temporary” means to him.
Doesn’t work
Nitter no longer works. Ist July 2023.
I really like this new feature of twitter. It saves me time.
LOL that was great humor. :D
So our county sheriff office uses twitter to make rapidly changing emergency information publicly available. You know stuff like shootings, fires, flooding, multivehicle accidents etc..
Good job making this not available.
Good point. Besides privacy unconscious users, many elderly users can barely use the internet let alone subscribe to twitter with all the security check hoops, it’s really sad. :(
As of 6pm cst no success with any of the “up” nitter instances I tried.
Looks like time for a burner email account. If we want the content, we’ll have to goose the metrics for the sociopath.
Any other ideas?
or don’t
twitter has devolved into a cesspool of hate speech and bot/troll accounts over the last year
if fewer people use twitter, content creators and *advertisers* will devote less of the their time and effort to twitter if they don’t leave it altogether
don’t reward horrible behavior from this self-aggrandizing tech bro
reclaim your time and leave him holding the bag for his middle eastern autocratic financiers
Leave it to Musk
Rat bastard
As it happens, today.
https://mashable.com/article/twitter-force-visitors-login-view-tweets-profiles
I avoid “social media”, doubly so for any that try make me sign in, but have been using Nitter (via the Privacy Redirect add-on) when I need to descend into Musk’s cesspit.
Some accounts I tried to access on nitter don’t seem to exist, and have gotten rate limited error.
Testing out a different workaround for now
Seems they have blocked Nitter API access now too…
Twitter: 💩
Two things:
Nitter’s github page shows that it’s not working for anyone anymore. There’s even a “R.I.P. Nitter” thread in its issues section.
Secondly, about this: “Twitter is not the only online service that is preventing access to anonymous users. Notable other services include… Reddit…”
Anons can access reddit just as it’s always been. Obviously, you can’t create comments and such, but you can still read posts & comments.
Twitter changed their API, therefore Nitter got nixed.
Thank you, I’m aware. :) I wrote that before ghacks updated the article.
Too late Nitter lost access too :(
nitter.it worked earlier today and no longer works.
Did Twitter somehow stop the redirect with Nitter?
Don’t create an account, it only rewards this bad behavior.
Reclaim your time, don’t waste it on twitter.
Could not agree more.
nitter worked this a.m. for me and no longer does.
Nitter isn’t working as of a few minutes ago, leaving Twitter utterly useless for real people. End of an era.
I think Elon Musk is blocking Nitter now.
Seems they also broke nitter with new API change
Gonna have to update this article. Looks like Nitter just got nuked.
Every social network is garbage! All of them, no exception!
Unfortunately, millions of idiots can’t seem to live w/o their daily dose of BS entertainment fix, and thus supporting them scumbag companies.
As long as there are sheep, there will be shepards.
Nitter just seems to have stopped working for me…
Very nice article! :]
Thank you for this walk through as I only access Twitter for a local weather page. I refuse to sign up for Twitter (that ship sailed a VERY long time ago), but I still need severe local weather coverage.
Fantastico – just what’s needed. Millions of copies of this page need to printed out and fly-posted in every metropolis on the planet. ..How long before Space Karen nukes Nitter though?
I think that might have just happened. Nitter is not working for me at all.
More companies trying to track. Annoying. Decentralised internet will make a comeback. Screw censorship and these media companies.
F*ck Twitter.
Using a Nitter instance is fine, however they can sometimes be unreliable (I.E. instances regularly go down, meaning you need to find another one until it comes back up).
Isn’t is time Ghacks opened a Mastodon account already? Ars Technica and Bleeping Computer have already been on there for a while now for example:
https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica
https://infosec.exchange/@BleepingComputer
> Isn’t is time Ghacks opened a Mastodon account already?
I also share!
I’ve stayed away from social media, so I honestly don’t care about this topic.
That said, Considering the standing position of “Ghacks” that it would be appropriate to move away from “Twitter”, which has been privatized by Elon Musk, to the distributed management type “Mastodon”.
Facebook and Twitter may be attractive in terms of their ability to spread publicity,
https://www.facebook.com/therealmartinbrinkmann
https://twitter.com/ghacks?lang=en
But the platforms need to be healthy (correcting their monopoly), and Ghacks should show pride in taking the initiative.
I access Twitter content only via Nitter.
To complete the article with a few Nitter wikis :
Public Instances : [https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances]
Extensions : [https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Extensions]
Rules for the Redirector extension : [https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Extensions#redirector]
Nitter for Twiiter, Rimgo foe Imgur, Teddit for Reddit, Invidious and Piped for YouTube … all these alternatives, though read-only, are most helpful and most welcomed.
R.I.P. Nitter? [https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/919]
I re-titled the page with a question mark because it seems there is no evidence that a temporary measure (on Twitter’s side) will last or not.
For the time being, in my experience, it appears that some Nitter instances fail to open, others open their home-page but fail to open a twitter page and/or fail to deliver search results.
At this time it all comes to, in my experience, NITTER ; NON FUNCTIONAL.
Wait and see. Personally I’ll never open a twitter account for the sake of reading a few tweets, the very few I follow when they concern major sites communicating via this channel information unavailable on their own pages and in particular information regarding a site’s very issues.
What seems obvious is that Twitter is becoming a chaotic place.
I forgot to mention the work-around I’ve set for accessing Quora content and bypass the Login page.
Quora EN : [https://www.quora.com/find/]
Quora FR : [https://fr.quora.com/find/]
That opens an error page, disgraceful. I use then a userContent.css to deliver a nice clean page and a script (document.title) to re title the pages, which leads to two nice clean interfaces :
Quora EN : [https://img.justpaste.me/i/20230630/qFG3P/Quora-en.png]
Quora FR : [https://img.justpaste.me/i/20230630/qFG45/Quora-fr.png
A few lines of code, two htmls, two background images et voila.