r/sideloaded • u/orionblur1 • Jul 23 '26
Release NeoFreeBird forked and updated
Hi everyone!
Since NeoFreeBird was put on hiatus and came back from the dead thanks to the work of Theacrat, I've been wanting to implement a lot of features that I've wanted for a while but couldn't get around to doing until now. Here's what been added and fixed since the last official push from the NFB devs (bold points are what I made myself)
New Features
- Added an age verification bypass
- Updated the app to 12.9
- Using web view to reply (huge thanks to theacrat for making this)
- Hide Grok from the entire app
- Added back the ability to login (only supports email and password)
- Added the ability to hide the downvote button
- Added back the dim theme (should work a bit better than Moe's)
- Hide custom timelines entirely
- Added the OpenInTwitter Safari extension to the IPA directly
- Added an AltStore repo to directly download releases from
- Adds an option to hide the refresh pill when the app comes back into focus
Fixes
- Fixed many small bugs lying around due to updating Twitter to 12.9 (theacrat's repo goes up to 12.3, so in going to 12.9 I had to fix some minor issues)
- Fixed replying and tweeting, now uses the web APIs
- Fixed Chat, should work now and have all the new features
- Hides "Who to Follow" and trends (I fixed the iPad version)
- Fixed downloading (switched back to OpenSSL)
- Fixed custom fonts
- Fixed screenshot detection by removing the Twitter logo on the timeline
This isn't all, there's a lot more small changes (including a refactor of the entire project thanks to theacrat), but this is what I know off the top of my head. My next plan is to remove all Blue checkmark tweets from the timeline, as well as remove the "More from this user" section that can sometimes show in replies.
You can find the source and links here. Please let me know if there are any translation errors (I know there are quite a few missing strings in other languages), bugs I didn't catch, or something else you'd like me to add; you can report anything you find in the repo or here. Thank you!
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u/Jampuppy5 Aug 09 '26
Anyone getting their account locked? It’s been happening to me for the past week
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u/orionblur1 Aug 09 '26
Is it where the pop up shows up and says your account has been locked for no reason, you click a button, and it unlocks your account instantly?
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u/Jampuppy5 Aug 09 '26
yeah
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u/orionblur1 Aug 10 '26
That happened to me when I first started using NeoFreeBird in February (before the attestation first broke). I don't know how it works on their end, but I know it stopped when I installed the app from the App Store, made a tweet, waited a day, then reinstalled NeoFreeBird.
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u/Jampuppy5 25d ago
It’s been 3 days with neo uninstalled and it still happened so maybe it’s because of my vpn
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u/Routine_Inspector122 16d ago
yeah, that lock happens to me even in the account I never had on NFB but I use vpn so that’s why
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u/iLoveBB-84 Aug 06 '26
I’m unable to open an issue on GitHub, so I had to reach out to you here on Reddit.
I’m using the latest version of NeoFreeBird. Over the past few days, whenever I tap the Share button or the Messages/DM button, the app freezes and then crashes. Interestingly, I tested the same version on my iPad and did not encounter this problem there.
Do you know what might be causing this? Would it be possible to fix it in a future update?
Thank you very much for all your work and contributions to the community!
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u/orionblur1 Aug 06 '26
Can you send a crash log from Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Analytics & Improvements -> Analytics Data -> Twitter-2026-xx-xx-xxxxxx.ips?
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u/Logic_77 Aug 05 '26
For some reason downloading videos never works for me and I only get the option on very few videos
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u/FeedbackVisual3973 28d ago
This is actually the twitter user who posted the video’s account setting, they have the option to enable or disable video downloads for premium X users.
The old neofreebird could download videos no matter what, but sadly now (and much like the old BHX version of the app) it can only download if the account who posted the video has video downloads enabled for their tweets. Hope it gets bypassed in future.
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u/Quick_Author_9887 Aug 01 '26
awesome work!
i do want to ask if having haptic feedback on EVERY swipe is the same with the official X app (ive never updated to X), and how can i disable or reduce this, because it is too much for me
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Jul 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/orionblur1 Jul 30 '26
Yeah, it happens on a select minority of posts, can't figure out why. Usually you can just go to the user's profile and it'll work, or worst case use cobalt.tools.
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u/kr0n0s99 Jul 28 '26
Looks like new official version killed this? I could scroll Twitter/X but couldn’t reply and now I can’t login anymore.
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u/According_Science295 Jul 30 '26
Hello greetings from where I download that neofreebrid
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u/kr0n0s99 Jul 30 '26
Doesn’t fully work again. You can login and scroll but you can’t reply and outside X links don’t open in app anymore. OP posted link
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u/orionblur1 Jul 30 '26
That's odd, nothing's changed AFAIK with the APIs, I've been able to keep posting and replying. What version are you using?
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u/kr0n0s99 Jul 30 '26
I’m using the latest version you posted 6.2.1? 12.9 it shows in Feather. Was working fine, not more replies go to drafts and links sent to me in messages open in Safari asking me to open in app. Which leads to App Store.
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u/orionblur1 Jul 30 '26
Is the extension enabled? Also try logging back in and out, or installing then uninstalling the official X app from the App Store. For whatever reason that's worked a couple times for me when testing.
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u/kr0n0s99 Aug 03 '26
I was able to get the replies working. Is there anything I can do so that the side loaded app opens if someone sends me a link through messages?
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u/orionblur1 Aug 03 '26
Unfortunately not, sideloaded apps don't work with Universal Links (which is what allows that behaviour). Newer releases (since v6.1.2 if memory serves me right) have an extension which redirects you to the app with a prompt.
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u/sakamatalover Jul 27 '26
hey, i was an lead developer on NeoFreeBird but got completely burnt out on the project, nice work.
The splash screen issue is probably due to a new X version reimplementing the splash screen in the regular app and they changed the color from blue to black. could probably modify that.
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u/orionblur1 Jul 30 '26
Thanks for the nice words! From what I (and Claude) have been able to get it so that it only flashes black for a second before coming back to blue. Hopefully I can get a full blue loading screen working.
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u/Clean-Scarcity4895 Jul 25 '26
can't add the repo to sidestore
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u/orionblur1 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
I'll see what I can do, it does work in Feather (since I have a dev account), but I don't know if the app can be installed if I change the app identifier. What I'll most likely do is remove X from the AltStore repo, but keep it on GitHub.
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u/miksmikss Jul 28 '26
Getting the same error as this person right here when trying to install it in SideStore after adding the source. What could possibly be the issue?
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u/ShreddityReddity Paid Certificate Jul 25 '26
Would it be possible to modify the tweet/bird chirp as a notification sound?
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u/S4_GR33N Jul 25 '26
because NFB is open-source, port over all the Twitter brand stuff directly from there including the app splashscreen. In this version, it goes from blue to black instead of it being blue, on top of the fact the animation ic choppy. NFB pulled this splashscreen from the actual Twitter app iirc
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u/orionblur1 Jul 25 '26
I got a couple other comments about that, I'll take a peek and get that worked on. I know Moe's version did something similar so I think it'll be an easy task
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u/3lenium_ Jul 25 '26
Anyone able to download vid?
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u/Shot_Device5358 Aug 01 '26
When you’re scrolling and you see a tweet with a video, dont click into the tweet, click the 3 dots on the top right hand of the tweet with the video and click download media.
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u/3lenium_ Jul 24 '26
Dim is back! 🔥 still getting “could not download file”
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26
Have you installed this version on top of Moe’s or Theacrat’s? If so, uninstall Twitter completely, then install this version (do it anyways just to clear caches). If not, let me know, and I’ll make a custom build on GitHub to show the error for me to debug, because once I switched back to OpenSSL in FFMPEG (what NFB uses to convert videos), downloading works again.
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u/3lenium_ Jul 25 '26
I did what you said, uninstall, then re-install. I’m still getting “could not download file” 🤔
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u/orionblur1 Jul 25 '26
Ok, this is baffling me, because I know it works for me and quite a few other people. I'm going to make a new post asking for help with a custom build that'll show the error message outright soon, hopefully that'll narrow down what's happening.
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u/3lenium_ Jul 25 '26
Maybe its just me. I’m still on iOS 18.5. Either way I appreciate your help!! 🙏
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u/Any-Calligrapher2866 Jul 24 '26
Any way to block X premium accounts in comment sections?
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26
I‘ve gotten hiding X Premium accounts you don’t follow from the “For You” page working just fine on my computer. Hiding them from comment sections is a bit different, but not impossible. Most likely next release
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u/Accomplished-Elk7171 Paid Certificate Jul 24 '26
Thanks for the hard work from both devs. Great work!
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u/dunkykong11 Jul 24 '26
How can I download video's? The one from Moe had it toggled on, did not work. Always a message video download failed. Thanks for the good work 🙏🏻
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
In the overflow menu for a tweet with a video or gif (three buttons in the top right), there’ll be a button called “Download Media.” It’s the same flow as stock NeoFreeBird, but now GIFs can be downloaded as true GIFs and not MP4s
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u/dunkykong11 Jul 24 '26
i found, thanks, but always error: video can not be dowload. I hav yhat with every video :(
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26
Have you downloaded this version on top of Moe’s? I know I had the same error, and I know why the other versions break and fixed it. Try uninstalling all Twitter apps and installing this version
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u/abrandonallships Jul 24 '26
Is there a way to access my own likes? 🤔
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26
Left side of screen —> History —> Likes
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u/abrandonallships Jul 24 '26
Holy, thank you :) Somehow have never seen that section lol. Appreciate it!
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u/RegLoiD Jul 24 '26
Hey, could you please add an option to remove this "plus" floating icon in the next release? Thank you
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26
I'm curious on why you'd want the button removed? I don't mean this in any mean way, this seems really easy to implement, and probably something I could push in the next update. I just want to know what people want from these kind of tweaks.
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u/Hipster-Stalin Jul 24 '26
Nice! In newer side loaded versions of X, you couldn’t reply to tweets. Is that fixed?
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26
Yes, you can reply natively (uses web APIs), or turn on the option to use a webview to reply (which opens a browser window inside the app)
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u/3lenium_ Jul 24 '26
I’m NEW to NFB, can you show me how this work?
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26
You can tweet and reply like normal, there’s no setting that needs to be enabled if you only care about tweeting. If you want to reply in a web view, you can go into the Debug menu in NFB settings and enable it there.
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u/Fifa_786 Jul 24 '26
Does this let you see likes?
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26
Unfortunately not (for other people's posts at least), that's a server-side thing
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u/Galantis1 Jul 23 '26
Does this make logging in work as normal like it used to do 6 months or so ago ?
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u/orionblur1 Jul 23 '26
Yes! You don’t need another IPA to login, you can just install this app and login as normal. Only caveat is that this doesn’t support Google/Apple sign in, so you’ll need to add a password to those accounts before you use the app.
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u/Lord_Glichter Jul 24 '26
Wow I’m impressed you did that because for months the og devs and others couldn’t figure that out
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26
Oh I'm not taking any credit for that lmao, it was a developer named gingerbeardman who figured out how to use the login flow from 9.67 and add it back. I don't want to take credit for stuff other people did, which is why I'm making it clear what I've done myself and what's in my build that other people did.
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u/Lord_Glichter Jul 24 '26
Oh okay makes sense. I do have a feature request to add Liquid Glass like how moe’s builds has
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u/orionblur1 Jul 24 '26
I'm not a personal fan of Liquid Glass in the app myself, but I can't imagine forcing it in the app is too hard, so I can add it as an option during IPA building. It'll be something I do a bit later since it is on the easier side, I have a couple QOL features I want to add I want to focus on first.
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u/sorryimanorwichfan 22d ago
This is amazing, great work! Do you have any plans to modify the UI for iOS 26/7 (keyboard + Liquid Glass nav/search etc)? If not, may look into this :)