One day in 2023, I noticed that GitHub had suddenly replaced the feed with For You. Maybe GitHub had researched and found that many people like its recommendation system, but I really disliked its “randomness.” Fortunately, I wasn’t alone—enough people disliked it12 that someone created old-github-feed.
Some time ago, that project stopped working345 because GitHub replaced the previously preserved old feed with For You as well67.
I had to look for a new solution. Luckily, there’s still a GitHub API that can provide similar functionality. After a bit of relaxed vibe coding (thanks to Copilot and GPT), I built an initial version. It’s still very early, but already good enough for me to use.
- Tested only in Firefox >=143.0, Chrome (with MV2) >= 140.0.7339.185 and ViolentMonkey >=2.31.0. I’m not sure if it will run properly in other environments, but issues and PRs are welcome!
- ViolentMonkey currently lacks a mechanism similar to Subresource Integrity, so there’s no upstream solution to mitigate the supply chain attack risk from CDN services used in
@require8. We're using the workaround. - By default, the body is not rendered. When enabled, it uses
DOMPurifyto sanitize the generated HTML, but there are still risks, please refer to DOMPurify's Security Goals & Threat Model.
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Create a personal access token, select All repositories, no permissions required: https://github.com/settings/personal-access-tokens/new
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After installing the userscript, refresh the GitHub. Then, in the Violentmonkey toolbar, you’ll see the Configure GitHub Token menu — click it to configure.
Pretend I’m microsoft :)
- https://docs.github.com/en/rest/using-the-rest-api/github-event-types
- https://docs.github.com/en/rest/activity/events#list-events-received-by-the-authenticated-user
- https://docs.github.com/en/rest/using-the-rest-api/using-pagination-in-the-rest-api
Footnotes
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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37413126 ↩
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https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/66188 ↩
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https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/173638 ↩
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https://github.com/Gerrit0/old-github-feed/issues/20 ↩
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https://github.com/wangrongding/github-old-feed/issues/15 ↩
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https://github.blog/changelog/2024-11-08-upcoming-changes-to-data-retention-for-events-api-atom-feed-timeline-and-dashboard-feed-features/ ↩
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https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/137289 ↩
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https://github.com/violentmonkey/violentmonkey/issues/1558 ↩

