The Nitter project, a free open-source front end for reading X (formerly Twitter) posts, is resuming operation after taking legal advice, following a cease-and-desist campaign by X Corp that had forced it offline. XCancel, a popular public instance built on Nitter's code, is back online as of 7 September, though the main nitter.net instance has yet to fully resume normal service. This matters because Nitter and similar tools let users read public posts on X without needing an account or being subjected to the platform's tracking and ads.

X sent cease-and-desist letters on 24 August demanding permanent removal of Nitter instances and its code repository, prompting maintainer zedeus to archive the repository and take instances offline for several weeks. This is not the first setback for the project: it was declared dead in January 2024 after X disabled the guest accounts it relied on, before returning in early 2025 using account sessions instead. Zedeus says a fuller announcement explaining the legal advice will follow within a week, while X has not responded to a request for comment from The Register.