This whole "4chan is vile and horrible" thing is getting old. 4chan is not /b/, and vice versa. There are a lot of boards on 4chan that are perfectly normal, with no gore threads/porn/etc.
Also, some of the boards are full of people who can be described as insane- despite not having porn/gore/etc. For example, /g/. I don't agree that it's inaccurate to say 4chan is vile in general, and I certainly agree with the sentiment that 4chan is the best and worst of the internet- or at least the social part of the internet.
/g/ isn't insane, you're taking everything that people say on 4chan seriously. Which is a mistake.
Huh? No.
And I say this as a regular visitor of /x/. The mods seem downright useless some days.
/x/ is the only board that actually does get raided. it's probably the worst board on 4chan (i'm a pixie AMA).
There is some genuinely interesting stuff on /x/ once you filter out the fakers and the roleplayers.
I realize mods on 4chan is a touchy subject, but /x/ could use a good mod that deleted excessively repetitive threads. there are some boards where that's not such a big deal, and some boards that thrive on repetitive and troll threads (I'm thinking of 4chan's pressure release valve, /pol/). But /x/ would be better served by having a mod conscientious of, not so much curating good content or killing trolls, but deleting the EXTREMELY repetitive threads that inevitably go nowhere.
Also, it is a matter of opinion if the roleplayers are a problem. I would argue that the lazy, bad roleplayers are the problem. I think they add color when they're good. Part of the excitement of /x/ is that it exists on the fuzzy periphery between fact and fiction.
i do like x's archived threads, where people dump youtube videos and wiki links
Why are you avoiding parts of 4chan because you don't like other parts?
Additionally, there is an HTTPSEverywhere definition (you have to specially get it from their website) that forces all the 4chan content through SSL to prevent snooping by exit nodes.
4chan ruleset is here: https://gitweb.torproject.org/https-everywhere.git/blob_plai...
Download and place the file in the HTTPSEverywhereUserRules/ subdirectory in your Firefox profile directory. In Tor Browser bundle, the location for your profile is: {wherever you installed tbb}/Data/profile
When you're in TBB, navigate to http://4chan.org. If it doesn't switch to https automatically, then click the HTTPSEverywhere icon up in the corner, and make sure the 4chan.org rule is checked. Page should refresh, you should see that it is now https.