Remote View

1y ago

This app.

Finally tried the official Reddit app. It's as bad as they say.

238 comments

who the fuck designed this?
- Also the "actual fucking content" is a mindless repost bot, with a bunch of reposted comments trying to build fake internet points so when the accounts switch to being spam advertising bots they last a little longer.
  
  yeah, was gonna say that's a user issue but it's in the biggest scabreddit so that's kind of on the admins too
- My guess is someone who really, really, really wants you to see the advertisements. With a little bit of content on the side.
  
  just reminds me to Nolan Sorrento from ready player one
  This is the first of our planned upgrades. Once we can roll back some of Halliday's ad restrictions, we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures
  idk which one is more sad, that reddit is actually doing this or that i had to specify "ready player one" when looking up the exact quote because otherwise it referred me to completely serious marketing articles
  
  Would you like some usable content with your ads?

I’m one of the few that never used the third party apps for Reddit during my time there. Only the official app. And even I could tell you that app was miserable. No exaggeration, every third post is a massive ad. Once you’ve scrolled far enough your entire feed becomes ads. You have to close out/refresh to make it go back to normal.
Wefwef is a glitchy web app that doesn’t let me scroll or post comments sometimes made and maintained by some dude in his basement, and it’s still preferable to the official app of a company seeking a multimillion dollar IPO
- That’s not wefwef—that’s on lemmy.world; it’s not keeping up.
  
  Ah, good point- I was mostly being hyperbolic to illustrate just how shitty the Reddit app was.
  I think all the previous redditors did the same thing I did when signing up. Lemmy.world sounds the most general, so that’s the instance I used. I’ll give a smaller/more local one a try and see if that improves the performance!
- Try Liftoff it's what I've been using and it's wonderful. Elegant in its simplicity.
  
  I’ll check it out, thanks!
  Regardless, I really don’t care much about the glitches or slowdown if it means I don’t have to see a full screen “He Gets Us” ad every two goddamn seconds.
  
  On Liftoff it's needed to be logged in on every instance (it handles multiple accounts), so I don't find it convenient even though I admire how polished the interface is.
  
  Looks like this is Android only. Us iOS users stuck using wefwef.
  
  On Liftoff it's needed to be logged in on every instance (it handles multiple accounts), so I don't find it convenient even though I admire how polished the interface is.
- not saying wefwef is perfect(i personally can't use it bc use kbin and not lemmy) but it will probably improve a ton since there are many new people joining lemmy/kbin
- The regular Lemmy web UI is pretty decent IMO
  
  this. the corpos have pushed us to apps so much that many of us forgot that web browsers are very much an option.
  lemmy has been the only thing that made me open the regular firefox in a long time. for the most part, i use firefox focus, because everything you wanna stay logged into makes you use an app. no exaggeration there. but lemmy's web ui actually works because it's been made by people who just want you to be able to use it, not people who want you to sell you on an app instead that can track you way better than your browser would ever allow.
  
  Yeah, it's got some odd jumps sometimes when upvoting or expanding images but otherwise it works pretty good
  
  I tried out different apps because of the autoloading of new posts that happens on the site. I think that might have been fixed in the update, but now I'm having issues logging into lemmy.world on the site, because if the update. I keep reminding myself it's early days and things will get smoother soon.
- Give Connect a try. Also try Liftoff. Both very good apps.
  
  Connect is working well for me atm.
- As someone that only used the official app on iOS, I have to disagree. For me every 9 or 10 posts in the feed there was a "promoted" post. Using the compact view they aren't huge ads like OPs one here, just like any other text post but they say "promoted" so you know it's an ad. Also never had this "entire feed becomes ads" either.
  
  Given how buggy it is, it's entirely possible. Also, ad targeting exists. He could be a member of specific demographics (age, income, location) being targeted by a lot of ads, thus he ended up seeing a lot of ads.
- I was using Jerboa but just started using wefwef a couple days ago. I really like the look and feel, plus sorting Top by 1/6/12 hours is dope, since I tend to see a lot of new stuff when I was just doing Top by day.
- You should try Lift Off for Lemmy, it's really good.

I remember, I was on holiday 4 or 5 years ago. I was sitting at the bar having my morning coffee and browsing reddit and I was getting annoyed that if I went to get a drink from the bar when I came back and turned the screen back on it would reset my position in the comments.
So, I asked around and was recommended RIF. Not only did it keep comment position, but it was just all round in every single way better.
No, I couldn't go back to the official app.

Legit thought Lemmy was serving me an advert for a moment there...!
But yeah, the official R*ddit app is Garbo, they even bought Alien Blue years ago and have just failed to keep pace with Apollo, RIF or BaconReader. This API move is just a monopolisation of their content stream, hugely anti-competition.
Even if they sorted out their app, rolled back API to free, I'd never go back. Fuck Spez.
- While spez is indeed a truly horrible piece of work, we should also keep in mind that he wouldn't be doing this without having some serious backing from shareholders. CEOs are the public figure presented to us for the 2 minutes' hate but let's not forget that these decisions are taken in huge boardrooms. So maybe we should say 'fuck spez et al' instead of just 'fuck spez'.
  
  Yeah spez is just the figure head, if he got replaced nothing would be resolved.
  It's not Fuck Spez, it's Fuck Reddit Inc.
  
  Just dropping in to say I noticed your 1984 reference, and appreciated it especially in the context of this particular discussion.
  
  isnt that what happened to Ellen Pao and how we got Spez? they promoted Pao, she took heat for firing Victoria, then Spez stepped in and "saved the day" (i.e., the board discarded Pao after the ritual sacrifice was complete and put in their new puppet)?
  
  I will be real with you here Spider - if you follow anything objectionable up stream you'll always end up with a handful of ethically and morally bankrupt capitalists. My emphatic "fuck Spez" isn't just groupthink on this occasion. I appreciate that CEO is a job, and ultimately there's a level of corporate responsibility - but Spez lied to us, ignored us (the AmA was laughably bad, answered 6 comments disingenuously and then dipped), attempted to defame or gaslight 3rd party Devs, violated data protection laws to preserve the sinking ship and has directed the entire company to basically dig in and starve us out. Users are the only thing bringing value to the platform - and this change is only harming the most productive users.
  He might have the faith of the greed council backing his idiotic decision - but they weren't the ones pissing off of the top diving board into our swimming pool.
  He could have stood with us, we could have had transparent communication and even if we didn't get compromise we could have had at least a conversation about why this is happening. but instead of any good faith engagement he decided to tell a bunch of transparent lies and throw a tantrum and then change the rules of moderation to reduce our power to fight for what we wanted.
  Fuck Spez specifically for these reasons.
  Fuck capitalism for everything else.
- I'm using wefwef and the preview was perfectly cropped it looked like an ad as well. I was relieved it wasn't.
  
  I'm using Jerboa, and it still got me.
  Still figuring out what view mode works best, it's going to take me a long time to unlearn over a decade of BaconReader..!

Yep since the first party app's primary goal is to generate revenue (over actually providing a good user experience), it's packed full of everything to achieve revenue generation:
Ads
Tons of tracking to figure out how long you viewed something, what you clicked on, and so on to build an advertising profile that can be sold
Obtrusive Ads
Lots of suggested/recommended stuff to get you to keep your eyeballs on the app longer
Ads masquerading as real submissions
Paid promotions
Third party apps don't have revenue generation as their sole highest priority (if at all), so naturally they strip out all of that stuff which makes for a terrible user experience.

Imagine signing up to Reddit to discuss your gambling problems and then on the first sign on you get hit with this 💀💀
- You're browsing /r/stopgambling? Here are some gambling ads for you!
  This sort of thing happened several times over there. I'm making up this example (I think), but there were a few posts on the mod subs begging reddit not to do things like that.
  
  If you use any subs related to eating disorders you’ll probably get diet stuff as well

What would fit perfectly now is Snapchat-like short vertical videos on repeat. Do it Reddit
- The problem is that Reddit Shorts is something I could ABSOLUTELY see happening in the near future
  
  Kinda already exists. It’s called watch
  
  They already had RPAN which was basically the livestreaming part of Reddit. It was okay, some fun shitposty streams. I stopped using it after I started using old.reddit + Apollo.
  
  and it'll just be photos of dudes in cargo shorts.

Thank you for your sacrifice. If I ever had a hint of an inclination to disregard the common wisdom and try reddit's official app, now it's permanently gone.

At first I thought that was someone posting on lemmy… freaked me out, and I started looking for how to ban the content. 😂😂
- I had nearly the same reaction! Assumed it was Lemmy as well but on a specific app. Hopped in the comments to figure out which one to avoid, very relieved it's one that I'm already not using.
- It was the top post in my feed so I thought I had somehow opened the reddit app by accident even though I've uninstalled it.
- now what if someone hacked the official reddit app to work on lemmy

Sometimes I get a glimpse of what experiencing the Internet without an ad blocker looks like today and it kinda blows me away.
- It's baffling how most people just rawdogs the internet like that and are absolutely fine with it

The only thing I miss about the official app is seeing those ads promoting Christianity and promptly reporting them as hate speech.
- That doesnt do anything anyway. You alwere kinda wasting your own time.
  
  I dunno, if it feels cathartic then maybe it was worth it to them.

Yeah, it sucks. Thanks for posting a screenshot of an ad into my Lemmy feed, I guess.
- I didn’t actually see it was from Reddit. I was like WTF, promoted ads here now.

My god, I now realize that when I was on reddit it was just super depressing posts about horrible events, on lemmy its actually ppl having fun
- /r/all was unusable without Apollo letting me filter out 90% of the subs that show up there, all ragebait and reposts.
- If you didn't log into the apps, official or third party, r/All was absolutely depressing. Apollo at least gave me the ability to filter r/All when I did check it.

It's simple, really.
if you have Reddit app installed, uninstall it first
download revanced manager and install the apk. https://revanced.app/
find Reddit app's apk in apkmirror.com and download it
open revanced manager and select Patcher -> "select an application" -> storage and select the downloaded Reddit apk.
make sure "disable ads" is in the list of selected patches
run the patcher, wait until it completed
don't install the resulting apk right away yet. Instead, open the "..." menu on the top right of the screen and backup the patched apk
close the revanced manager app and open your file manager. Locate the patched apk you just backed up in the download folder, then install it.
Note that I haven't actually tested this with actual Reddit app.
Edit: oops, replied to a wrong thread
- Instructions unclear: iPhone now running Windows Subsystem for Android. Plz help.
  
  Very simple. Download now an Android Subsystem for iOS and you can use an iPhone in an Android in an iPhone.
- That fixes the ads but still the official reddit app is a huge backstep from the now cutoff apps that made browsing reddit a pleasure. It's just a rippoff off all the terible algorihtm based Facebook, Twitter and Instagram apps that constantly show me posts that i've neither subscribed to nor I am interested to see. It's a shame.
  
  There is an option in revanced manager to patch reddit sync to use your own oauth client id. I just tried it out and the patched reddit sync just crashed when it start loading the frontpage. oh well.
- Does this work for YouTube?
  
  Yes, it's initially made to patch youtube. The recommended youtube apk to patch right now is v18.19.35, or you can download pre-patched apk of youtube here: https://github.com/revanced-apks/build-apps/releases . You'll also need to install Vanced MicroG if your phone is not rooted.
  I also saw patched reddit apk there fwiw.

If you really need to access Reddit, I've been using libreddit.nl which you can install as an app like wefwef and it's ad-free :) but long live lemmy
- 😱 r/pics is a NSFW community! This instance of Libreddit is SFW-only.
  hmmmm…
  
  Just use another instance. You can find a list at https://farside.link
  
  You can use mine
- Redreader is still working. Seems like a weird loophole, but Reddit is allowing it.
  
  Yeah it was white listed for accessibility

Don't post that junk on here! ;)

We don't go to Ravenholm

Apollo for lemmy when?
- if u liked RiF, Connect to Lemmy is a p good app. After messing w the settings browsing lemmy feels so much cleaner.
  
  I've been having some html errors in Connect, I'm back on Jerboa for now. I like Connect's UI a lot more though
  
  How do you hide comments on connect? I've just started using it.
  Edit: Never mind figured it out! Just long press, and you can change it in settings if you want.
- Try www.wefwef.app!
  
  The World economic forum world economic forum app?
- Wefwef is pretty much exactly that

Plug in your phone!
- Okay 15% is not the worst it could be at lol
  
  Yeah, it could be at 14%! D:
  
  Btw the optimal charging percentage is 30-90
- Nah he's on Android, he still has half a day left.
  
  What are you smoking, and can I have some?

Wow it looks awful. I miss RIF
- Rest in power
- Tears roll down my cheeks when I think of RIF

Man I hate the official reddit app so much. Random ads look like real posts.

I couldn't even get pass the login screen since I only lurked and never made an account (despite spending over a decade browsing reddit). I remember they used to let you use the app without logging in.

I have not gone there. I will not go there. Thank you for the post. It feels like an expose into a part of society that I will never cross paths with.

But did you get your cash price?

Holy wow, I had actually forgotten how shitty the site had become. I was always ready to open it and quickly scroll a couple times to get past the initial garbage, to hopefully find something worthwhile. That ask reddit post is peak "help the AI write an article" trash.

I just saw the ad at first and froze up, thinking "shit Lemmy, already???"
- Me too!
- not yet but hopefully soon 😎

That’s exactly why they want you to use it.

The most sleazy thing it does is that if you want to download or share an image with your friends in, say, a text chain, it brands that image with Reddit crap.
They go completely out of their way to make the app unusable.
- You can turn that off in settings. But seriously it’s annoying that you have to do that in the first place
  
  It's a stupid idea that brings them no value and it's user-hostile.
  I didn't realize it could be turned off though! I guess that's useful for when I hold my nose and scroll quickly through the meme subreddits to find things for my meme text chains.

Dude, scrolling by this on connect and panicked that the ads were already hitting Lemmy!

You don't need to care about posters leaving if you don't show content in your app taps forehead

The reddit app is garbage compared to other offerings. Too bad they fucked the whole API thing for the 3rd party apps
- Right now Relay for Reddit is working on a subscription model and has been granted a extension period. It's currently free to use. Not sure if I'll bother paying for it to stay on Reddit, but for now I can still use Reddit without the official app.
  
  Cool. I didn't know this! At least some good news for now. I'm digging the Lemmy. It's pretty easy

Oh wow I've not seen the official app in years. That's insane, who on earth is happy using this!?
- Sadly, there's a shit ton of people who don't know any better and will stick with reddit as it slowly dies

Good god, that content is so awful. Sports, shootings, parenting. So glad we have Lemmy. It feels more like the old internet where it's mostly tech nerd focused.

It truly is garbage

Holy fuck, that's what that shit looks like? That is horrible. RIP rif.

Ooof. I'd rather use old.reddit.com on my phone's browser and that looks like shit. Really looking forward to the Sync for Lemmy app.
- Me, using cleaned-up reddit on browser is the only way I'd use it. I preferred it even to RIF sometimes.
  
  How would you clean it up for a mobile browser?

At this point you might as well design an app that is 100% ads and give the users a cut of the ad revenue.
- Whoa there cowboy, not so fast. The users will pay to see all 100% of the ads. Heh this guy, 'give the users a cut', am I right? PATY WHERE IS MY K? WHAT DO I PAY YOU FOR?

That 15% battery status is giving me anxiety by proxy.
- You should be used to it by now. One of the first rules when the internet was created is all phone screenshots must be taken while the battery is low.
  
  When the Internet was created, not only did phones not have batteries, they had their own power grid, separate from that used by other appliances.

I was so confused for a few seconds, thought there were ads in my Lemmy app…

Even ignoring the ads, it’s just an astonishingly bad piece of software. It feels like it was written in a weekend by someone who’d just finished reading Programming for Dummies.
- It started as alien blue which was actually a good app back in the day. Reddit bought it and enshittified the hell out of it.
  
  Did it even start as that? Or did Reddit just bought it and put it away and made something completely different?

I got rid of it 2 years ago for Apollo and tried it again briefly last month.
Somehow it got significantly worse, you can’t even choose how to sort your feed anymore.

This is the official Reddit app? Ewwwww.

I'd rather take the barely functioning lemmy apps over the invasive adds of the reddit app

Back in 2021 Reddit released an update for the official app that caused scrolling to stutter, instantly heating up my battery and deplete battery life at an absurd rate. This was on Apple’s newest top phone at the time (12 Pro Max.)
I immediately knew something was fucky, so I switched to Apollo that same night. I checked back for about 3 more updates over a few weeks. During that time, Reddit never acknowledged the bug or fixed it. Since then, it looks like they’ve repeatedly caused the same issue with iOS and some android phones.
If they didn’t shit the bed back then, I’d never have discovered Apollo or realized it was better in every way - not just at not physically destroying my new phone.
And now here we are again, discovering new and better alternatives in Lemmy and decentralization thanks to Reddit’s incompetent fuckery. Thanks Reddit!

They said you can patch out the ads using revanced manager, but I'm not going to try it.
- I've tried revanced but I'm not tech savvy enough to figure it out. I can't even find where to download from some of those repositories 😞
  
  It's simple, really.
  if you have Reddit app installed, uninstall it first
  download revanced manager and install the apk. https://revanced.app/
  find Reddit app's apk in apkmirror.com and download it
  open revanced manager and select Patcher -> "select an application" -> storage and select the downloaded Reddit apk.
  make sure "disable ads" is in the list of selected patches
  run the patcher, wait until it completed
  don't install the resulting apk right away yet. Instead, open the "..." menu on the top right of the screen and backup the patched apk
  close the revanced manager app and open your file manager. Locate the patched apk you just backed up in the download folder, then install it.
  Note that I haven't actually tested this with actual Reddit app.

Babe charge your phone you're making me nervous

Thanks for saving me that install. Been loving Connect for Lemmy anyway

why do you think sites want you to use apps so badly? To get around browser ad blockers.

🤢🤮

Something I liked about the official app, that no other seemed to have, was the ability to flip through posts, one to the next, without having to return to your feed. If anyone knows of a Lemmy app that can do this, let me know please!
The official reddit app would frequently not load images/posts/comments etc or even sometimes fully stop loading anything at all. I have never had these kind of issues with the third party apps, or much of any other apps of any type for that matter.

I hadn't used anything except my account logged in through RiF for 13 years. When I checked the front page as a guest I realized finally just how bad reddit is. All the posts were hot garbage surrounded by ads. I honestly don't know how people use reddit now.
- More and more I think that might be the point. In the absence of users having control over the content they see, the only users left will be the ones who are naive, not tech savvy, and who have very high tolerances for manipulation: people who don't leave because either they don't know how, can't understand or remember a possible better alternative, or can't muster the effort.
  These are incidentally also the same people who are most likely to be unable to distinguish ads from content, most likely to click on ads, and most likely to engage with click- and rage- bait content. That is: people most vulnerable to corporate predation.
  It's just like scam robocalls. It's bad by design, because half the point is to immediately weed out anybody smart enough not to fall for it.

238 comments