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
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.
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.
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.
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
Don't post that junk on here! ;)
We don't go to Ravenholm
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
Man I hate the official reddit app so much. Random ads look like real posts.
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.
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.
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.
That’s exactly why they want you to use it.
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
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.
Holy fuck, that's what that shit looks like? That is horrible. RIP rif.
It truly is garbage
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.
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.
I was so confused for a few seconds, thought there were ads in my Lemmy app…
Babe charge your phone you're making me nervous
This is the official Reddit app? Ewwwww.
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!
I'd rather take the barely functioning lemmy apps over the invasive adds of the reddit app
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.
Baconreader was a perfect app in every regard
🤢🤮
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.
It was absolutely unbearable to use. Had it on my phone for all of 10 minutes. Left a 1 star review and uninstalled it
what really makes me sick is -- these fucking people are completely devoid of any taste or pride or care. it looks like absolute fucking garbage and they do not care; they're wealthy beyond belief WITH OR WITHOUT destroying reddit, but still, they must.
Gross
Oh god it's hideous
Ha I'm not touching that shit
For a moment i thought i got an ad and was about to uninstall my current lemmy app instantly lol
The Reddit app is such unusable garbage filled with annoying ads.
UPDATE: Apparently Infinity still works across-the-board.
F-Droid keeps nagging me to update Infinity (which I refuse to do). Currently my Galaxy A32 5G is running v5.4.2 and it's still showing up-to-date content every time I refresh. I know from a security standpoint this is a bad idea, but until we come up with a better solution, F-Droid still has it.
ml.docilealligator.infinityforredit
SHA256
0e788e7fd58ef583b32613c61efbba5898ded0ac2aaf7c4919a3b67e61182588 *base.apkBoth the APK I download directly from F-Droid and the one I pulled from my phone via ADB share this SHA256SUM hash.
@RealNooshie looks awful. Literally not a single thing you actually subscribed to. Not to mention the actual content is almost nothing (that single post at the top from r/AskReddit)
Gives me the heebie jeebies. Glad never had to use that and now never will.
Do not use that page. Just swipe your finger on the left side to focus only on your subscibe subreddits. It won't show all this freaking drama and too many adds. Read carefully and check the top left corner because some ads looked like a subreddit page and don't freaking click it cause it's an ad.
It’s a cesspool
But there's Cash Prizes!
Def trash.
It looks disgusting.
For me it’s all the stupid nfts.
