They can serve you ads just fine on mobile web, that’s not it. It’s that the app let’s them track your behavior far better than the web browser.
They can serve you ads just fine on mobile web, that’s not it. It’s that the app let’s them track your behavior far better than the web browser.
It’s both. Firefox for Android lets you run uBlockOrigin, effectively killing the ads.
Some other browsers (I use Kiwi because Firefox is buggy on my phone) also let you use ublock, and sometimes I wish I couldn’t use it because I hate ads so much I probably wouldn’t waste as much time browsing the net if I couldn’t block them :)
Kiwi in particular has full extension support, so I can run unhook for Youtube and some other stuff like dark reader. I’m sure someone will come up with some other extension that just tricks Reddit into working in a mobile browser if there is enough demand.
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Ads on reddit are self-served. DNS can’t block that
Guys, sign up for and use NextDNS. Sometimes you have to disable it for asshole companies like ticketmaster, but for the most part you won’t see any ads anymore. Unfortunately it doesn’t work for ads served from as content from the website, like Facebook does, and possibly the Reddit app. I have never and will never install the Reddit app, so I can’t comment on that one.
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I run a DNS based ad and tracking blocker on my home network (similar to Pihole) through my router, and it’s amazing what apps are totally incapable of running with those restrictions in place. Amazon’s app doesn’t work, neither does Wells Fargo. Apps that do this are absolutely predatory and need to be regulated. They harvest my data in shady, insecure, annoying, obtrusive ways, and if they or their customer’s mishandle it, I have essentially no recourse, except for maybe a $0.32 payout as part of a class action lawsuit.
Would I have given my data to Cambridge Analytica? No. Did Facebook? Yes. Was it mishandled? Totally. What recompense will I get from it? Nothing! Will it happen again? Absolutely.
me and my wife also quit using apps
every god damn company has an app. “Get a bonus if you shop using the app”, etc etc etc. it’s all about tracking us, snatching data and of course that little app icon is “easy” to click to spend more money, right? I hate it so much
with reddit gone i’ll only have my bloonsTD app and my 2 factor auth for a couple of services (net banking and a few other things)
im nearing the point where i dont really see the use for a smartphone
I legit have floated the idea of ditching my smartphone several times. I hardly do anything on my phone anymore because of how awful and predator basically every app is now, even paid apps. I might as well just get a feature/dumb phone that has LTE and just set up a hotspot for my laptop.
Chinese owners need a tiktok backup plan.
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You know what’s most fucked up about all of these types of practices? It’s that they had something great and have deliberately slowly destroyed it because of unchecked greed. Same with Facebook. They had a site so great that like 60% of the people on the entire planet signed up. They’ve been making money. Reddit and Facebook make millions of dollars a month. But it’s not enough for them. Nooo. They have to make billions. They have to make enough money to buy governments and amass as much power as small nations. The men running these companies are soulless. They try to fill the hole in their hearts with money, but it will never be enough. They’ve taken something that was amazing, something that benefitted billions of people, and destroyed it to serve their own selfish greed.
What the F Reddit, are you trying to speedrun the worst decisions a website can do??
They are trying what Facebook did to their Facebook chat, forcing users to use the app by banning mobile web access
And I’m curious how many facebook users have the chat app. (and how many just walked away)
I’m one of those who just walked away.
I checked out Facebook recently because I needed help moving and it was the quickest way to ask everyone I knew.
That shit is like 90 percent ads and clickbait tick tocks now. It’s fucked. I don’t understand how people can use it without becoming enraged.
I use it solely to talk to friends and family members who I otherwise wouldn’t be in touch with. I don’t participate in groups or get into arguments or anything like that. That, plus being able to dismiss things like political ads so you never have to see them (at least for now), make it acceptable for me to use. I wouldn’t say it’s a great experience in any way, but it isn’t bad enough for me to find new ways to keep in touch with those people.
I just started texting my friends and family more. It’s been better and now when I see Facebook I wonder why I ever liked it in the first place.
That would work with some of them, but others want to talk primarily through Facebook for now. Minimal use of it just to talk to them works for me at the moment. It could easily change if the experience gets even worse.
My main use case for facebook now is buying used shit locally on Marketplace, since they have effectively killed craigslist with it. It’s where I found my motorcycle. As an actual social network experience it sucks ass.
Hah that’s actually where I got my bike from too. It’s good for that, but only when you’re looking for something I guess. I don’t need anymore toys right now or my wife will bury me in the back yard.
I don’t think everyone hates ads quite so much as some of us. I have ads blocked on pretty much everything and use YouTube only through Kiwi browser with ublock to avoid ads. Sometimes I click a link that opens the regular app and an ad starts playing. I immediately feel irritated and close it, but the intensity of irritation is sometimes a bit worrying!
I feel you man. Ads make me irrationally angry.
I refuse to install anything Facebook related on my outcome. I was one who has to walk away.
I haven’t deleted the account (yet, pretty unjused right now), but never installed an app of them. Via the browser they’re already way to obnoxious.
I stopped using Facebook altogether because of that.
Reddit follows the enshittification.
Me too, but apparently Facebook survives without us. Turns out the most valuable Facebook users are actually retirees waiting to be scammed by shady advertisers.
iirc you can still use Facebook messenger with the m.facebook com at the mobile browser to chat
On iOS at least, fb messenger on mobile is just a redirect to the app store to get the app, the Web messenger is not functional anymore, sadly. At least when I just tested it just now!
You have to force your iOS browser into « desktop mode » to access the web version of fb messenger on iOS. It’s just « working », not really usable through….
Oh perfect, thanks, I didn’t try that; much appreciated!
oh interesting, didn’t knew about that on iOS. It was working fine on my android so I just said what I said
Android is superior for having choices!
Now you can, but back then you couldn’t when they initially started their messenger app
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They can get fucked then. I’m tired of this closed internet, walled garden attitude from large social media companies. They’ve taken the tools that people built to make information free and available, and have locked them down for their own selfish purposes. I will not give them any more of my time.
Right like how you can’t copy images from Pinterest, a site that populates all your Google Image searches. Like you fuckers didn’t create this content. You just got people to upload it to your site then blocked anyone else from accessing it without a membership and a share link.
I added a browser plugin on Firefox that blocks all Pinterest results from Google and DDG. Half the time they want you to log in just to see the page. Google is lame for including them in results.
I just wish Forefox for Android still supported desktop plugins without a massive hassle.
Kiwi
I fucking hate Pinterest. I don’t understand why anyone uses it.
Pinterest has long been a member of my uBlocklist configuration.
I agree. I’m not downloading an app that siphons out data just to access a website.
Ultimately Reddit thinks they’re too big to fail because they don’t have any real competition right now.
Why would the owners of a website want to make it harder to browse their website
My guess is this is only for mobile users which would explain why when the OP request a desk top version of the site he can still log in. That way they can push more mobile users to the app and shove all sorts of ads down their throat and there’s nothing they can do about it. You can block ads on a browser, you can’t in the official Reddit app.
Shut down all the 3P apps. Prevent mobile users from being able to use their browser on mobile, forcing them to grab the official app. Load it to high hell with ads… Profit.
You can not block in the official app “yet” Wouldnt surprise me if we get some form of Revanced reddit app at some point. Same thing which youtube vanced. For me killing off the infinity for reddit app is my call to not use reddit on mobile anymore but a full switch to lemmy instead.
It actually already exists. The ReVanced project, which has continued to update YouTube Vanced after it shut down, has also expanded to other apps. I’ve only used their YouTube and YouTube Music apps, but I can’t imagine the experience on their apps would be any worse than reddit’s current app, given that it’s essentially the same plus their patches to it.
My guess is this is only for mobile users
You don’t have to guess. That’s exactly what they said in the screenshot
The logged-in mobile web experience is currently unavailable …
To force people to use their app, of course. Facebook did that several years ago with Messenger. There’s no real reason to not have mobile browser access to it other than to try to make people use the app so it can spy on you in various ways.
Several years: like going on 15 years ago.
Fuck we’re old.
Was it that long ago? I thought they locked it down about 7-8 years back. I don’t know, I would just use mbasic .facebook. com when I had to.
I know it was before the 2010 Olympics at least, because they shut it off while I was dating someone I broke up with before that.
To sell ads
Because they want you to open the app when you land on a link.
When you land in the app they can gather way more data on you, including better dwell time metrics and things like that. Also being in the app there’s no back button to return to Google or whatever, so you open the link without ad blockers, see an ad, and presumably view more posts and ads.
Plus having the app installed means notifications (they have a lot of notification types), and they can link your various accounts through your app’s unique identifier.
Only for mobile and they’re already doing it.
Since Reddit removed the option to “stop asking to open in app” in mobile browseds it was clear this would be the next step.
Also when they blocked being able to open subs with “age restricted content” on mobile browser. That doesn’t mean porn either. I’ve been running into it for a while on discussions relating to guns or drugs/alcohol. You either have to switch to desktop mode or open the comments in the app.
you can watch subs with age restricted content on mobile browsers, but you have to log in. But now you even have to login on desktop for age restricted subs.
I honestly hope reddit keeps fucking up like this. It takes a lot of work and a long time to drive millions of casual users away from your site.
And from what I e been picking up it appears that reddit killing themselves is making for pretty good marketing for Lemmy and other reddit alternatives it kinda feels like a new era of the internet
Something had to give
Hey Reddit, There’s a reason why there were a dozen alternatives to your official Reddit app.
Some of them predate the official app.
I can’t think of any other website that has that many alternative apps, much less at that popularity level
Twitter did, at one point
I don’t think there are any other for profit sites that would allow third-party apps. They data is currency to them.
CEOs will happily restrict your freedoms for just a bit of profit, and destroy any competitors who threaten their monopoly. I don’t get how anyone can defend this system in good faith.
Can’t eliminate the “I’ll just do without” competition.
Like, when I got rid of Netflix… I didn’t sign up for an additional new service. I just watch YouTube.
When I stopped using Facebook so much, I didn’t go to another service – I just didn’t use social media as much.
because if the government gets involved and does a things then that’s bad
The problem is that you cant really have a competitor to reddit. People want all their news sources to be in one place. Imagine if you had /r/soccer on reddit but then /r/soccer on a different site. It would be two split communities. Its kind of set up in a way that makes it hard for competitors to exist unlike other products
I am not sure everyone uses/used reddit like that. 99% of the time, when I use reddit, I type in the subreddit I want to visit, I am very rarely (typically only when I click the URL) on the main page or on things like /r/all. So for me, the main benefit of using reddit is that I don’t need to log in multiple times. RSS readers are also a way to combine news from various sites.
And this is where I stop using Reddit altogether. I don’t want to use any app, let alone the piss poor official app. I can barely read the site in desktop on my phone. And I only access it from my phone. So there’s no reason left to go there. Taking away the compact site was bad enough, taking away the entire mobile site is the last straw…
But we need to track all your mouse movements, browsing history, eye gaze, hand shake, geolocation data, shopping habbits, political opinions, friends and family connections, to make it a better experience for you honest!
I miss-cropped, OP for context:
This content is better in the app! Log in to Twitter/TikTok/Reddit to view it!
Spoofing user agents go brrrrrr
Seriously, the data mining is going to put so much load on their servers, this is whole thing screams “management considered the technology teams assessment, but decided to go forward with [dumb project codename for fucking the platform over]”
Project Forgeddit
Makes no difference to me.
I stopped using Reddit and I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about this kind of user hostile changes.
I’m utterly shocked and appalled. /s
They don’t know that the primary use case for reddit on mobile is getting good answers from Google.
Can’t wait for Google to derank Reddit links due to this BS.
With how awful the interface is and how it spams me with DOWNLOAD THE APP TO SEE MORE, it kinda already “blocks” it for me. Browsing via Libreddit on mobile is so much better.
Not only that but some features like Chat just redirect you to the app on Reddit mobile web, and it’s too cumbersome to use the desktop Reddit chat on a mobile browser.
I had no idea people actually used that feature.
There are filters for adblockers that block these mobile app banners.
