I’ve recently developed a daily habit—perhaps one I should cut back on—of visiting several subreddits to keep up on things like audio production and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But I was surprised this weekend to suddenly find myself cut off; Reddit simply would not let me visit the site on my mobile phone.
Instead, a new overlay popped up, saying, “Get the app to keep using Reddit.”
There was no way to skip, bypass, or close the overlay. It did not provide any instructions or alternatives for continuing to use the mobile web version. What it did offer was a large button I could press to get the app. If I did so, the overlay told me, I would be able to “search better” and “personalize your feed”—two things I don’t care to do.
It’s not just Reddit, so many companies try and shunt you off a mobile web page and on to their app, despite many apps being little more than a pre loaded mobile web pages.
Why? Because users can modify how they interact with a web page, they can install extensions that modify how the code from the website is run, or just deny web pages access to some other process. There is very little a company can do about that, they have no control on how the user chooses to run the page. But… with an app, users can’t modify how the program is run. No plug ins, no web extensions, no choosing not to run some part of it, just the software as distributed by the company. Meaning full fat ads and complete access to any information the OS will let them have, way easier to make money on users that way.
Technically, it’s possible to alter any program, but it’s very hard if don’t have the source code, and it’s illegal to do so in many cases thanks to section 1201 of the DMCA, especially if you try and distribute that modification or tell others how to do it. Which is dumb, it’s your computer/phone, they shouldn’t get to tell you what code you can and can not run on it, they shouldn’t be able to force you to run code on it you don’t want to.
I have RDX installed purely so that when I’m searching for something and the answer is in a Reddit thread I can view it on my phone
The real reason Reddit banned third party apps has finally come to fruition. I still miss rif is fun.
Red reader is pretty good. There’s also patches in revanced to make rif work. But yeah, reddit is a shell of what it once was.
I still use RIF. Doesn’t work very often but I don’t read reddit that often.
I do have to visit the site once in a while to find some obscure solution to an obscurerer problem.
One simple solution to a simple problem is to view as DESKTOP SITE.
Apps are websites with a thousand ways to end your privacy.
Make sure “uBlock Origin annoyances” is enabled in your filter list. Clear browser cache and cookies. Refresh the page.
I hate Reddit but there are still a few authors I follow on it.
Fuck reddit. Tired of hearing about that lame-ass site.
Just stop using reddit
Can’t get off it completely for specific tv show episode discussions, or for sports (nba, mlb, nfl).
Do you need those TV or sport discussions?
I am not the person you replied to, but I thought I would add a different category of example: something location-based, like a specific city, or maybe an entire community based on your employer, etc. It is undeniable that niche topics are discussed more thoroughly elsewhere than here, where instead of welcoming people this place mostly just discusses how all people in Western society should be killed, which some people find off-putting (I know I do).
Reddit doesn’t have stuff local to my town. County subreddit has a little and some nearby cities have subreddits too. Would have to use facebook for anything for my town. Fuck that.
You don’t have to read the political communities. Not sure if there is a way to view your home page and get a more even distribution of communities you are subscribed to though, I find if you are subbed to a few really popular things you never see the unpopular communities you are subbed to. If anything I would rather see them first because they are unpopular. Might be what scaled is kinda for but last time I tried it I found it wasn’t great, good idea though.
You are missing a ton of what I said.
First, YOU may not have a subreddit local to your town, but that does not mean that NOBODY does?
Agreed that Facebook is far worse, but then all the more reason to use Reddit as the lesser (albeit still) evil?
And again YOU may not read the political communities, unhelpfully named like “memes” or “comics” or “technology”, but that does not mean that NOBODY does.
The Lemmy “random” instance picker chooses lemmy.ml or hexbear.net sth like >80-90% of the time, last I checked, and if you visit Lemmy.ml you will see how the default view for someone without an account is Local (again iirc, last I checked), not All. Someone visiting from Reddit will have that as their first view, and seeing nothing worth sticking around for, and much reason to leave, your average American centrist aka niche content creator will nope right out and never return, often leaving negative feedback behind everywhere else they go (r/Redditalternatives, Bluesky, Xhitter, etc.) about their experiences on what they saw of “Lemmy”.
YOU have curated an extensive blocklist, and if you are anything at all like myself, tend to forget as time passes what the experience is like for a brand-new visitor.
I agree wholeheartedly that the ultimate goal should be to get off Reddit, but I was adding some context that sometimes people cannot do that so readily, and we here on the Threadiverse do not really welcome non-technical normies anyway. It is what it is.
Everytime reddit blocks my account following regular use, I consider it them helping me to break my addiction.
Precisely. I started running into this recently, and while I know I could work around it, I choose the lazy option and just load Lemmy instead.
I gave up on Reddit when they suspended me for the audacity to say I would dance when Fetterman kicks. After multiple suspensions for similarly bullshit reasons. The Zionists and bots have taken over.
I was permabanned when, on a story about the IDF torturing a 1 year old to get his dad to talk, I said ‘maybe the terrorists [against Israel] have a point.’
