Hacker News Reader

Comment by shultays | Hacker News Reader

  Is this some galaxy brain "let's make the web experience terrible to force people to native apps" strategy?

Yes. If you browse it on your phone they even make more annoying by displaying footbar "launch on our native app"

View on HN

For all the shit that the desktop web experience gets, the mobile web experience on reddit is a 1000 times worse. It sometimes blocks you from viewing certain (cough NSFW cough) subreddits unless you use the app, umm what??

Heh, they are probably assuming people would be more ashamed to complain if the block is NSFW only.

Even worse that most communities, even safe for work ones like gaming communities are locked being using the app. I can't access any of my favored subreddits on mobile without visiting the old site.

The good thing is that refusing to download the app has cleared me of my reddit addiction

Use a third party app. They use api access and universally offer a better experience, without content blocking.

Which app do you recommend? I tried Apollo, Narwhal and Comet and didn't think any were as good as the native Reddit app.

Not only that, they also have some A/B testing in place which makes email id mandatory if you signup via mobile browser; of-course email id is not needed for mobile app.

I also found that the mobile dials home quite regularly when in background.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com