Hacker News Reader

Comment by ffpip | Hacker News Reader

I want to thank the admins that made the app and the web one of the worst. You helped cure my reddit addiction. I now open it only once or twice a month.

You cannot view comment replies on the web. You cannot view any sub on the web. You cannot even read full comments.

Seriously. Thanks. I even started studying for my exams!

View on HN

Add me to the list, though I'd say it was 40% due to the web experience and 60% due to the content. Not only is it designed to make you feel like you accomplished something in life just by reading the headline, but much of them are just blatent falsehoods or outright lies. As in, the events didn't happen, or the image isn't from that day, or the event and the image are from years ago but used to stoke outrage in the present about something unrelated.

Edit: 50-60% on the web UI. I forgot about AMP pages.

I think content is fine there is ton of subreddits that are very similar to old school bbs. As long as you don't browse front page or big generic subreddits reddit is fine.

I loved BBS's back in the day and I missed that feeling :/ Any subreddit suggestions for me ?

r/AskHistorians is amazing. It is probably the most well run and informative subreddit on the whole site.

It's indeed goldmine for anyone who's into history. I'm debating myself if this sub is good enough to keep Reddit around or am I better off to just stay completely away.

Log off and bookmark the specific reddit. It's only addictive if you use the home page features.

I was usually using the Reddit is Fun app, but yeah maybe a direct subreddit link in browser could be a good middle road.

What's keeping it on Reddit, just inertia?

Every highly curated subreddit seems to have a regression toward some sort of lowest common denominator and any sort of deviance gets crushed even if it's good correct content that shouldn't be. I'm no historian but seeing this behavior in every subreddit where I have the experience to recognize BS makes me very skeptical of the idea that other subreddits are not doing the same.

r/AskHistorians has some very good posts, but it also has a good deal of misinformation, even coming from flaired users. The big problem with it is that the user base and the mods tend to believe that it's accuracy is better than it actually is (and comments from the mods seem to encourage this overestimation). I've seen many people who believe that if a flaired user on r/AskHistorians says something, then it's true (there seems to be a lot of people like that on the aptly named r/badhistory sub, for example).

In addition, their yearly April Fools' events (a bad idea in my view) as well the generally poor quality of posts during the first few years makes searching for past answers a pain. You get a ton of information that's flat out wrong, and in the case of April Fools' events the wrong information was actually encouraged (or written) by mods.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadStapledToTrees/ Always delivers exactly what it promises.

Okay so sure BreadStapledToTrees contains images of bread stapled to trees. But why? I mean, why do people go around stapling bread to trees, photographing it and posting it on r/BreadStapledToTrees and enjoying it, and enjoying others posting the same? I am confused.

There is only one way to truly understand. Take a slice of bread, bring a stapler, staple the slice of bread to a tree somewhere, snap a good picture of it and upload the picture to the subreddit. Then you will understand. It is the only way. It cannot be explained, it needs to be experienced in order to be understood.

Sometimes you're the tree. Sometimes you're the bread. Sometimes you're the staple holding it all together.

/r/homelab is great, but you'll probably end up with a rack in your living room at some point. /r/mechanicalkeyboards was great at least, but due to my inactivity I can't talk about the last few months.

I have a curated list of subreddits, and I only use the original UI on the web. Otherwise reddit's designs are garbage.

Use rss: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathogendavid/comments/tv8m9/pathog...

I moved to using inoreader recently from an OSS one. I really like it. I have my own instance of rsshub for hostile sites.

Consistent UI/UX, no toxic comments (train a filter), automatically archived, easier to share, can send to kindle, full text search of everything I read, no more ads/tracking/email subscription spam, keyboard navigation, works good on my terminal, etc.

https://www.inoreader.com/

The old school BBs didn't have a steady stream of internet riff-raff wandering through and defecating on the lawn. Every single "everything" platform that has user comments has this problem. Reddit and Twitter both make this problem particularly insidious by facilitating cross communication (cross posts and retweets) between the sub groups. It is impossible for subject or niche specific communities to have a high quality existence in this environment. For all their ills at least the chans make a good faith attempt to run "containment boards" to mitigate this problem on their own site.

Reddit front page is deliberately designed to keep you agitated on one hand and then keep coming back for some soothing oxytocin rush as the antidote on the same page.

Also, most "general" subs celebrate mediocrity.

That's an archetypal abusive relationship

Not all relationship/interactions with social media will be positive or neutral. Everybody knows about social media addiction already, for example. The analogy of abusive relationship IRL with various web dark patterns seems new.

Its interesting to contemplate if entirely new mental illnesses will eventually be discovered via toxic social media sites. I mean entirely new modes of dysfunction not merely "it used to be rare".

By design though, like most mass media sites.

The content is consequent to the UI.

I'm adding my voice to this thread.

I used to browse and post a lot on reddit. Mostly in the subreddits relevant to my interests and hobbies, but sometimes I'd open /r/all and drown in the algorithm-generated feed. It was so easy to waste time on reddit.

I'm thankful for the user-hostile experience they've implemented. Made it so much easier to stop using it altogether.

You can still browser old UI without any of these issues via https://old.reddit.com AFAIK

Even if that’s possible I personally feel that if those who run Reddit don’t want to web experience to be user-focused then I feel that I don’t want to spend my time there. I rather use HN or Lobsters instead.

I'd never heard of Lobsters before, I am assuming you are referring to this site: https://lobste.rs/ Looks interesting, thanks!

I occasionally checked https://tildes.net/

This seems great, thanks for the recommendation. I love that gruvbox and atom one are default themes.

You can even set the old UI to be your default in your preferences, so it will even render the old UI on the standard domain.

The preferences require that you're logged in. If you're logged in, then reddit knows how frequently you're checking r/ChainLinkFences.

There's a Firefox add-on that will ensure that you always see the old Reddit, even without logging in.

Not on mobile though...

Well, full support for add-ons is coming to Firefox Nightly for Android soon(ish), at least.

On mobile and non-mobile, I use Firefox' Redirector addon to redirect all reddit links to https://ns.reddit.com/* which might be the same as old.reddit.com

Then download one of the many applications that use reddit's API and enjoy it before they shut down that too.

The problem seems bigger than user hostile UI.

If the company decided to make the UI not friendly, they will likely continue to make user hostile decisions in the name of maximising growth and profits.

In this case using addons seems like playing catch up with low chance of a long term win.

... checks r/ChainLinkFences ...

NOW there's a sub that needs more love imho.

Wouldn’t they know via fingerprinting your device via the device settings or IP?

They could but seeing how good Reddit's UI is, how good do you think their log scraping is? And do they have the budget for keeping all access logs of anonymous users so they can try to line up all the ChainLinkFence enthusiasts with the people who also frequent r/MarijuanaEnthusiasts and r/WhiteMenGoneWild.

Unfortunately if you make a new account, they have removed that option

i.reddit.com is even better.

Edit: As a number of others have mentioned below. I too have reduced reddit intake due to the poor UI amongst a realisation of its not a good use of my time.

Then sometimes you click a link and it takes you out of old and into the hellscape that is modern reddit.

Can't wait until some manager decides old needs to go. They'll end up losing a bunch of long time users and some other site will finally gain traction.

If you're on desktop Reddit Enhancement Suite has an option for forcing the old version. I've never been brought back to the new design.

But yeah, old.reddit.com probably won't be around forever.

In my discussions with Reddit admins, they've said that old.reddit.com will be around forever. However, it won't get new features (or a very watered down version of new features).

After all, .compact links [0] still work, and those are super old.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/comments/imcl1h/reddit_a...

Yea sure, and Oculus will never require a Facebook account.

>However, it won't get new features

From the new features they have been adding lately, I'd call this a benefit... And that is the big disconnect between admins and the old community.

It's also just a regular profile setting to use the old design. RES isn't required.

This has some serious Eternal September vibes, like when we reached the tipping point of more normies than nerds using the web. It makes me unreasonably angry that average users are being led down this path and are blithely accepting it, with those who object seemingly a shrinking minority.

I was practically shouting at my screen the first couple times I got thrown into the new design (before I figured out how to avoid it). If reddit really does shut down the old interface, I will absolutely be gone.

> This has some serious Eternal September vibes, like when we reached the tipping point of more normies than nerds using the web.

Sure, but there's something positive about this. Usenet's external September happend with maybe a million users, Reddit's with hundreds of millions. Which means that bigger communities are possible without the problems happening :)

On the other hand, Reddit surely changed during its growth, so there were probably multiple similar events. After all, HN was created as PG felt that was not a good place to discuss startup ideas.

There is a plugin for chrome which forces old.reddit.com, can't remember the name but should be easy enough to find. And for mobile I use the Apollo app, which is fantastic. I've actually switched from using reddit mostly on desktop to using it almost exclusively on mobile because Apollo is so good

I added a rule in HTTPS Everywhere that redirects everything to the old site.

Last time I saw the redesign, there was an option to "opt out of the redesign" in the user menu. It worked — I have never seen it again.

Yup web experience is horrible... went to checking on reddit a few times a day to maybe once a week. Much like medium when I see "that popup" - I just close and move on.

Same for me. I use Reddit much less these days, much because of the horrible web UI.

Same here.

Same here but mostly because the content quality goes downhill after a critical mass of subscribers is reached and every subreddit I like suffered that fate sooner or later. At some point you might as well browse 9gag.

9gag's web UI is way better than the new Reddit UI

Dito, I visited reddit many times per day a few years ago. That all changed with the new web app. Yes, old.reddit.com exists, but the old web app acted as a kind of gatekeeper the same way the ancient design of HN acts as a gatekeeper. With the new shiny web UI, different people came to reddit. From a marketing perspective, this was a great short-term success. From a quality perspective, a long-term decline began.

On iOS I’m using Apollo. To open directly in the app it provides a share menu action. There is also “Opener” to open links in all kinds of apps

On Android, I found Infinity for Reddit. Open source and ad free.

It's the best on android, but I haven't used it for more than a week or two. Don't want to get addicted again.

Slide is also Open Source, ad free, free and available on f-droid.

One thing that I missed on Slide was default sorting by 'hot'.

Sorting by hot gives you posts from smaller subs you like and removes all the political shenanigans

My Slide sorts by hot by default

Okay. I just downloaded it to check.

I meant 'best'. Not 'hot'.

Sorting by 'best' gives you content from smaller subs.

I have asked the dev to implement it. I have not gotten any reply.

cant found it

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/me.ccrama.redditslide/

I went cold turkey (blocked in my hosts file on my laptop) 4 years ago. Hands down the best single decision I've ever made.

The problem with blocking it is that reddit is not just for time wasting. It's also currently the most popular forum host for all sorts of experts, from audiophiles to network engineers. Whenever I have a technical query and Google is returning a whole load of SEO spam I append 'reddit' or a stack exchange site to the query and can fairly reliably expect to discover a technical subreddit which answers my question and where the best answers are the most visible, thanks to voting.

True for me as well I’m not good at all with managing this addiction and being banned from commenting here helps as well reddit has been making it easy as has Facebook with instagram and onlyfans has no discovery it’s a good time I only wish reaspike would do something as well

Yes, I probably never got into pointlessly wasting time on Reddit because I refuse to be conned by the dark patterns they use to send you to the App. It's a forum website and I really do not see why it's so popular when they treat their users like idiots.

To be fair they aren't the only company that does this, Twitter and YouTube both have horrible web apps that have horrendous bugs and needlessly missing features vs the native app.

Hacker news is basically the opposite site which is why I like it so much.

It didn't always used to be like this. I agree that if I were attempting to join and use Reddit today, I wouldn't last more than a few visits.

Someone should remind spez why we killed digg.

I don’t recognise your issue - I can go to reddit.com on iPhone Safari, access the mobile-optimised version of their new site, and the comments for every post are one tap away?

There are other issues, and it’s not great to use, but it is generally fully functional.

They might've changed it back now, but last I tried they didn't let you see the posts in a subreddit on the mobile site.

I've been using the mobile website for 2 years now on iOS and I've always been able to view comments and replies to comments, browse other sub reddits, etc.

I'm really confused what OP is talking about...

The only annoying thing is having to press continue all the time to use safari.

It is in implemented in countries with less users.

If I am on a US or UK VPN, there are no login walls.

Try with an Indian IP.

I'm in Singapore. Only like 5m people here.

Screenshots - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24373462

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24373462

Screenshots

Without an account, I can't open hidden replies on Mobile. I see the first levels in a posting, but when I tap on "x more replies" I get a dialog demanding me to login and no way to avoid it and going directly to the replies. On desktop this still works fine.

For the last few years, I've only used reddit through Relay for Reddit (Android app). The web experience is so awful that reddit has basically become a mobile only thing for me.

Same for me, as soon as I deleted Apollo ( to cure my addiction too) I use it less and less because the web UI makes me want to stop using it as soon as I open it.

I thought everyone loved infinite scroll? But seriously, it's just about the worst UI 'pattern' to have on a website.

I have to switch to desktop site mode to see comment replies. It's insane. Fortunately there's a slider on firefox.

Best and most accurate comment. I couldn't agree more. Because they force us to use this app, I stopped visiting reddit.

Same thing dude.

I probably spend like 50-40% less time on it.

I'm weary of download apps for content I should be able to view on a browser.

The app "mysteriously" takes up more space than the Chrome app to serve, arguably, less content.

I learned my lesson with the Facebook app, namely, that these companies are shady and their apps always require more privileges than necessary.

Exactly the same experience for me. There were times when I blocked Reddit via /etc/hosts for a productivity boost.

But now? I do not want the app and Reddit seems to not want me then. Definitely helps my productivity a whole lot!

I can view most one the web but it does require multiple refreshes, new sessions, etc on my iOS device. I only sign in to throwaway accounts ( to infrequently post) via desktop.

I also had this experience. I was a regular on a particular subreddit but the combination of awful website + censorship coming from above has made me stop using Reddit entirely.

Same here. Messing up the website and forcing users to install an app was the best thing that could happen to me: my days just went two hours longer and I started reading books.

Yep and a beatiful homepage competes with yahoo v1. And all those comments with flashing icons competes with the best strip clup in your town...

Ditto. The web experience is so user-unfriendly. I haven't been using reddit in a long time now and I am so much happier for it.

You can simply set your preferences to always use old.reddit.com, and it works fine.

If by works you mean that it resets several times per week.

mine hasn't reset in months. i don't think it ever has.

I can read full comments, but not some subs. Is there some a/b test going on?

When logged out they skew the comments and make it virtually impossible to follow a thread with a large number of comments

Site works exactly the same logged in or logged out. Comments display the same?!?

Does anyone have a screenshot of this issue?

It is implemented in countries with less users only. To not piss off the majority in US/Uk.

Screenshots-

Any subreddit is like this on the web - https://i.postimg.cc/x1XcGBbr/photo-2020-09-04-15-23-09.jpg

Comments - https://i.postimg.cc/YC6TPCFQ/photo-2020-09-04-15-25-45.jpg

Wow! I had no idea.

This is what I see!

https://i.postimg.cc/8Cw9Q1ZB/Image-from-i-OS.png

https://i.postimg.cc/Y9sP0dKv/Image-from-i-OS-1.png

I've had a similar phenomena. I've hit the lock when directly opening a subreddit link, but when I added a search filter etc I could open it normally.

Here's the non-logged in images:

https://i.postimg.cc/15HjNRQx/Image-from-i-OS-2.png

https://i.postimg.cc/6pp1VsW8/Image-from-i-OS-3.png

https://i.postimg.cc/x1ppts8t/Image-from-i-OS-4.png

I'm in the UK and the comments are all collapsed after a couple in each thread with "view more comments".

The most ridiculous thing is that if you click the "read more" link, it doesn't even work properly, the behaviour is incredibly stupid.

I never had an account on reddit, and I never had problems with browsing/expanding the comments too. I am not from either US/EU so by the looks of it and the input of others it might be more of a regional thing rather than a universal one thus the conflict of information in discussions.

I believe you can view subs and comments only when you are linked from the homepage.

You could use Reddit Sync. It's worked very well for years

I miss alien blue so much...

Check out the Apollo app.

Same for me. I realized that reddit is yet another huge media corporation who just wants your sweet sweet data so they can resell it. If the blatant racist policies and heavy handed moderation of opinions wasn't enough.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com