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Comment by Mixtape | Hacker News Reader

Reddit is just as guilty of this. If you want to see all the comments on a thread on their mobile site, you're pushed to install their official app and presumably create an account when doing so. As far as I can tell, the best workaround is to use the desktop site.

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And on iOS at least, whenever you visit the site you'll get a popup that blocks the page with two options: continue in mobile app, or continue in safari.

It's basically "install our shitty app, or keep using the web version?", except it's worded and displayed in a confusing/misleading way with what seems to be an attempt to mimic a system dialog.

Not to mention how awful their AMP pages (redundant, blame grammar) are already. Searching for topics on Reddit is a nightmare, you’re stuck with their awful native search, their awful mobile app, or the awful mobile site.

And yet through the miracle of scrolling and screen zooming I’m somehow able to use old.reddit.com just fine even on my relatively small iPhone X

i.reddit.com FTW!

Not just the website, but the old.reddit version. The new Reddit design is a disaster in terms of usability.

I also disable all custom subreddit styles, because so many of them are horrible.

r/mildlyinfuriating's custom style is a work of art.

For iOS, I recommend Apollo (https://apolloapp.io/). A reddit client that isn't from Reddit.

Thank you! I almost universally use the mobile website but it just keeps getting worse, presumably on purpose. I installed the official app but it’s very bad. I’ll download this one now!

You will still have the annoyance of search results only opening the official client but Apollo is a great app made by a single developer who has put a lot of time and effort into the app. He (Christian) is also very active on the /r/apolloapp subreddit and communicates upcoming features/bug fixes. Apollo does have an option to scan your Copy/Paste buffer so when you open the app, and if there is a reddit link in your buffer, it can open it for you. The downside is you will always see "Apollo read the clipboard" (or whatever the iOS message is) when you open Apollo. Another workaround is to create (or use an existing [0]) iOS shortcut. The way this works is you will pretend you are sharing the reddit page and then click on the shortcut and it will launch Apollo and open the page you are on. The shortcut is pretty basic, just uses some string replacement and Apollo's url scheme to achieve it.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/9ijiji/siri_shor...

Just to add to this: I can highly recommend Apollo as well, it's the official app in my mind. Nothing else even comes close. Also, there is no need for a shortcut. If I open the sharing menu, "Open in Apollo" is already present and I never needed to add the shortcut.

Can confirm that you cannot use the app with logging in with a Reddit account.

Just yesterday, I got tired of the annoying "use the app or login" messages when tapping to view more comments on a post, so I caved and installed the app - given the language of the nag, I thought I wouldn't have to login, and the Reddit UX of constant full-page reloads just to view more comments is such a joke I figured the app had to be better.

But no, you have to login with a Reddit account to use the app :/

Also Zoom. Their web version seems to no longer work on Safari/Mac and Firefox/Mac, so they essentially force you onto native or don't use it.

I don't know about macOS specifically, but elsewhere it can be defeated. The link to join from the browser appears if you dismiss the initial offer to open the app and force a retry. It's absolutely disgusting. https://gauginggadgets.com/join-zoom-meeting-without-install...

Long pressing and opening in a new tab works for expanding child comment threads (but not for viewing all 500+ commends under a post).

Once that stops working, I'll have to always use old.reddit on my phone, which won't be great UI on mobile - but I suppose it can't be too hard to make a Stylus stylesheet to make it usable. And once old.reddit is gone, well, that's the end of Reddit for me.

i.reddit.com is the old mobile site.

Unfortunately it has no way to expand image/video previews without navigating to a different page. Makes it a lot harder to use for me.

On mobile, reddit.com/.compact is an option. It's pretty stripped down but has some solid pros: it's fast, it has evenly sized (height) posts, the comments are easy to view. The post links with in-reddit photos/video do direct to the bad site, unfortunately. Another con (or pro) is infinite scrolling.

i can recommend teddit, that's reddit without the annoying stuff: https://teddit.net/

I use i.reddit.com. I think it was their old mobile site. Works like a charm.

Has anyone else noticed reddit on mobile browsers being ridiculously slow? My experience is that the page loads fine, but then there's 10 seconds or so of loading animation before the page displays. Requesting desktop site makes it load immediately. I'm 95% sure they just have a timer they make you sit through in an effort to get you onto their app.

Just opened a Reddit page on Desktop and it has 7.77mb resources and 97 requests and 4 seconds till DOM loads. Its bloated, probably to boost app downloads. Imgur also features fighter plane levels of bloat to show an image and comments.

On Reddit's mobile web page, after clicking the 'continue in browser' button, go to hamburger menu -> settings -> "Ask to Open In App" and uncheck the checkbox. Removes all the 'reminders'.

After installing the official app I can’t remember why I was so resistant to installing it in the first place. Why do you resist?

I'm so thankful for the Reddit redesign, I had a serious problem spending way too much time on that site. Now it's almost completely unusable.

Same here! I deleted the app and use the web app because it so much more painful so I don’t spend near the time on it.

Same. It's impossible to use on a phone, so I haven't even logged in months.

Now reddit have gone from blocking 'adult' content on mobile browser to flagging stuff as 'unknown content' and trying to force you to install app.

I was trying to research a vinyl cutter purchase instore with spotty coverage and every bloody reddit page would be blocked within seconds of loading with this stupid unknown content crap.

So is letting you know about old.reddit.com a bad thing?

if they removed old reddit i would stop using the site

So I’m in the same boat but I’ve noticed an interesting dark pattern they use now to discourage old Reddit.

I often land in a comment section of a specific post, and then want to see more of the subreddit by clicking the link of the subreddit in the top of the page. Since about a month now, every subreddit shows me it’s only available through the app. I used to then preface the url with old. however now they’ve somehow done it that I will see the specific (locked) subreddit page, but the url will just be Reddit.com with nothing else, effectively making it impossible to add the old. before the url.

On mobile old.reddit.com loads in desktop mode and is very hard to use.

Is there any way to get an old reddit experience on mobile? Custom CSS. Extensions. Anything? The mobile website for reddit is pure garbage.

https://i.reddit.com, or equivalent reddit.com/.compact

If they remove that then they'll finally have pushed me off reddit on mobile, but I think it's obscure enough that it'll stay in the near future

Same here

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