Hacker News Reader

Comment by nvr219 | Hacker News Reader

Reddit (the service) is tons better than Pinterest, facebook, instagram... I think it's totally out of line to group Reddit in with them. The new reddit website is total trash but you can use like 99% of reddit without ever visiting the website. I use Apollo for example, and there are many other apps you can use or develop your own. You can also use old.reddit.com. Access to reddit is much more open than any of these other networks that require you to use their app only.

View on HN

Reddit on desktop is still okay. The mobile version of Reddit is deliberately broken in order to force you to use the app. Many subreddits can't be viewed, you can only view the first couple of comments in each thread, the front page is hidden behind a huge nag screen,...

> The mobile version of Reddit is deliberately broken in order to force you to use the app.

fyi - if you use old reddit, the mobile site is fine - I've never seen a subreddit blocked or threads truncated.

new reddit is a pile of steaming dogsh

old.reddit isn't deliberately broken, but not really suitable for small screens like phones.

i.reddit is better for that, but it doesn't support many content types inline and has issues showing comments in some cases.

teddit.net doesn't support loading more comments inline and the icon to unfold post content is tiny.

Yes, but again, you can use their official app, or literally any other app developed. Those third party apps can view anything. Contrast that with Instagram where if you don't want to use their app, sucks for you.

I disagree it's out of line to group Reddit with the likes of Pinterest, fb, etc. The fact that they're slightly more user-friendly doesn't make up for using dark patterns and dirty tricks.

I think it's unethical to intentionally design features that confuse users and force them to take roads they don't really want to take. Reddit crossed a line with the annoying pop-up that constantly asks you to download their app, for example. I don't care that the pop-up is less persistent than let's say Instagram. It's ill-intentioned design and it shouldn't exist.

That's a good point, but I think Reddit is more than "slightly more user-friendly." It's developer friendly - way more so than other big networks - and that makes a big difference.

Look, I don't work for reddit or have any skin in the game, other than I use it every day (it being the service - I RARELY use the official app or website). And granted, I'm not a typical Internet enjoyer, but it's easier for me to enjoy reddit than it is to enjoy facebook, instagram, linkedin, pinterest, tiktok, because of decisions reddit made to not do what all these other ones did.

Again I say - that's a very low bar. Reddit app and reddit website still suck. But reddit the service and the company is 10x better than the other networks (note I'm not commenting on the CONTENT here, that's for another day)

My main issue with Reddit is when I'm doing mobile research about something, I usually Google about something, probably something and put site:reddit.com to read people opinions. When going straight from Google without having an app, the experience will be obviously horrible. Now I use an app called "Relay", but this also has some issues, it will open the Google link, but it will usually open the content and there doesn't seem to be a good way to get back to comments unless I'm missing something. Maybe I should try some other app, where I can either choose whether I want to see the link, or the comments. Usually comments are more interesting to me.

There's also an issue with going back to search once I am finally in the all context.

Ps: using android.

I use Apollo on iOS and I have to long press on a link to do "open with Apollo", which is fine but pretty annoying. Would love to be able to set the default handler so that I can just regular press. Of course would be nicer if Reddit's mobile website just worked and I didn't have to rely on an app to consume the content in a civilized manner. Nonetheless I still maintain that reddit is more user-respecting than the other social networks mentioned. Low bar, granted...

In Relay if you swipe up on the action bar on the bottom you'll see the comments.

I prefer Sync for Reddit cause it provides a very HN-like UX if you set the view mode to smaller cards or compact.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com