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Comment by frankenst1 | Hacker News Reader

https://old.reddit.com/r/SM64PC/comments/q3nm9f/sm64_has_bee... for everyone without the Reddit app.

Thank you! I followed the link on my phone and WTF is this bullshit? There's a popover that tells me to either download the app or "Return to /r/popular" ...despite not having come from there in the first place. No way to just close it and, you know, read the content. At least, no obvious way.

I get all those plus I've noticed a Reddit page crashing and reloading the page on mobile Safari once I've scrolled down a few comments. Every page does this without fail for me. I use those and the "Return to /r/popular" messages to remind myself that it's almost never worth my time and to go read something else.

The Reddit page loads without issues on Android with the Chromium-based Brave browser.

It sounds like Reddit and iOS is a really bad combination.

It's gotten so bad on iOS I registered an easy-to-type .com TLD and spun up a libreddit instance on it. Now I just have to double-tap "reddit" in the url and bang out 6 random characters and hit "enter". I was so happy when the new iOS came out with extension support, now I just redirect the tld to that instance automatically.

Can you further explain? I jailbreak and use a redirect to the Apollo app, didn’t know the new iOS could do extensions. Amazing. old.reddit.com is much nicer too.

Yep! If you check out the iOS 15 page and scroll about half way down, it talks about extensions: https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-15/

I'm currently using HyperWeb[0], which does a great deal of automatic redirecting, ad-blocking, etc. (and other automation, if you get the pro option) though there's plenty of other extensions working their way into iOS support now[1].

[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hyperweb/id1581824571

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2021/09/21/here-are-the-best-new-safari-...

Thank you so much! I still haven't updated and probably won't to get an untethered jailbreak but I know this will get bigger and I will use it in the future. Wonder if webassembly will help too.

I think this is finally the time to switch to Safari from Chrome for me.

Apollo now has a built in safari extension to do exactly that; redirect Reddit url’s to the Apollo app.

I ported my extension for these redirects to the new iOS Safari extension model. You can choose to also use the old i.reddit.com interface as well it that’s your thing.

https://secretkeys.io/oldr/

I request desktop version on mobile for reddit. The dark patterns break functionality otherwise. even pinching and zooming on old.reddit.com is better than that.

Also there is the "old Reddit" add-on for various browsers , auto changes the URL to old.Reddit.com

Unfortunately this is currently incompatible with current Firefox on android

Like most useful plugins.. :/

I ported my extension for these redirects to the new iOS Safari extension model. You can choose to also use the old i.reddit.com interface as well it that’s your thing.

https://secretkeys.io/oldr/

oh thank god. i had ben looking for this extension for ios. just bought it, and it works great — thank you

That the new reddit. They really want people using their app, despite the website work ok.

... for some value of "ok", after the horrible redesign some years ago

It's part of the Web 0.0 movement.

Also, here's the GitHub repo: https://github.com/sm64pc/sm64ex

Where things stand regarding copyright law, I'm not certain.

reddit (a YC company btw) trying very hard to male the web version unusable for mobile devices.

As much as I hate it, I disagree. There are more users than ever. old.reddit.com and i.reddit.com are fine. I have a problem with my older device on it, newer one is fine, it’s worst yes but it’s not unusable, we’re used to older technology (like too small fonts and zooming in) the new interface is more attractive to other people, we are the ones who will remember what a headphone jack was.

No it’s a grotesque technique which goes against the open web and should be condemned for the garbage that it is.

If your website is resorting to do this then your website has failed.

How is requiring an app to view submissions not making the web version unusable?

You don't need to, I didn't for a long time with an JS extension (iOS JB). I don't like the layout myself.

If requiring a JavaScript extension to make it worthwhile isn't a sign of it being unusable, I don't know what is!

The website is literally unusable - they prevent you from viewing more than a few posts without installing the app.

They literally pulled a yelp with their mobile website and made it useless other than a redirect to the app store.

What Yelp and Reddit do to mobile clients should get them de-ranked by search engines. It's terrible.

100% agree and anyone who says otherwise has either never browsed Reddit on Safari on an iPhone or is being disingenuous.

The website is the epitome of scum and pulls every single annoying trick in the book to try and get you to download the damn app.

While blaming Reddit is fair, it is made a lot worse by the closed nature of iOS and Safari.

It seems counter-intuitive that both Reddit and Apple are highly successful companies.

How is it apples fault that reddit made these terrible decisions to their own mobile website? The iPhone has been around for over a decade and the mobile reddit website becoming useless and terrible is only a recent phenomenon.

I checked again on the Brave browser i use on Android and if you are logged in then Reddit is ok. If you don't login, then it doesn't let you view the post.

Maybe something’s up with my phone (iPhone 12 Pro, iOS 15.0.1, Safari), but this is the second old.reddit.com link that I’ve clicked due to the main link being “broken” without the app, only for the old.reddit.com link to play a black video with sound.

I don’t see other reports, which is why I’m assuming it’s just me. But maybe somebody knows what’s going on.

Both old and new Reddit play the video in Safari on iOS for me. iPhone X with iOS 14.7.1

I use Firefox Mobile and have to turn on "Desktop site" to browse Reddit. Is there a way to view the mobile Reddit site?

Does it help if you add /.compact to the end of the URL? The reddit website constantly kicks you back into the desktop version these days but it mostly works

Interesting. I get the "fuck you, download our app" pop-up on Firefox Mobile but not Chrome mobile.

i.reddit.com? Is that what you mean/are looking for?

rif is fun is the best reddit client

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