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Comment by electric_mayhem | Hacker News Reader

Why has Reddit deliberately broken browsing via web on mobile when it works just fine on desktop operating systems?

To drive app installs? Completely asinine.

Yes, that's exactly why. And I assume they're pushing the app so hard because it's immune to ad blocking browsers and it can harvest more of your data.

And because they can deliver push notifications once the app is installed to re-engage users over and over.

This is why I refuse to engage on Reddit.

Reddit is ripe for being in the parting end of a new digg→reddit event, with users leaving to a federated platform (I can only think of Lemmy). However, I don't know if it's even possible in the current state of things and given the amount of inertia it holds now. At least it should rot as the new Facebook for low effort posts.

For now the best way is to used teddit as a front-end (if you don't post) and Dawn (ad-free, non-spamming, FLOSS app for Android if you do).

In many countries telegram is used for news, posts etc. Only America and some western Europe countries are using reddit.

Yeah, I've been hearing that for many years now, but I think reddit has entered into the zeitgeist and is as sticky as Facebook at this point. I have non-tech family members that use reddit. It used to surprise me when IRL people mentioned reddit, but now it's very common.

"Hey, I saw this on reddit"

PiHole/some VPNs can take care of in-app ads. Haven't confirmed this with Reddit though.

Lots of the Ads and Nags from Reddit come from Reddit servers proper, so it's not just blocking a DNS. Need the magic of a tool like UBO that can inspect URL.

Plenty of reddit ads get past the pi-hole when I view with a browser of any kind, I assume those same ads will make it into the app. As a sibling commenter said, if it's coming from reddits domain, a pi-hole won't do much to stop it.

Or just a third-party app. Any ads those serve are part of the app itself, so you can just find one without ads.

Agreed. You can get a much better/faster mobile experience by simply adding an 'i.' in front of the hostname, like so: https://i.reddit.com/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/uleq7s/... . That way you will get the old mobile UI, which is a great way of browsing reddit on a mobile device without installing any apps.

It's not designed for us. It's for the others that would look at it and see nothing wrong with that.

Our only real means of pushback against practices like this is to avoid working for companies that rely on them.

When reddit recruiters or hiring managers cold reach out to you, do what I do and politely tell them that reddit's new growth strategies make working there a total non-starters. Not every company has this little respect for its users when it comes to funnelling traffic, it's completely reasonable for a native and web-app to coexist happily, even if the latter results in less lucrative ad impressions.

Yep, absolutely wild. Apparently I'm not allowed to view it because it hasn't been reviewed:

> Unreviewed Content

> This community has not been reviewed and might contain content inappropriate for certain viewers. View in the Reddit app to continue.

But it's ok if it's unreviewed in the app. Who are reddit is reviewing subreddits?

Replace the URL with old.reddit.com for a sane interface. Works on both desktop and phone.

"Works" is relative on a phone. I guess if you have laser vision and fingertips that are the size of a pen point it's great.

I still use i.reddit.com for mobile. Blazing fast, zero ads, has most of the actually worthwhile functionality.

Yes. I use kiwi browser (chrome but with addons) and installed an extension that redirects to old.* reddit, there are a few similar in the extensions store.

Do you mind letting me know the name of this extension?

Privacy redirect or libRedirect

https://github.com/libredirect/LibRedirect

https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect

Thank you!

I use Old Reddit Redirect by tomjwatson

https://github.com/tom-james-watson/old-reddit-redirect

if just for browsing, you cand use libreddit frontend like https://leddit.xyz/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/uleq7s/eb...

I agree that it’s bad, but just FYI “Request Desktop Website” works, as do i.reddit.com and old.reddit.com.

> To drive app installs? Completely asinine.

Because you cannot do all the reddit features on a web browser. /s It drives me crazy that everything has an app. Need a pizza, get an app.

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