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Comment by johnhamlin | Hacker News Reader

Like many others, I said I’d quit Reddit when they killed Apollo. I was skeptical that I’d actually follow through, but it didn’t end up being a sacrifice at all. The official app sucks so hard it isn’t fun to browse, and now that the mobile site forces you to download the app, I don’t even look at posts from search results much anymore.

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The official app is so bad that basically all quality posters left, along with practically all decent moderators except power-tripping assholes who are happy as long as they have a ban button.

Reddit's post quality dropped so hard after they killed off the API. It's night and day.

then you got companies astroturfing their own subreddits cough /r/snowflake pumping their own fake comments about using whatever AI nonsense they have and relentlessly downvote anything questioning if the content in the sub is even real lmao. this thread had me in tears https://www.reddit.com/r/snowflake/comments/1uoioz6/coco_gui... the mod of that sub de-modded the snowflake employees and there's a sticky now talking about what to do about snowflake fake engagement. lmao that subreddit is a prime example of how the utility of subreddits has pretty much evaporated

it's so funny how corporations throw literally everything they have to control narratives and it just drives people away. all companies tried so hard to have a twitter presence and that site is now nothing but a wasteland of sports journalism and racist bots.

but yeah, reddit sucks. it can't decide what it wants to be but it sure is barreling towards yet another crappy scrolly social media platform

My use of Reddit also drastically reduced after Apollo stopped working (I didn’t follow the instructions that many others have been to sideload the app, configure with an API token, etc.).

But I found a couple of ways to browse without using the official app. One is Safari, with the free SinkIt for Reddit extension, and another is a free app called Lurker. The Lurker app is nowhere close to the speed and smoothness of Apollo. It also seems to drain the battery quicker, but the UI is relatively clean.

I don't have the app and I use reddit (although not often) via my mobile browser (firefox) and it never forced me to download the app, as far as I recall.

It does it occasionally to me (Safari on iOS). When it happens, I just close the page. I hope this is enough of a signal to make someone think.

I land on Reddit every couple of days or so, and if they don’t kick me I read the thread and sometimes browse a bit a couple of subreddits I used to participate in.

Old reddit still works, images and videos are usually forced to go to new reddit. You can sometimes get around it by clicking on the comments link.

I started getting a blocking overlay telling me to download the app on new reddit and I just leave.

I encountered that blocker today, so I decided to try Safari's Hide Distracting Items (1) feature, which blocked it once and for all, which I was pretty impressed by.

(1): https://support.apple.com/en-us/120682

> Old reddit still works, images and videos are usually forced to go to new reddit.

By default it sends you to new ("www"), but I've found (at least on non-mobile) I can edit the URL to use "old" and works (at least for now).

Another Firefox for Android user here. I get popups nudging me to install their app all the time.

I use Reddit through Eddrit and Reddlib front ends. I never use the official Reddit front ends unless I land into them by mistake.

I never use the app, only the website. I don’t know what you’re talking about?

They’re rolling out the experiment flag I’m guessing. I get walled too.

Yeah my phone was doing that for a while. I just took it as a sign that maybe I should spend less time on Reddit. After a while it stopped gating me. Not sure if that was a measured decision on their end, or just that the experiment ended.

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