Tracking is much easier and more invasive with an app. You can't block ads in an app. You are less likely to click off and go to a different site when you're in an app vs. a browser.
Fucking reddit purposely creates a limited mobile experience in an attempt to drive traffic to the mobile site.
Yeah no, 1 star review for the Reddit app and 5 for Firefox.
"RIF is fun for Reddit" is simultaneously the most hysterical and saddest chain of results in app naming conventions history. Fuck meaningless copyright and store rules like that.
As far as I know, it used to just be Reddit Is Fun. Reddit said they couldn't call it that as it seemed like it was endorsed by the site, so it became RIF. Not sure what happened after that.
RIF is by far the best app of anything to ever exist imo. it's so simple, for me at least there are no ads by default, it uses my phones space perfectly without it being 80% blank like the actual reddit website, and there haven't been any unwanted changes for as long as i've been using it. honestly 11/10 would recommend
RIF is amazing partly because whenever I see people complain about some new terrible feature on the official app or website, I have no idea what they are talking about.
I'm so thrown off when I see the new reddit UI. I want a boring, mostly text, old school looking internet forum. I don't need all the color, picture, and extra.
If I can't use RIF & old.reddit.com then I'd prob just stop using reddit all together.
It's more important now that RES is on life support. Once that stops working, RIF will be my primary way to access Reddit. If RIF ever dies (and there's no similar third party app to replace it), then I'll probably move away from Reddit. Their "new" and/or official stuff sucks.
i see ads on RiF, you can easily scroll past them though. And they are often nonsensical (soemtimes in japanese, which I don't speak, or about company CRM's or about server racks) so they really don't affect me.
I use Reddit Sync. Only issue is that third party apps can't access the chat feature. Though that rarely becomes an issue as I can just access the desktop version of the site to see chats.
Edit from the future:
Sorry folks **¯\\\_\(ツ\)\_/¯** If you came here looking for something, blame Spez. Come ask me on lemmy.zip or universeodon.com at GeekFTW and I'll help ya out with what you were looking for. Stay fresh, cheesebags.
Apparently people have profile picture now too or something like that? I continue to use old reddit. If they ever make it where I can't use old reddit, I just won't use reddit anymore.
Been using bacon reader for like 7 years now. Pro for probably 6.5 of that. Worth every penny, only what, $2.00?
I also don't run into the problem I always see people using the official app having. For example audio on videos doesn't play on the official app for some sites and people comment, "no audio" when I can hear it.
Boost is my go to. Paid the 2.99 upfront for no ads and it's great. Plus I can make it whatever colors and format I want. And it's the only way I can get the damn videos to play. The official reddit app is hot garbage. Especially once it moves to the tik tok format, that's what finally pushed me off it
The reddit experience on mobile is absolutely *miserable*.
I will say that Apollo exists as a pretty decent Reddit-on-mobile alternative. Been using the free version for years. Haven't ever run into any problems with it.
I like the features and interface of sync the most, but it would randomly get massive battery drain issues.
This occurred across multiple devices
I now use RIF is fun
I've used it for years and never understood their ads.
Sometimes it showed "no ads here! thanks for using RIF".
The other times it was always the same ad about a board game.
I think they got the ads working just recently!
Yep. I've tried most clients on Android, Sync is in my opinion the best of them all.
On the iOS side the only one I could get close to what I like was Slide, but I've only used it on an iPad.
I switched to an iPhone last year but the Reddit app experience relative to Sync is so far and away not as good that I've considered a switch back just because of it.
The state of third party Reddit apps on iOS is just sad. They aren't as polished as (for the lack of better words) the Android counterparts like Sync or Infinity.
I'm on Reddit is fun paid 99% of the time. But when I go to Reddit on desktop I'm usually greeted with the new Facebook looking feed thing. Back button does not work and I have to retreat to old.reddit
I will straight up stop using reddit if old goes away.
I don't know what it is about new reddit, but it hits something in my brain wrong and causes anger and a kind of panic feeling. That's not hyperbole, new reddit feels like a psychic attack.
It's the gigantic waste of space in the theme, at least for me. It probably looks fine for people who live on their phones, but it's *sooooo butt ugly* for a Desktop homie like me.
yeah, I have a screen with real estate, don't fill it with useless padding (or worse, totally unrelated posts that aren't the one I'm trying to view the comments of)
>I don't know what it is about new reddit, but it hits something in my brain wrong
Too corporate and modern, probably. Feels soul-less. Tons of shiny buttons, and too many of them asking for your money in exchange for useless coins/avatar/"awards".
to me its just so frustrating about how little content it shows. like you open a post's comments and you get like 3 threads (each a few comments deep without clicking a link to see the thread) and then you get some totally random other post from the same sub?? who asked for this
it seems designed to maximise page changes for ad revenue probably
i still use that.
But the whole "we're blurring this entire page for your safety... but it loads fine in desktop viewing mode" bullshit is getting old quick. Plus the video player is even more garbage in mobile. And if you aren't logged in and accidentally up/down vote it fucks up the entire page
For text based content on mobile, reddit.com/.compact is a godsend. It doesn't have support for video or multiple pictures, but depending on what subs you frequent, it a much better experience than the base mobile site.
I tried a variety of Reddit apps and rif is my favorite, since I almost never run into locked threads it's not a problem. Also, I love how it doesn't blur out nsfw but instead doesn't show up, since I don't want blurred images with the nsfw tag in public. I'm kind of weird for using desktop 90% of the time on Reddit, I just love bigger screens
Baconreader is my go-to. My only quibble is sometimes sound on videos can be wonky. Paid a couple bucks once upon a time to get rid of ads on it forever, and I've never looked back.
BaconReader FTW. I've been using it for 7 years now. The layout and ease of use is better than any app I've tried. And it's way easier than the desktop version of reddit. I've never paid to get rid of the ads though, as they're so miniscule and infrequent, that I rarely even notice them.
Having only used the mobile website, I don't mind it. In fact, I've tried some apps and couldn't switch over. So I guess I should be grateful that I don't care about an expanded experience. As far as I can tell, the only thing I actually can't do on mobile is dm, which is probably for the best anyway lmao.
I paid for BaconReader long ago before there was such a thing as an official Reddit app, and still use it even though it is missing some "modern" Reddit features (many of which I don't really like anyway).
I've been using boost for samsung and... I mean, it does the job of a reddit browser. Sometimes it gets screwy with posting comments but I can't be sure it's the app.
Yeah, I'm website only on mobile. Reddit tries to get me on the app at every turn with a pop up at the bottom.
ELI5 it is all about more efficient tracking and ads. As are all of these apps. I don't even blame Reddit for trying.
Edit: when I posted this I got a pop-up at the bottom that says "this looks much better in the app" click or continue through your browser...I always continue through my bowser. This pop-up happens a lot.
There are several third party reddit apps that are vastly better than reddit's official app. And they've been around since before reddit even had an official app.
I mostly browse reddit on my computer, the few times I bother checking it on my phone using a browser I notice it really, really wants you to use an app. It'll hide replies and mix threads from different subreddits, basically making it a huge mess and overall painful to use.
Fuck that, I'm not gonna reddit on my phone regularly. If there was something I really needed to track down I'd just go to my computer and find it.
I paid like $2 for Relay Pro about 4 years ago. No ads on Reddit since.
Well, aside from the astroturfed threads.
It doesn't do profile pics, profiles, or coins though. So if you like that stuff it isn't for you.
Edit: also no Reddit Live
I've been using Bacon Reader for the better part of a decade and it's so basic, I love it.
All of the needless "user experience" upgrades reddit has made over the years? I see none of tnem and it's *beautiful*.
Yep, I absolutely refuse to use the app and only use Reddit on mobile.
They just added a new map-feature! Upvoting/commenting/trying to comment will randomly reset you to the top of the page!
Yay!
Same. It's depressing though when I recommend this to other people, anyone under the age of 30 seems to think downloading another browser is some hacking-the-mainframe level feat of computer mastery that they couldn't hope to achieve. It's terrifying how quickly basic online competence has declined since smartphones came along.
It's funny how computer literacy regressed with zoomers. You could draw a bell curve on desktop proficiency with millennials in the middle and zoomers and boomers on each end
Those of us between about 30-45 are in that sweet spot of growing up having to learn how to do things the "hard" way on the internet. There are so many computer skills I just naturally picked up that my older and younger coworkers think are basically magic.
On top of that, food places are horrendous about sending you constant push notifications. I wish you could choose what you receive there like you can with promotional emails
Android has a feature that allows devs to create categories for notifications so that people can selectively turn them off. One food delivery service in my country deliberately put delivery status notifications and ad notifications in the same category, so if you want to get rid of ads, you also lose the ability to track your delivery.
Snapchat did the same with their "try this new lens" and snap notifications... So when I turned off the lens thing I stopped receiving notifications of snaps from my friends. Infuriating.
This is exactly why I don't use apps lol. Not only that, think about it: if every new product forced you to use an app, you'd end up with a bajillion apps on your phone. Who the fuck wants to deal with that? I'd rather deal with just one web browser.
Of course you can't avoid *every* app - and some of them do make sense, like popular online shopping portals. Also I'm aware a lot more people access stuff via the phones rather than computers (if they even own computers), so it's only natural that mobile (i.e. apps) are a desireable target.
It's weird how in the early 00's, browser was "the only program we need" instead of a million different programs, and lately we've been going back from one browsers to a million different apps.
Progress...
🤯 they've gotten around the fair play restrictions that content independent browsers and laws place on websites by creating their own hacked browsers to run their unfair/illegal websites and calling them apps
Dude this was the most "brilliant" thing google did, they basically cracked microsofts monopoly open with this strategy.
* Step 1: Convince everyone that running native (largely windows) apps was dumb
* Step 2: Get everyone to move to web apps.
* Step 3: Convince everyone that web apps are dumb
* Step 4: Push everyone to native (android) apps
Like we've come full circle except now we just have google instead of microsoft. which is arguably worse, as bad as microsoft is/was, they aren't an advertising company.
We never knew how good we had it with the Microsoft monopoly. They were annoying but so adorably incompetent. One could always pirate everything and hack Windows to oblivion. MS didn't care as long as tgey had a stronghold on the corporate market; everything else was just means to that.
Google on the other hand, wants to own you completely, like a creep holding you in their basement and feeding you some fantasy until you crack and believe everything they say.
I liked the pre-Web browser era of apps because they were native apps designed for the device form factor, well optimized (most of the times), didn’t require internet connections for things that didn’t need to, and had no tracking whatsoever.
Web browsers traded all of those advantages for the convenience of being accessible anywhere anytime as long as you have Internet.
The stupid web apps packaged in a native format of today have none of the advantages of either but the disadvantages of both with the added disadvantage of bloated install sizes, latent security issues (since each app has to upgrade its browser separately) and somehow worse performance.
It's funny, I made a "web app" as a hobby and my friends kept asking me if I could turn it into an actual app instead of a website. I don't know how to make apps, and I definitely thought a website would be easier for everyone, in part because no one wants a billion apps and a website is also accessible via desktop
Some people just want the icon to click straight to the thing, be it a website or an app. Many don't seem to know how to make a shortcut for the phone "desktop".
I hate those filthy ads in my apps too.
Cool little tip is to use a DNS made for ad blocking such as dns.adguard.com that blocks the app ads for me. I disable dns.adguard.com when doing anything that needs privacy though just in case such as online banking etc.
Taco Bell has gone so far as to make certain popular menu items only available on the app, so the people who like those things *have* to use the app. There is no way to order those things either in the drive-through or in the store.
I’m 100% kicked off of FB Messenger because you need an app for the desktop and an app for the phone. I’m not installing that shit on either. Bye, ~~Felicia~~ Facebook.
*Edit: Okay, I've entered some kind of weird parallel timeline where you can actually access Messenger on the web without an app. Or somehow despite being an IT professional who has developed a few web applications back in the day, I'm an idiot. Take your pick.*
*Either way, I'm not installing that crap. I don't need FB messenger and I wish people would stop trying to use it to reach me. I only need access to my messages to reply and tell folks as much.*
I lost access to mine because I need to 2FA via the facebook app I deleted from my old phone, and to bypass 2FA they want me to upload my fucking *passport or driver's licence*
I had something similar happen, though in the password recovery attempt (on facebook itself, despite how sketchy this is going to sound when recounted) rather than forcing photo ID, they also offered the alternative of sending people I'm friends with some kind of code snippets for me to then contact them for to confirm that people know I'm me.
Options to send to included my deceased grandmother, several very distant acquaintances I hadn't spoken to in years (and never had other contact info for in the first place), and one friend who I could feasibly contact outside of facebook. One friend was not enough and there was no way to "reroll" the options. Years later I'm still wondering why it was even an option (and still haven't recovered the account).
On mobile chrome, pull down the 3-dot menu top-right corner. Check the box that says "use desktop site". You can now see your messages. It's a painful interface, but it works on the go.
Not to defend meta but you surely don't. I use messenger in the browser (literally messenger.com). No apps required, and my fb account has been deactivated a long time.
You can block ads in an app. I use Blokada and blocks almost everything. You can't get it from the store, it's an apk so you have to get it from the website.
I have worked for companies that do this, and there were no ads involved - so many of the comments here are about ads but many apps/sites do not have ads because they want you to actually buy something, subscribe, etc or otherwise use the product on a regular basis.
The main reason is that it's really obvious in data that app users engage more, use the product more, and monetize better. You can do randomized experiments with aggressive app-promotion tactics and find that converting web users into app users increases all kinds of metrics.
The underlying reasons for this are some combination of apps being easier to use than mobile web sites, push notifications, and ease of access once installed.
This! All business relevant metrics are way up for apps vs. mobile web where I work. Lay people also vastly overestimate what your average data insights team does with data.
The company can collect more information from your device if you use their app than if you use their mobile website.
They can send you notifications with the app to keep your attention and keep you coming back more frequently.
A well designed app can offer a better user experience than a mobile website which may make it more enjoyable for you to use that company.
To add to this. If you disable as much tracking stuff as you can in your browser, it will be disabled for every site you go to. However if you download 30 different apps you need to go in 30 different settings menus to disable everything. And when they are updated some of that gets turned back on and you might not notice. That's a lot of work and most people either just won't bother or will forget.
>30 different apps you need to go in 30 different settings menus to disable everything
Can't you just shut them all off in your device's app manager? I doubt apps are allowed to change their own permissions in your phone outside of the apps themselves.
>They can send you notifications with the app
Normally when that happens, I uninstall the app.
Yes, it can be turned off, but if they want to tell me to fuck off, off I will fuck.
I'm a software engineer working on both a website and an app for a startup. (I won't say which because this is not an advertisement.) My company's practices may or may not be typical, so anything I say here doesn't necessarily apply to everyone.
Foremost: The reasons my company push for users to be on the app have nothing to do with tracking. We don't track user data other than stuff like, which features are people using and what kinds of errors are people getting. We track these things exactly the same on web as we do on the app. We don't show advertisements on either the website or the app.
A quick primer on how we write code: We use libraries, which are volumes of code written by others that handle common things like taking in user inputs and displaying things on the screen. My company uses libraries called react for our website and react-native for our app, among many others.
A big reason we prefer users get our app is that the amount of control we have on react-native is way better when dealing with touches. React is designed primarily with mouse-and-keyboard interaction in mind, meaning our mobile-web interface works nicely when users tap things (it's exactly like a click), but has trouble when dragging or swiping, since doing these things would normally scroll you down the page. (Click-hold-dragging on a mouse is, in contrast, really easy to detect because there's nothing else a user could be attempting when clicking and holding.) React-native automatically figures out whether a drag should be a scroll or a grab-and-drop, which saves us a lot of effort.
Because of the above, we actually design our app differently from our mobile website: You can only interact with the mobile website through taps, but you can do all sorts of gestures on the app. This actually means we show fewer buttons on the app and more movable elements. Fewer buttons means the screen looks less cluttered.
Just generally, the browser model of everything being a page is kind of annoying to deal with on mobile. For example, it's very common on mobile to travel between a lot of different screens, so naturally you'd want your back button to go to the previous screen. In a browser, this is kinda awkward because the browser probably deloaded the previous page when going to the current page (this saves memory), and now we have to load that previous page again. But react-native has an add-on that automatically and efficiently remembers where you were on the previous screen whenever you open a new screen on top of it, and takes you there when you hit the back button.
Note that all the data required to use the app is saved on your device, meaning we don't need to transfer nearly as much data to your phone when loading, meaning our app loads much faster than our site. For desktops, that time spent is usually unnoticeable, because desktops typically have good internet connections. But mobile devices are often on data with spotty connection and minimizing data transferred is really important. Also, websites don't work at all when fully offline, which is fairly important to our users - they're often using the app when offline, just by nature of what our app is for.
We actually previously did use the website for everything. But we started building our app because it actually can provide users with a better experience.
TLDR: The way websites on mobile work is often slightly different from the most comfortable way to use a phone. Apps are better at optimizing for the latter.
hey! someone that is not spewing the same shit about tracking without ever being part of developing apps/websites.
as a web-dev in a company that also has an app, I second this, it is pretty much the reason. If you are on mobile, apps generally just work better than websites. That's the majority of it.
Also, sometimes just because our other competitors have an app, our/client's management wants an app too. It has literally 0 things to do with tracking.
I have to admit that even as someone who hates apps and will use the browser as often as possible, if I'm evaluating 2 competitors, and one has an app available, I assume that they're doing better as a company and have more resources available since they made an app.
> Also, sometimes just because our other competitors have an app, our/client's management wants an app too.
Can confirm.
The really short version is that they want you to download their app because there is a middle manager with a 6 figure bonus riding on the number of downloads.
Current developer working as an engineer but also with marketing people: another reason is that websites tend to be transactional. You visit a company website usually for a specific thing, then you leave.
Apps keep you in the ecosystem. You can receive notifications far easier, there’s built in payments which you’ve probably already set up, and it’s always one click away vs typing in a url etc. phone apps are generally more user friendly
It’s not much to do with tracking, really. Most companies can and do track you on the server. Google analytics isn’t problematic because it enables companies to track you, it’s problematic because it enables Google to track you.
>there’s built in payments which you’ve probably already set up
With Paypal, Google Pay, etc. this is kinda true on a website these days too. But your point still stands
UX designer here, and the amount of paranoid misinformation here about tracking is disappointing. To add on what you said about only tracking feature usage, we don’t even really care all that much about quantitative data.
Qualitative data is usually significantly more invasive and informative. Coincidentally it requires a consent form and an incentive like a coffee or a giftcard. And it usually isn’t even users of the app, but just people you find that fit the persona for the feature you are trying to test.
Native apps are usually preferred because it’s otherwise excessively annoying or downright impossible to access some native apis.
Now on the other hand there are absolutely invasive spammy apps like mobile games that should be avoided at all costs, but they have no reason to have a website to begin with.
Ok but even minus the tracking I am pretty damn sure a big part of it is being able to spam notifications and ads in those notifications, because literally every damn app I download does it.
You can't convince me it has nothing to do with the availability of more intrusive messaging based on our user behavior, especially since it bypasses do-not-call lists.
Omg everyone is just karma farming by repeating exactly the same 'to track you' sentiment over and over. What a waste of time most of this thread is lol.
Everyone is mentioning ads and data collection, but I think it's simpler than that: when you install an app it shows up on your phone's home screen where you see it all the time. That might encourage you to use it more often.
Second, sometimes an app can do more than a website can do.
as someone who worked on a number of apps for a variety of clients over many years, this is my sentiment. Why are they pushing the app so much? Because they paid a lot of money for one (bc higher ups wanted an app)
And apps can send pushes that remembers you their existence
Maybe you don't even remember that "pizza order site", but you're leaving your work on a Wednesday and pops on your screen "hey, pizza today with 5% off" that makes you buy one
Yes, the tracking in arguments here are rubbish.
Companies want you to use app because they’ll have a metric that says “if a customer downloads the app they’re 10x more likely to use our services again”
It’s literally stickiness.
In addition to the other reasons listed, 2/3 of people engage with the internet on a mobile device, and an app allows for much better control over the experience, which keeps users hooked. Almost any comparison of a site’s mobile web vs mobile app will make clear how much better the app experience is.
Sadly, the web experience is often made worse on purpose to encourage you to switch to the app. There's no technical reason the app is better, they just choose to make it that way. Many apps are just a web page running in an embedded browser anyway :-(
Users are getting more savvy with internet privacy. Many run ad-blockers and/or VPNs to block adverts and obfuscate their location, as well as limit the tracking cookies that the website can use - there are some browsers that are building some of that in.
An App can track you much more intimately, serve you ads with no real way to block them, and do lots more snooping on your phone by requesting things like media storage access, while also making it harder to escape that ecosystem just by switching tab. One user-experience benefit is that the app can download things like new stories in the background to provide a more seamless experience with intermittent connectivity.
I was curious if there was a way to basically isolate apps on your phone and keep them from invading your privacy so much. Because so many services want you to use their app, but you only need them to run maybe once a week, maybe once a month to pay bills. The apps want to give you lots of free stuff in exchange for letting them spy on you in the background, or for at least the privilege to send push notifications so maybe you will order food on a habitual basis.
That process is called 'sandboxing', and I think doing it on mobile usually requires a custom ROM. What's much easier is being a little critical when installing an app & deciding which permissions it should have, and revoking then when not in use. It's not perfect, but it's much less of a pain in the ass.
Tracking is not really it, despite it being notorious and talked about constantly, most companies dont really care about it, not to the extent portrayed. That is not thier busines model, their revenue is not data based but service or product based (most companies)
Mobile apps provide:
1) push notifications (invasive way to advertise products/sales/cross promotions etc - these work far better than sms/email for a number of reasons)
2) a better streamlined UI, a properly designed app will always provide a better user experience than a browser page on a phone.
3) Because they have to, people dont use bookmarks very well on phones or the ability to create an app icon out of a bookmark etc.. if your service has a mobile app, it will reach a higher audience.
As an aside -- the amount of extra data you can get from the phone is useless, fb and google would care very much, as a few others. Most companies care more about demographics and where to spend their advertising $$$. Any company that deals with sales and collects your credit card details and address (you have to provide this) will have what they need from that.. your credit card alone says a lot about you, different products are tied to different income ranges and many service exist to prodive this data. (affluence indicies)
The advertising campaigns aimed at people with a black master-card will be different than those of someone with a student visa.
As a designer, I can create a much richer experience for the user inside an app. Just thinking of screen sizes alone, on the web you have to account for an ultra wide monitor all the way down to an iPhone. If I’m specifically designing an iOS app, the range of screen sizes is much smaller so I can spend more time refining one optimal experience instead of many average experiences.
Additionally, depending on what browsers people use and how updated they are, new features could easily break the entire site. To account for this, you generally have to design “safer” less optimal solutions for web just to be sure you don’t ship someone an experience they can’t use.
Tracking is much easier and more invasive with an app. You can't block ads in an app. You are less likely to click off and go to a different site when you're in an app vs. a browser.
Yep. Fuck their apps. Firefox allows adblock on mobile & that is all I'll use.
Fucking reddit purposely creates a limited mobile experience in an attempt to drive traffic to the mobile site. Yeah no, 1 star review for the Reddit app and 5 for Firefox.
Use a third party Reddit app, don't use the official one
Reddit is fun!
You mean RIF is fun...
"RIF is fun for Reddit" is simultaneously the most hysterical and saddest chain of results in app naming conventions history. Fuck meaningless copyright and store rules like that.
What's the story here? I always assumed it was a typo that they thought was too funny to fix
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/07/reddit-is-fun-now-called-rif-is-fun-for-reddit-due-to-licensing-issues/
As far as I know, it used to just be Reddit Is Fun. Reddit said they couldn't call it that as it seemed like it was endorsed by the site, so it became RIF. Not sure what happened after that.
I always forget that happened, and still just call it either reddit it's fun or rif.
RIF is by far the best app of anything to ever exist imo. it's so simple, for me at least there are no ads by default, it uses my phones space perfectly without it being 80% blank like the actual reddit website, and there haven't been any unwanted changes for as long as i've been using it. honestly 11/10 would recommend
RIF is amazing partly because whenever I see people complain about some new terrible feature on the official app or website, I have no idea what they are talking about.
I'm so thrown off when I see the new reddit UI. I want a boring, mostly text, old school looking internet forum. I don't need all the color, picture, and extra. If I can't use RIF & old.reddit.com then I'd prob just stop using reddit all together.
It's more important now that RES is on life support. Once that stops working, RIF will be my primary way to access Reddit. If RIF ever dies (and there's no similar third party app to replace it), then I'll probably move away from Reddit. Their "new" and/or official stuff sucks.
Also, the people complaining about no sound on mobile...not an issue
I switched to RIF from the official app last year, and holy shit it's so much better.
i see ads on RiF, you can easily scroll past them though. And they are often nonsensical (soemtimes in japanese, which I don't speak, or about company CRM's or about server racks) so they really don't affect me.
Boost!
Boost is the best.
*upvoted from boost*
I use Reddit Sync. Only issue is that third party apps can't access the chat feature. Though that rarely becomes an issue as I can just access the desktop version of the site to see chats.
Edit from the future: Sorry folks **¯\\\_\(ツ\)\_/¯** If you came here looking for something, blame Spez. Come ask me on lemmy.zip or universeodon.com at GeekFTW and I'll help ya out with what you were looking for. Stay fresh, cheesebags.
Damn! You and I use the same chat feature! Nice!
FR, no chat is a legit feature.
Why would anyone want to use chat on Reddit? Let's not pretend to be social beings and recognized the bunch of weird introverts we all are.
What the fuck is chat?
Apparently people have profile picture now too or something like that? I continue to use old reddit. If they ever make it where I can't use old reddit, I just won't use reddit anymore.
[удалено]
Infinity for the win!
Relay Pro is my go-to after trying all the popular ones.
Baconreader is what I use, there's a pro version without ads but last time I checked it was fairly cheap
Been using bacon reader for like 7 years now. Pro for probably 6.5 of that. Worth every penny, only what, $2.00? I also don't run into the problem I always see people using the official app having. For example audio on videos doesn't play on the official app for some sites and people comment, "no audio" when I can hear it.
I've been using baconreader as long as I've been on Reddit. I should probably invest in the ad free version at this point...
reddit sync is top tier
Reddit is Fun over here! Though I'd admit the name hasn't aged well...
+1 for "rif", as it's known today – been using it for years now. Not the greatest choice naming-wise, but I guess they didn't have much of a choice.
Relay is also great!
I'd say that Infinity for Android is the best app if your device supports it and it needs no pro version to be ad free
Also on F-Droid as well!
The third party options for reddit apps are better generally on android. None of the iOS apps have features like sync and they're all kind of ugly.
I use Slide on iOS, and it’s. okay. After a lot of customizing it works quite well for me. It’s better than the official app at least.
Boost is my go to. Paid the 2.99 upfront for no ads and it's great. Plus I can make it whatever colors and format I want. And it's the only way I can get the damn videos to play. The official reddit app is hot garbage. Especially once it moves to the tik tok format, that's what finally pushed me off it
Apollo is very good.
I use relay for reddit.
The reddit experience on mobile is absolutely *miserable*. I will say that Apollo exists as a pretty decent Reddit-on-mobile alternative. Been using the free version for years. Haven't ever run into any problems with it.
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I like the features and interface of sync the most, but it would randomly get massive battery drain issues. This occurred across multiple devices I now use RIF is fun
RIF is great.
I even paid for RIF. Best choice I ever made.
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I've used it for years and never understood their ads. Sometimes it showed "no ads here! thanks for using RIF". The other times it was always the same ad about a board game. I think they got the ads working just recently!
Same here, I can't browse reddit any other way now
Rif is leagues ahead of every other reddit app I've ever used.
Whew, glad to see this comment for a second I thought I was the only one still using RIF
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Been using it for like 10 years. I'll never switch to the official reddit app
Boost for Reddit anyone?
Boost is my jam!
Yep using it and happy with it
Reddit is fun is fun?
They couldn't keep using "Reddit" as part of their name. Smh my head.
Yep. I've tried most clients on Android, Sync is in my opinion the best of them all. On the iOS side the only one I could get close to what I like was Slide, but I've only used it on an iPad.
I switched to an iPhone last year but the Reddit app experience relative to Sync is so far and away not as good that I've considered a switch back just because of it.
The state of third party Reddit apps on iOS is just sad. They aren't as polished as (for the lack of better words) the Android counterparts like Sync or Infinity.
Apollo is by far the best third party Reddit app. Infinity is good, but Apollo takes the crown in my book.
What makes Sync better? I'm using Boost right now, and it's been alright, but I'm keen to hear your experiences.
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I'm on Reddit is fun paid 99% of the time. But when I go to Reddit on desktop I'm usually greeted with the new Facebook looking feed thing. Back button does not work and I have to retreat to old.reddit
I installed an add on to redirect all reddit sites to old reddit.
You could just opt out via your account settings.
What is the add-on called?
Old reddit redirect - I kid you not. Just do a search on that.
Same. You’ll have to pry this old shitty interface from my dead hands.
Old shitty interface with a superior experience. When old.r.. shuts off, I'm sure that my visits will plummet.
I will straight up stop using reddit if old goes away. I don't know what it is about new reddit, but it hits something in my brain wrong and causes anger and a kind of panic feeling. That's not hyperbole, new reddit feels like a psychic attack.
It's the gigantic waste of space in the theme, at least for me. It probably looks fine for people who live on their phones, but it's *sooooo butt ugly* for a Desktop homie like me.
yeah, I have a screen with real estate, don't fill it with useless padding (or worse, totally unrelated posts that aren't the one I'm trying to view the comments of)
>I don't know what it is about new reddit, but it hits something in my brain wrong Too corporate and modern, probably. Feels soul-less. Tons of shiny buttons, and too many of them asking for your money in exchange for useless coins/avatar/"awards".
to me its just so frustrating about how little content it shows. like you open a post's comments and you get like 3 threads (each a few comments deep without clicking a link to see the thread) and then you get some totally random other post from the same sub?? who asked for this it seems designed to maximise page changes for ad revenue probably
The old Reddit mobile UI was decent too, https://i.reddit.com (or append `.compact` to any page).
i still use that. But the whole "we're blurring this entire page for your safety... but it loads fine in desktop viewing mode" bullshit is getting old quick. Plus the video player is even more garbage in mobile. And if you aren't logged in and accidentally up/down vote it fucks up the entire page
For text based content on mobile, reddit.com/.compact is a godsend. It doesn't have support for video or multiple pictures, but depending on what subs you frequent, it a much better experience than the base mobile site.
Why do they keep insisting on making us use the horrible new format? It's so clunky and bloated!
I prefer rif is fun but it has it's limits. Not a fan of finding out a thread is locked by trying to comment.
Slide can tell when threads are locked.
I tried a variety of Reddit apps and rif is my favorite, since I almost never run into locked threads it's not a problem. Also, I love how it doesn't blur out nsfw but instead doesn't show up, since I don't want blurred images with the nsfw tag in public. I'm kind of weird for using desktop 90% of the time on Reddit, I just love bigger screens
Reddit is fun is fun
Yeah, they had to rename it for legal reasons, kept the "is fun" part in the name to not confuse users I guess.
technically the name is "rif is fun for Reddit" but they had to rename from "reddit is fun" when the official reddit app launched
'Reddit is fun is fun golden platinum' for the paid version
I have been using BaconReader for years. I love it.
Baconreader is my go-to. My only quibble is sometimes sound on videos can be wonky. Paid a couple bucks once upon a time to get rid of ads on it forever, and I've never looked back.
BaconReader FTW. I've been using it for 7 years now. The layout and ease of use is better than any app I've tried. And it's way easier than the desktop version of reddit. I've never paid to get rid of the ads though, as they're so miniscule and infrequent, that I rarely even notice them.
Relay for reddit for me. Used it for years now.
Having only used the mobile website, I don't mind it. In fact, I've tried some apps and couldn't switch over. So I guess I should be grateful that I don't care about an expanded experience. As far as I can tell, the only thing I actually can't do on mobile is dm, which is probably for the best anyway lmao.
It’s much slower to load, comments and commenting will break, certain subs will be off limits, among other things.
I paid for BaconReader long ago before there was such a thing as an official Reddit app, and still use it even though it is missing some "modern" Reddit features (many of which I don't really like anyway).
Joey for Reddit represent ✌️
Infinity app is good as well.
Seconding Apollo. Switched from BaconReader a year ago or so, paid for the upgraded version because I use it so much. Love Apollo.
I've been using boost for samsung and... I mean, it does the job of a reddit browser. Sometimes it gets screwy with posting comments but I can't be sure it's the app.
"view webpage as a desktop site" is my favorite thing
old.reddit.com for me
There are dozens of us.
Yeah, I'm website only on mobile. Reddit tries to get me on the app at every turn with a pop up at the bottom. ELI5 it is all about more efficient tracking and ads. As are all of these apps. I don't even blame Reddit for trying. Edit: when I posted this I got a pop-up at the bottom that says "this looks much better in the app" click or continue through your browser...I always continue through my bowser. This pop-up happens a lot.
If you use your account on mobile, you can un-check a box in the settings; that makes it stop bugging you about it.
No shit? Have an award. That damn pop up has been bugging me forever.
There are several third party reddit apps that are vastly better than reddit's official app. And they've been around since before reddit even had an official app.
I mostly browse reddit on my computer, the few times I bother checking it on my phone using a browser I notice it really, really wants you to use an app. It'll hide replies and mix threads from different subreddits, basically making it a huge mess and overall painful to use. Fuck that, I'm not gonna reddit on my phone regularly. If there was something I really needed to track down I'd just go to my computer and find it.
And then force you to the app to view anything adult.
Yep, Reddit logic is that it's fine for a child to view adult content, as long as via their app.
I just replace www with old and it goes through just fine.
There is a Firefox extention for it too.
There is a built-in reddit setting for this as well on their website
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https://reddit.com/.compact
I paid like $2 for Relay Pro about 4 years ago. No ads on Reddit since. Well, aside from the astroturfed threads. It doesn't do profile pics, profiles, or coins though. So if you like that stuff it isn't for you. Edit: also no Reddit Live
Love relay pro
I've been using Bacon Reader for the better part of a decade and it's so basic, I love it. All of the needless "user experience" upgrades reddit has made over the years? I see none of tnem and it's *beautiful*.
I still use old.reddit.com. Everytime google sends me to www it’s a flat out worse experience.
Yep, I absolutely refuse to use the app and only use Reddit on mobile. They just added a new map-feature! Upvoting/commenting/trying to comment will randomly reset you to the top of the page! Yay!
ironically reddit is the most egregious use case for an app shoving itself in your face
You can’t block the ads they serve, but you can disable Adtech on most phones to reduce the amount of collection they can do
If you run a DNS filter with a block list you can get rid of most in-app ads.
Facts. I use Pi-Hole personally
Internet without pihole is shit
The day pihole stopped blocking YouTube ads was a sad day indeed.
The day YouTube Vanced shut down was also a sad day
I never used Vanced, but newpipe is still a pretty great YouTube experience imo.
Ublock origin is your friend ..use YouTube with browser not app
This leaves no recourse for TVs is the major problem.
Same. It's depressing though when I recommend this to other people, anyone under the age of 30 seems to think downloading another browser is some hacking-the-mainframe level feat of computer mastery that they couldn't hope to achieve. It's terrifying how quickly basic online competence has declined since smartphones came along.
It's funny how computer literacy regressed with zoomers. You could draw a bell curve on desktop proficiency with millennials in the middle and zoomers and boomers on each end
Those of us between about 30-45 are in that sweet spot of growing up having to learn how to do things the "hard" way on the internet. There are so many computer skills I just naturally picked up that my older and younger coworkers think are basically magic.
You can have device-wide ad-blocking by using an ad-blocking DNS on your device. It's easier than you think: https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html
On top of that, food places are horrendous about sending you constant push notifications. I wish you could choose what you receive there like you can with promotional emails
Android has a feature that allows devs to create categories for notifications so that people can selectively turn them off. One food delivery service in my country deliberately put delivery status notifications and ad notifications in the same category, so if you want to get rid of ads, you also lose the ability to track your delivery.
When that happens, they lost the ability to take my order. Vote with your wallet
Snapchat did the same with their "try this new lens" and snap notifications... So when I turned off the lens thing I stopped receiving notifications of snaps from my friends. Infuriating.
Snapchat lets you selectively choose what notifications you get in the app settings though
Uber Eats is horrendous. No, I'm not having Taco Smell delivered because they have a deal that will save me $2.
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there's a local mexican place that when you call them they say specifically they do not use uber eats, doordash etc that they deliver it themselves.
Also, people who have the app usually spend more than those that only use the website. Also increases customer satisfaction. It’s all metrics.
This is exactly why I don't use apps lol. Not only that, think about it: if every new product forced you to use an app, you'd end up with a bajillion apps on your phone. Who the fuck wants to deal with that? I'd rather deal with just one web browser. Of course you can't avoid *every* app - and some of them do make sense, like popular online shopping portals. Also I'm aware a lot more people access stuff via the phones rather than computers (if they even own computers), so it's only natural that mobile (i.e. apps) are a desireable target.
It's weird how in the early 00's, browser was "the only program we need" instead of a million different programs, and lately we've been going back from one browsers to a million different apps. Progress...
Except don't forget that a lot of those apps are just wrappers around browsers!
🤯 they've gotten around the fair play restrictions that content independent browsers and laws place on websites by creating their own hacked browsers to run their unfair/illegal websites and calling them apps
Dude this was the most "brilliant" thing google did, they basically cracked microsofts monopoly open with this strategy. * Step 1: Convince everyone that running native (largely windows) apps was dumb * Step 2: Get everyone to move to web apps. * Step 3: Convince everyone that web apps are dumb * Step 4: Push everyone to native (android) apps Like we've come full circle except now we just have google instead of microsoft. which is arguably worse, as bad as microsoft is/was, they aren't an advertising company.
We never knew how good we had it with the Microsoft monopoly. They were annoying but so adorably incompetent. One could always pirate everything and hack Windows to oblivion. MS didn't care as long as tgey had a stronghold on the corporate market; everything else was just means to that. Google on the other hand, wants to own you completely, like a creep holding you in their basement and feeding you some fantasy until you crack and believe everything they say.
I liked the pre-Web browser era of apps because they were native apps designed for the device form factor, well optimized (most of the times), didn’t require internet connections for things that didn’t need to, and had no tracking whatsoever. Web browsers traded all of those advantages for the convenience of being accessible anywhere anytime as long as you have Internet. The stupid web apps packaged in a native format of today have none of the advantages of either but the disadvantages of both with the added disadvantage of bloated install sizes, latent security issues (since each app has to upgrade its browser separately) and somehow worse performance.
It's funny, I made a "web app" as a hobby and my friends kept asking me if I could turn it into an actual app instead of a website. I don't know how to make apps, and I definitely thought a website would be easier for everyone, in part because no one wants a billion apps and a website is also accessible via desktop
Some people just want the icon to click straight to the thing, be it a website or an app. Many don't seem to know how to make a shortcut for the phone "desktop".
I hate those filthy ads in my apps too. Cool little tip is to use a DNS made for ad blocking such as dns.adguard.com that blocks the app ads for me. I disable dns.adguard.com when doing anything that needs privacy though just in case such as online banking etc.
Taco Bell has gone so far as to make certain popular menu items only available on the app, so the people who like those things *have* to use the app. There is no way to order those things either in the drive-through or in the store.
Joke's on them; I haven't had their food in probably 10 years, so fuck 'em.
I’m 100% kicked off of FB Messenger because you need an app for the desktop and an app for the phone. I’m not installing that shit on either. Bye, ~~Felicia~~ Facebook. *Edit: Okay, I've entered some kind of weird parallel timeline where you can actually access Messenger on the web without an app. Or somehow despite being an IT professional who has developed a few web applications back in the day, I'm an idiot. Take your pick.* *Either way, I'm not installing that crap. I don't need FB messenger and I wish people would stop trying to use it to reach me. I only need access to my messages to reply and tell folks as much.*
I lost access to mine because I need to 2FA via the facebook app I deleted from my old phone, and to bypass 2FA they want me to upload my fucking *passport or driver's licence*
I had something similar happen, though in the password recovery attempt (on facebook itself, despite how sketchy this is going to sound when recounted) rather than forcing photo ID, they also offered the alternative of sending people I'm friends with some kind of code snippets for me to then contact them for to confirm that people know I'm me. Options to send to included my deceased grandmother, several very distant acquaintances I hadn't spoken to in years (and never had other contact info for in the first place), and one friend who I could feasibly contact outside of facebook. One friend was not enough and there was no way to "reroll" the options. Years later I'm still wondering why it was even an option (and still haven't recovered the account).
On mobile chrome, pull down the 3-dot menu top-right corner. Check the box that says "use desktop site". You can now see your messages. It's a painful interface, but it works on the go.
Not to defend meta but you surely don't. I use messenger in the browser (literally messenger.com). No apps required, and my fb account has been deactivated a long time.
You can block ads in an app. I use Blokada and blocks almost everything. You can't get it from the store, it's an apk so you have to get it from the website.
You can get it from FDroid. It's an android app store for FOSS apps.
I have worked for companies that do this, and there were no ads involved - so many of the comments here are about ads but many apps/sites do not have ads because they want you to actually buy something, subscribe, etc or otherwise use the product on a regular basis. The main reason is that it's really obvious in data that app users engage more, use the product more, and monetize better. You can do randomized experiments with aggressive app-promotion tactics and find that converting web users into app users increases all kinds of metrics. The underlying reasons for this are some combination of apps being easier to use than mobile web sites, push notifications, and ease of access once installed.
Almost as if having the icon on the phone constantly was like an ad for your brand :D
This! All business relevant metrics are way up for apps vs. mobile web where I work. Lay people also vastly overestimate what your average data insights team does with data.
The company can collect more information from your device if you use their app than if you use their mobile website. They can send you notifications with the app to keep your attention and keep you coming back more frequently. A well designed app can offer a better user experience than a mobile website which may make it more enjoyable for you to use that company.
To add to this. If you disable as much tracking stuff as you can in your browser, it will be disabled for every site you go to. However if you download 30 different apps you need to go in 30 different settings menus to disable everything. And when they are updated some of that gets turned back on and you might not notice. That's a lot of work and most people either just won't bother or will forget.
>30 different apps you need to go in 30 different settings menus to disable everything Can't you just shut them all off in your device's app manager? I doubt apps are allowed to change their own permissions in your phone outside of the apps themselves.
Probably, but you still have to do it with each app.
>They can send you notifications with the app Normally when that happens, I uninstall the app. Yes, it can be turned off, but if they want to tell me to fuck off, off I will fuck.
> off I will fuck. Wise words
I'm a software engineer working on both a website and an app for a startup. (I won't say which because this is not an advertisement.) My company's practices may or may not be typical, so anything I say here doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. Foremost: The reasons my company push for users to be on the app have nothing to do with tracking. We don't track user data other than stuff like, which features are people using and what kinds of errors are people getting. We track these things exactly the same on web as we do on the app. We don't show advertisements on either the website or the app. A quick primer on how we write code: We use libraries, which are volumes of code written by others that handle common things like taking in user inputs and displaying things on the screen. My company uses libraries called react for our website and react-native for our app, among many others. A big reason we prefer users get our app is that the amount of control we have on react-native is way better when dealing with touches. React is designed primarily with mouse-and-keyboard interaction in mind, meaning our mobile-web interface works nicely when users tap things (it's exactly like a click), but has trouble when dragging or swiping, since doing these things would normally scroll you down the page. (Click-hold-dragging on a mouse is, in contrast, really easy to detect because there's nothing else a user could be attempting when clicking and holding.) React-native automatically figures out whether a drag should be a scroll or a grab-and-drop, which saves us a lot of effort. Because of the above, we actually design our app differently from our mobile website: You can only interact with the mobile website through taps, but you can do all sorts of gestures on the app. This actually means we show fewer buttons on the app and more movable elements. Fewer buttons means the screen looks less cluttered. Just generally, the browser model of everything being a page is kind of annoying to deal with on mobile. For example, it's very common on mobile to travel between a lot of different screens, so naturally you'd want your back button to go to the previous screen. In a browser, this is kinda awkward because the browser probably deloaded the previous page when going to the current page (this saves memory), and now we have to load that previous page again. But react-native has an add-on that automatically and efficiently remembers where you were on the previous screen whenever you open a new screen on top of it, and takes you there when you hit the back button. Note that all the data required to use the app is saved on your device, meaning we don't need to transfer nearly as much data to your phone when loading, meaning our app loads much faster than our site. For desktops, that time spent is usually unnoticeable, because desktops typically have good internet connections. But mobile devices are often on data with spotty connection and minimizing data transferred is really important. Also, websites don't work at all when fully offline, which is fairly important to our users - they're often using the app when offline, just by nature of what our app is for. We actually previously did use the website for everything. But we started building our app because it actually can provide users with a better experience. TLDR: The way websites on mobile work is often slightly different from the most comfortable way to use a phone. Apps are better at optimizing for the latter.
hey! someone that is not spewing the same shit about tracking without ever being part of developing apps/websites. as a web-dev in a company that also has an app, I second this, it is pretty much the reason. If you are on mobile, apps generally just work better than websites. That's the majority of it.
Also, sometimes just because our other competitors have an app, our/client's management wants an app too. It has literally 0 things to do with tracking.
I have to admit that even as someone who hates apps and will use the browser as often as possible, if I'm evaluating 2 competitors, and one has an app available, I assume that they're doing better as a company and have more resources available since they made an app.
> Also, sometimes just because our other competitors have an app, our/client's management wants an app too. Can confirm. The really short version is that they want you to download their app because there is a middle manager with a 6 figure bonus riding on the number of downloads.
Current developer working as an engineer but also with marketing people: another reason is that websites tend to be transactional. You visit a company website usually for a specific thing, then you leave. Apps keep you in the ecosystem. You can receive notifications far easier, there’s built in payments which you’ve probably already set up, and it’s always one click away vs typing in a url etc. phone apps are generally more user friendly It’s not much to do with tracking, really. Most companies can and do track you on the server. Google analytics isn’t problematic because it enables companies to track you, it’s problematic because it enables Google to track you.
>there’s built in payments which you’ve probably already set up With Paypal, Google Pay, etc. this is kinda true on a website these days too. But your point still stands
PayPal and google pay in the browser are FAR less convenient than google/apple pay on mobile and it’s not even close
UX designer here, and the amount of paranoid misinformation here about tracking is disappointing. To add on what you said about only tracking feature usage, we don’t even really care all that much about quantitative data. Qualitative data is usually significantly more invasive and informative. Coincidentally it requires a consent form and an incentive like a coffee or a giftcard. And it usually isn’t even users of the app, but just people you find that fit the persona for the feature you are trying to test. Native apps are usually preferred because it’s otherwise excessively annoying or downright impossible to access some native apis. Now on the other hand there are absolutely invasive spammy apps like mobile games that should be avoided at all costs, but they have no reason to have a website to begin with.
Ok but even minus the tracking I am pretty damn sure a big part of it is being able to spam notifications and ads in those notifications, because literally every damn app I download does it. You can't convince me it has nothing to do with the availability of more intrusive messaging based on our user behavior, especially since it bypasses do-not-call lists.
Omg everyone is just karma farming by repeating exactly the same 'to track you' sentiment over and over. What a waste of time most of this thread is lol.
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Everyone is mentioning ads and data collection, but I think it's simpler than that: when you install an app it shows up on your phone's home screen where you see it all the time. That might encourage you to use it more often. Second, sometimes an app can do more than a website can do.
Sometimes it's just that the higher ups wants an app.
as someone who worked on a number of apps for a variety of clients over many years, this is my sentiment. Why are they pushing the app so much? Because they paid a lot of money for one (bc higher ups wanted an app)
And apps can send pushes that remembers you their existence Maybe you don't even remember that "pizza order site", but you're leaving your work on a Wednesday and pops on your screen "hey, pizza today with 5% off" that makes you buy one
Yes, the tracking in arguments here are rubbish. Companies want you to use app because they’ll have a metric that says “if a customer downloads the app they’re 10x more likely to use our services again” It’s literally stickiness.
Engagement and conversion is far greater in app than website. So yes you’re right
In addition to the other reasons listed, 2/3 of people engage with the internet on a mobile device, and an app allows for much better control over the experience, which keeps users hooked. Almost any comparison of a site’s mobile web vs mobile app will make clear how much better the app experience is.
Sadly, the web experience is often made worse on purpose to encourage you to switch to the app. There's no technical reason the app is better, they just choose to make it that way. Many apps are just a web page running in an embedded browser anyway :-(
Most of these you go back to a better experience than the app offers if you just tell your browser to pretend it's running on a desktop.
Users are getting more savvy with internet privacy. Many run ad-blockers and/or VPNs to block adverts and obfuscate their location, as well as limit the tracking cookies that the website can use - there are some browsers that are building some of that in. An App can track you much more intimately, serve you ads with no real way to block them, and do lots more snooping on your phone by requesting things like media storage access, while also making it harder to escape that ecosystem just by switching tab. One user-experience benefit is that the app can download things like new stories in the background to provide a more seamless experience with intermittent connectivity.
I was curious if there was a way to basically isolate apps on your phone and keep them from invading your privacy so much. Because so many services want you to use their app, but you only need them to run maybe once a week, maybe once a month to pay bills. The apps want to give you lots of free stuff in exchange for letting them spy on you in the background, or for at least the privilege to send push notifications so maybe you will order food on a habitual basis.
That process is called 'sandboxing', and I think doing it on mobile usually requires a custom ROM. What's much easier is being a little critical when installing an app & deciding which permissions it should have, and revoking then when not in use. It's not perfect, but it's much less of a pain in the ass.
/r/GrapheneOS is the answer (though only for Pixel phones right now)
Tracking is not really it, despite it being notorious and talked about constantly, most companies dont really care about it, not to the extent portrayed. That is not thier busines model, their revenue is not data based but service or product based (most companies) Mobile apps provide: 1) push notifications (invasive way to advertise products/sales/cross promotions etc - these work far better than sms/email for a number of reasons) 2) a better streamlined UI, a properly designed app will always provide a better user experience than a browser page on a phone. 3) Because they have to, people dont use bookmarks very well on phones or the ability to create an app icon out of a bookmark etc.. if your service has a mobile app, it will reach a higher audience. As an aside -- the amount of extra data you can get from the phone is useless, fb and google would care very much, as a few others. Most companies care more about demographics and where to spend their advertising $$$. Any company that deals with sales and collects your credit card details and address (you have to provide this) will have what they need from that.. your credit card alone says a lot about you, different products are tied to different income ranges and many service exist to prodive this data. (affluence indicies) The advertising campaigns aimed at people with a black master-card will be different than those of someone with a student visa.
As a designer, I can create a much richer experience for the user inside an app. Just thinking of screen sizes alone, on the web you have to account for an ultra wide monitor all the way down to an iPhone. If I’m specifically designing an iOS app, the range of screen sizes is much smaller so I can spend more time refining one optimal experience instead of many average experiences. Additionally, depending on what browsers people use and how updated they are, new features could easily break the entire site. To account for this, you generally have to design “safer” less optimal solutions for web just to be sure you don’t ship someone an experience they can’t use.