• AdequateSteve@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    They can serve you ads just fine on mobile web, that’s not it. It’s that the app let’s them track your behavior far better than the web browser.

    • Preston Maness ☭@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      They can serve you ads just fine on mobile web, that’s not it. It’s that the app let’s them track your behavior far better than the web browser.

      It’s both. Firefox for Android lets you run uBlockOrigin, effectively killing the ads.

      • pachrist@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I run a DNS based ad and tracking blocker on my home network (similar to Pihole) through my router, and it’s amazing what apps are totally incapable of running with those restrictions in place. Amazon’s app doesn’t work, neither does Wells Fargo. Apps that do this are absolutely predatory and need to be regulated. They harvest my data in shady, insecure, annoying, obtrusive ways, and if they or their customer’s mishandle it, I have essentially no recourse, except for maybe a $0.32 payout as part of a class action lawsuit.

        Would I have given my data to Cambridge Analytica? No. Did Facebook? Yes. Was it mishandled? Totally. What recompense will I get from it? Nothing! Will it happen again? Absolutely.

        • Nioxic@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          me and my wife also quit using apps

          every god damn company has an app. “Get a bonus if you shop using the app”, etc etc etc. it’s all about tracking us, snatching data and of course that little app icon is “easy” to click to spend more money, right? I hate it so much

          with reddit gone i’ll only have my bloonsTD app and my 2 factor auth for a couple of services (net banking and a few other things)

          im nearing the point where i dont really see the use for a smartphone

          • TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I legit have floated the idea of ditching my smartphone several times. I hardly do anything on my phone anymore because of how awful and predator basically every app is now, even paid apps. I might as well just get a feature/dumb phone that has LTE and just set up a hotspot for my laptop.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You know what’s most fucked up about all of these types of practices? It’s that they had something great and have deliberately slowly destroyed it because of unchecked greed. Same with Facebook. They had a site so great that like 60% of the people on the entire planet signed up. They’ve been making money. Reddit and Facebook make millions of dollars a month. But it’s not enough for them. Nooo. They have to make billions. They have to make enough money to buy governments and amass as much power as small nations. The men running these companies are soulless. They try to fill the hole in their hearts with money, but it will never be enough. They’ve taken something that was amazing, something that benefitted billions of people, and destroyed it to serve their own selfish greed.

    • arin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They are trying what Facebook did to their Facebook chat, forcing users to use the app by banning mobile web access

        • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m one of those who just walked away.

          I checked out Facebook recently because I needed help moving and it was the quickest way to ask everyone I knew.

          That shit is like 90 percent ads and clickbait tick tocks now. It’s fucked. I don’t understand how people can use it without becoming enraged.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I use it solely to talk to friends and family members who I otherwise wouldn’t be in touch with. I don’t participate in groups or get into arguments or anything like that. That, plus being able to dismiss things like political ads so you never have to see them (at least for now), make it acceptable for me to use. I wouldn’t say it’s a great experience in any way, but it isn’t bad enough for me to find new ways to keep in touch with those people.

            • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I just started texting my friends and family more. It’s been better and now when I see Facebook I wonder why I ever liked it in the first place.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                That would work with some of them, but others want to talk primarily through Facebook for now. Minimal use of it just to talk to them works for me at the moment. It could easily change if the experience gets even worse.

          • MrFlamey@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I don’t think everyone hates ads quite so much as some of us. I have ads blocked on pretty much everything and use YouTube only through Kiwi browser with ublock to avoid ads. Sometimes I click a link that opens the regular app and an ad starts playing. I immediately feel irritated and close it, but the intensity of irritation is sometimes a bit worrying!

          • st3ph3n@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            My main use case for facebook now is buying used shit locally on Marketplace, since they have effectively killed craigslist with it. It’s where I found my motorcycle. As an actual social network experience it sucks ass.

          • TheInsane42@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I haven’t deleted the account (yet, pretty unjused right now), but never installed an app of them. Via the browser they’re already way to obnoxious.

        • rDrDr@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Me too, but apparently Facebook survives without us. Turns out the most valuable Facebook users are actually retirees waiting to be scammed by shady advertisers.

        • arin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Now you can, but back then you couldn’t when they initially started their messenger app

        • arin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Now you can, but back then you couldn’t when they initially started their messenger app

        • gornar@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          On iOS at least, fb messenger on mobile is just a redirect to the app store to get the app, the Web messenger is not functional anymore, sadly. At least when I just tested it just now!

          • waatchaa@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You have to force your iOS browser into « desktop mode » to access the web version of fb messenger on iOS. It’s just « working », not really usable through….

    • w2tpmf@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Also when they blocked being able to open subs with “age restricted content” on mobile browser. That doesn’t mean porn either. I’ve been running into it for a while on discussions relating to guns or drugs/alcohol. You either have to switch to desktop mode or open the comments in the app.

    • zeppo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      To force people to use their app, of course. Facebook did that several years ago with Messenger. There’s no real reason to not have mobile browser access to it other than to try to make people use the app so it can spy on you in various ways.

    • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My guess is this is only for mobile users which would explain why when the OP request a desk top version of the site he can still log in. That way they can push more mobile users to the app and shove all sorts of ads down their throat and there’s nothing they can do about it. You can block ads on a browser, you can’t in the official Reddit app.

      Shut down all the 3P apps. Prevent mobile users from being able to use their browser on mobile, forcing them to grab the official app. Load it to high hell with ads… Profit.

      • kylian0087@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You can not block in the official app “yet” Wouldnt surprise me if we get some form of Revanced reddit app at some point. Same thing which youtube vanced. For me killing off the infinity for reddit app is my call to not use reddit on mobile anymore but a full switch to lemmy instead.

        • pannacotta__@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It actually already exists. The ReVanced project, which has continued to update YouTube Vanced after it shut down, has also expanded to other apps. I’ve only used their YouTube and YouTube Music apps, but I can’t imagine the experience on their apps would be any worse than reddit’s current app, given that it’s essentially the same plus their patches to it.

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    They can get fucked then. I’m tired of this closed internet, walled garden attitude from large social media companies. They’ve taken the tools that people built to make information free and available, and have locked them down for their own selfish purposes. I will not give them any more of my time.

    • BromSwolligans@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Right like how you can’t copy images from Pinterest, a site that populates all your Google Image searches. Like you fuckers didn’t create this content. You just got people to upload it to your site then blocked anyone else from accessing it without a membership and a share link.

  • RoyaltyInTraining@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    CEOs will happily restrict your freedoms for just a bit of profit, and destroy any competitors who threaten their monopoly. I don’t get how anyone can defend this system in good faith.

    • Temple Square@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Can’t eliminate the “I’ll just do without” competition.

      Like, when I got rid of Netflix… I didn’t sign up for an additional new service. I just watch YouTube.

      When I stopped using Facebook so much, I didn’t go to another service – I just didn’t use social media as much.

    • hydrian@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      People need to realize that using services like Reddit isn’t a freedom, it is a privilege. Their servers, their rules.

      People need to not accept services with a single point of failure, like a company. Time and time again, we have seen failure or degradation of services by companies. Ex. Twitter, Reddit, Yahoo. Twitch and Discord are heading the same way too.

      People if people want to be free from these antics, we need to teach companies we won’t accept data silos. We want and NEED decentralized federated services.

  • laxe
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    1 year ago

    Makes no difference to me.

    I stopped using Reddit and I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about this kind of user hostile changes.

  • Danatronic@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    They don’t know that the primary use case for reddit on mobile is getting good answers from Google.

  • dust_accelerator@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Spoofing user agents go brrrrrr

    Seriously, the data mining is going to put so much load on their servers, this is whole thing screams “management considered the technology teams assessment, but decided to go forward with [dumb project codename for fucking the platform over]”

    • HelixDab@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, so, uh, m.facebook.com has made a sudden and radical change in the last few days. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it’s currently not usable for me. I don’t know if that’s happening to multiple people.

      • ZenGrammy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I use Friendly social Browser on Android. It’s basically a wrapper for the mobile website and allows me to sort posts the way I want them, which is important to me. I don’t want the algorithm. I’ve used it for years. It works with quite a few different social media sites and doesn’t allow all the tracking. I have the Plus version and I’m allowed to turn off ads on both the app and Facebook and block “stories” and other silliness I don’t care for. I don’t know if the free version does all of that.

          • ZenGrammy@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It currently works with the official mobile site. It would be great if it were more like old reddit but I just opened it for the first time and it’s miles better than using Chrome on mobile for me just because of the ad blocker and ability to keep the feed from suggesting random shit.

  • yay@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    With how awful the interface is and how it spams me with DOWNLOAD THE APP TO SEE MORE, it kinda already “blocks” it for me. Browsing via Libreddit on mobile is so much better.

    • richneptune@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Not only that but some features like Chat just redirect you to the app on Reddit mobile web, and it’s too cumbersome to use the desktop Reddit chat on a mobile browser.

  • Bonehead@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    And this is where I stop using Reddit altogether. I don’t want to use any app, let alone the piss poor official app. I can barely read the site in desktop on my phone. And I only access it from my phone. So there’s no reason left to go there. Taking away the compact site was bad enough, taking away the entire mobile site is the last straw…

    • werds@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      But we need to track all your mouse movements, browsing history, eye gaze, hand shake, geolocation data, shopping habbits, political opinions, friends and family connections, to make it a better experience for you honest!