The Boost android client for Lemmy is displaying these dark pattern ads pretending to be system notifications. What security/privacy conscious Lemmy clients do you recommend?
Boost dev here. There should be an Ad icon on the top right to report the ad. Not sure why it is not showing in this case. I will try to block those ads in the AdMob console. Edit: Done
How about you remove ads entirely like other competing apps do? Until you promise that your app won't advertise to me nor track me, I have no reason to use it over much better alternatives like Voyager that don't invade my privacy.
I'm not a boost user, but why does boost have ads exactly? Why don't you just ask users to buy a license a la grayjay? Make it 0.99 or less. This has a few advantages:
You'll make more per user than you ever will with ads
Users won't be tracked endlessly
It's good PR for the app
Also quick question, where is the source code for Boost? I can't seem to find it
This is a bad mindset. Even though FOSS software is a good thing, but there is nothing wrong to make money from their hard work, you cannot and should not force developers to work for free if they don't want to.
If you want free software then there are FOSS alternative options out there and nobody forces you to use Boost.
there is nothing wrong to make money from their hard work
I assume you didn't read my parent comment or perhaps you extrapolated on my beliefs without asking. I even proposed a direct way to ask users to pay.
you cannot and should not force developers to work for free if they don’t want to.
My word, of course not! Where did you get the impression that I want that from? I would NEVER propose something like that, as it stands against everything I believe in; in fact if you read through my history on lemmy I am certain that you're gonna find plenty of proof of that.
I stand by the original meaning of the word when I say FOSS. It does NOT mean gratis; the misuse of the term FOSS as gratis is my biggest pet peeve. I don't care how much you charge for your software, if I like the software I will pay for it, exactly how much you're asking, without a problem.
The F in FOSS stands for Freedom, not price. I have paid for most FOSS software I use on a regular basis and I'm a HUGE proponent of paid FOSS and I have, multiple times, asked FOSS developers that release gratis software to PLEASE open up donations; I do this constantly and I think I may even have done it here on lemmy once or twice.
If you want free software then there are FOSS options out there and nobody forces you to use Boost.
Indeed. My preferred client at the moment is the web ui on desktop and jerboa on mobile. Those are FOSS and developed by the developers of lemmy themselves (to whom I HAVE donated to). But I was thinking about switching client, which is why I asked for the code for Boost to see if it's software I would be willing to run on my device (and pay for!).
In fact I will even go as far as to say that it is your RESPONSIBILITY as a user of FOSS applications to donate if you can.
To me if software is not FOSS it signals one thing: they are doing something they don't want me to know about, sometimes this is acceptable (tho never preferred), but that's the exception, not the rule.
Being able to decide what software runs on your machine should never be a point of contention. Non FOSS software is always a trade off, and for most things (including lemmy clients), it's not one I'm willing to make, nor should you!
Regarding boost, yep my bad! I did not know that when I asked that question.
As for grayjay, it's source available, that's fine to me, there is a difference naturally and it's worth discussing, but I'd rather live in a world where every piece of software is source available and we discuss the merits of source availability vs pure FOSS, than in a world where understanding our software requires days or months of work looking at asm and poking it with a stick
The ads come from an ad network where there is very little visibility into what's going to be displayed in your app. And bad people also keep managing to get their ads published even though the ad network doesn't allow them
And it all ties into the whole targeted advertising, where they also make sure very few people get the bad ad, and tries to target people they think may be more susceptible to these kinds of tactics. Depending on the amount of interactivity allowed, the ad can even display two different things if it deems you too savvy to fall for it.
It's basically unescapable unless you only use apps without ads, or pay for the ad-free versions.
The whole advertising industry is sketchy, more news at 10.
Pi-hole blocks ads served by these networks just fine. Never seen an ad in Boost for Lemmy or for Reddit, though I tend to use Jerboa now that I've gotten used to it while I was waiting for Boost for Lemmy to release.
DNS based adblocking like Pihole or Adguard limits you to receiving advertising hosted by the app provider (youtube for example) which is usually better curated than third party advertising networks and less commonly found at all.
Maybe in comming years, but I've never encountered an ad served explicitly through DoH/DoT. It's certainly possible, just not actually in use yet.
You can also setup DoH front and back ends for pihole so traffic entering and leaving it is encrypted. When/if it becomes necessary I'll probably look into https packet inspection using custom Root certs to force clients to use my local DoH services and block other traffic, or look into inspecting the SNI to apply blocking there; but again its just not needed yet and may not be for a long time. We'll see. I'm sure the pihole/Adguard teams are also investigating solutions.
Hey, could you elaborate or send some lecture? I have the upstream quad9 DoH address in adguard. It's supposed to better encrypt my traffic right? Never saw any ads or strange DNS requests.
Never heard about ads being inject though DoH or DoT, or did I misunderstood your comment?
Theoretically an app could use a custom DoH endpoint to retrieve ads instead of the standard dns provided by the system. As this uses purely https without a preceding dns request, pihole/adguard would fail to block it; but it's just not something currently employed.
Yep, also the ads don't get initialized at all if the user buys the ad-free version (going to top all in the Lemmy Boost community should bring up the post about it). It's relatively cheap and the dev is very active with bugs and requests. The dev is developing for the Fediverse and I'm happy to support that (as well as devs for Sync, Connect, Lemmy, etc.)
I like Boost and paid for ad-Free, but a lot of other clients should work for your needs. While they might not be privacy focussed, many are open source so you can check what is going on.
My preference goes
Boost (not FOSS, one time payment to remove ads)
Connect (not FOSS, ad free)
Eternity (FOSS & ad free)
I uninstalled the other ones and haven't kept up with them. There may be better ones out there, these are the ones I'm keeping up with
Please. For the love of god, NEVER use a proprietary app to use a piece of FOSS software. I think it's kind of sad that we have this amazing FOSS social network and people use fucking proprietary software to use it.
i use sync. there's nothing even close to the quality of the client. (The onlt client that implements material you in a fun and usable way, sync is usable one-handed)
I had been using Liftoff for a while (before switching to Sync as soon as it came out), which i quite liked but it feels a lot worse than sync
There are a bunch of good FOSS Lemmy clients, which I'd argue are as good as Sync or Boost (I can't know for sure since I don't use proprietary software, I judge by the screenshots).
Jerboa sucks, I'll give you that. But both Voyager and Eternity are high quality clients that work amazingly well and are constantly updated. They have plenty of features and are very configurable.
Jerboa. It lacks some features, but it's the official app and it's also pretty minimalistic with its material you UI. Other than that Thunder is pretty good. They're both FOSS.
If new versions don't make it to F-Droid, they might as well not exist for me. There are only a couple of apps that I find important enough that I'll spend time manually building/pulling/installing, and a Lemmy reader isn't one of them. Thanks for the tip, though.
Have you considered using
https://github.com/imranr98/obtainium
You give it the repository of the app and it will handle checking for new versions and updating them
This is exactly the reason why I don't like F-Droid as a way to get apps. You'll have to trust an additional party when getting your apps, and updates are often a couple days behind. I prefer to get it straight from the developer's GitHub or Coderberg or whatever.
You’ll have to trust an additional party when getting your apps, and updates are often a couple days behind.
I know how it works, and in this case, that's fine with me.
F-Droid has an excellent track record; better than many developers have. And I'm not addicted to having the latest versions of everything on the day they're released. In fact, not immediately jumping on the latest versions has saved me from nasty bugs more than once.
I've tried all the other popular apps, and keep coming back to Connect.
The main features that pull me back are profile-specific settings so I can set up different accounts without having to reconfigure everything every time I switch instances, and the ability to customize post card quick actions, specifically the Mark As Read quick button combined with the persistent Hide All Read toggle. It's just so convenient, I keep coming back even though it deletes my account info every time it logs me out.
PREACH, after using infinity for reddit for years this is the only app that I can ever be comfortable with. It's genuinely amazing, thank you to the person who ported it.
What about just not using a proprietary client for an open source social media platform? You'll find amazing FOSS Lemmy clients as well as a whole lot of other FOSS software on F-Droid. It's the best source for Android apps. Thunder is my personal favorite.
Maybe I'm behind on my terms but does this count as a dark pattern?
It was my understanding that dark patterns are a thing designed to use a service in a way that they wouldn't normally intend to, like renew a subscription or leave privacy options to the benefit of the company instead of the user.
This just seems like a scam, or at best highly deceptive advertising? Like, for it to be a dark pattern it would have to actually be able to send you to some android update system, but it almost certainly isn't ever going to do that.
I recall that was a bug for a couple days and only on some sort modes when some instances upgraded to v19 and were shitting errors everywhere. All fixed now
Seconded for Thunder and it is available cross platform (iOS and Android). I like Voyager too but Thunder uses iPad screen real estate better IMO. RIP Liftoff
It's on a Fairphone 3 on Android 13. On Wi-Fi Private DNS works perfectly, but as soon as I switch to 4G the internet connection don't work anymore. As soon as I reset the private DNS to default it works as intended again. That's seems to be a carrier issue.
Maybe pedantic, but it's a totally different developer that took the Infinity for Reddit source code and forked it into Eternity for Lemmy. The Infinity dev was not interested.
I tried voyager once and it was the worst thing I have ever touched. The UI is absolutely horrible. Way to much stuff and not intuitive(why do I have to click on the three dots to fucking upvote?).
The dev has to do what they have to do to feed themselves. If you really like the app, deal with the ads or pay for the app. I personally can't deal with ads so I'm on Eternity for Lemmy (through the fdroid store)
I'm not so sure about clients that are specifically focused on security and privacy, however my general FOSS mobile app suggestions would be Voyager for a polished UX, or Eternity for a more native Android experience.
I'm also keeping an eye on Raccoon as another option. Keeping a secondary client since my previous favorite, Liftoff, was abandoned and I wanna be ready if it happens again.
Cross-platform (Android/iOS and you can even build for desktop or web)
Has some neat features that I haven't seen in other clients, like a really customizable FAB, material you theming, multiple anonymous instances, ping time and version info for instances, supports 0.19 including new features like instance blocking, an advanced share that can create a microblog style image to share posts
Very good accessibility
and lots more.
Coming from Relay for Reddit, I feel very at home in Thunder!
Out of curiosity, can you give an example of this? I would think the "real identity" of people on Lemmy wouldn't matter nearly as much as on a people-focused platform like Mastodon or Twitter/X. Plus, icons can be faked and there's no concept of a verified identity, so the username is the best indicator of identity anyway.
For example, it is pretty important to realize the post you are reading is from c/theonion, and the most effective way is to see the community picture on top of the post.
Also I find in general more image makes the UI more vibrant and inviting for me.
What’s your absolute must needs? I’m on iOS but Voyager (android as well) has been my top choice for a while now even beating out apps I’ve paid lifetime subscriptions for because the developers disappeared or have been extremely quiet. I like Thunder a lot too. It’s missing key features I like in Voyager but I love its design and how smooth it is.
Idk, I've tried a few but still like Boost; just can't get into Jerboa or Liftoff, which I tried. It's mostly just their ad network being meh --- though I mostly just get crappy fake gameplay ads, and not enough to bother me. I'm not even sure if they're targeting me, cause if they are, they're pretty bad at it.
Unfortunately I'm sure the app developer doesn't get much say, virtually all mobile app networks are cancer.
When the update happened, The version of Jerboa in the app store and fdroid was not compatible with the 0.19 changes as you could not sign in, so I just switched to Eternity (which seemed to handle 0.19 better) instead of looking for a RC version of Jerboa.
Edit: There are no problems with the current version of Jerboa (0.0.55) and Lemmy 0.19.2, just to make things clear.
That is why i am confused. The person I replied to claims that Jerboa and Liftoff have a bad ad-network. While i don't know Liftoff Jerboa for sure has no ads 🤔
On iOS: Safari > Lemmy website > Hit share button > Add to home screen.
On android, I assume steps will be similar.
I wholeheartedly recommend PWA app as such is published by the publisher of website itself, and I don’t need to download it either from official or 3rd party store.
In case you don’t know, PWA is basically a web app, running using your browser engine, which has almost same look-n-feel of native app.
Yup, lemmy works fine in a browser.
Also basically no apps support mod and admin actions or do it weird.
I'll say that DMs could be a bit better in the browser, but otherwise it's fine.
I don't undestand the need to have an app for stuff that works just fine on browser. In my books less apps is always better. The desktop and mobile version of Lemmy on browser gets the job done perfectly and is way more polished looking aswell.
I recommend ignoring update requests when they pop up. It's not just Boost, I've seen so many of those kids of ads now that I just go check for updates through the system.
I used my Google rewards credit to remove ads in Sync, because I ain't paying for that shit and they would have expired anyway.
As long as you go out every now and then (to shops or next to shops) and consistently answer the rewards stuff (doesn't need to be true it seems, just consistent) then you'll eventually be in the same boat as me and probably many others where you'll eventually have nothing to spend the rewards on as you'll have bought all the apps you need and will ditch the rewards in the end.
Boost loads adds from a shitty network though. Most open source apps don't do this stuff because nobody wants a Lemmy client to load ads; users only ever tolerate it in return for a more polished UI or whatever.
Look, I get where you're coming from, but there's a difference between a $965B corporation whose sole purpose is to harvest your personal info for ads, and a solo dev who just wants to make their (and your) Lemmy browsing a bit less painful. They're putting in a hellofa lot of time and effort into this thing, which means a hellofa lot of time not spent making money at a regular job. I'm more than happy to kick a few bucks here and there to keep something like that afloat, especially given how apps like Boost and Sync make me actually want to spend time on Lemmy. Encouraging fediverse adoption is a win for the whole ecosystem. You don't have to use Boost, and if you do choose to install it, you don't have to pay. There's an inexpensive ad-free version alongside the ad-supported one for exactly that reason. But complaining about Boost because you hate "social media apps" is like yelling "Fuck Nestle" at the 12-year-old selling lemonade from their driveway. Different scale, different purpose.
It's fine to not pay, but I'm glad that some people do support indie devs when they can. The world would be a lot bleaker without little passion projects like this dotting the landscape and filling in the gaps to help bigger projects like Lemmy take off.
Probably a hot take but paying to remove ads vs paying for a little passion project aren't the same things. Especially when it comes to privacy and how much of the data collection is still running but not serving you ads.
Good point, and we should probably tease apart that distinction between funding models and project intent/scope. For me, I've always seen apps like Boost, Sync, Infinity, and Jerboa as being "indie passion projects" regardless of how they pay their devs because of things like the project's scope, the dev team size, and their community involvement. They just don't strike me as the kind of apps you build for their "explosive growth and profit potential," you know? So by extension, I've got to assume anyone who builds one is doing it because they love lemmy, wish it was better, and happen to have a little coding knowledge to do something about it. That's a mission I can get behind.
Funding, on the other hand, is something that everyone needs but no one has actually figured out. So as long as it looks like a dev is experimenting with their options in good faith and honestly engaging with the community to figure out what's best, I can't really fault them for going with one model over another. I've got my own preference for open-source community-funded projects of course, but I'm not going to begrudge a dev for seeing it differently.
With Boost, there's an ad-free and privacy-respecting option, and then there's an Admob version. Those are the two most common funding methods out there, and I'm not surprised in the slightest by any dev who reaches for them as off-the-shelf answers. Lemmy has an open-source vibe, sure, but Boost started as a reddit app. Go with what you know. I might be wrong, but it doesn't feel like the ad supported one is being built to harvest data - it's just a drop-in advertising space like websites have used since the beginning of time. And if I'm really that concerned about it, I can pay for ad-free. Do I wish that it was open-source, patreon supported, and community built? Sure. But this ticks enough of my boxes to say "sure, why not," and then casually watch how the conversation about funding plays out in the comments. Who knows, maybe the dev will open things up or add a donation-ware version based on feedback, and I can upvote the Lemmings who suggest it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the project feels genuine and in a spirit that I can support. The foundation is solid. Everything else is just details, and I'll happily tag along for the ride as the developer, the community, and Lemmy as a platform figure out what that means.
I'm all for funding the people who put all the work into these projects, just so we're clear. But Youtube Premium for example, you spend money to remove ads but google is still tracking you and will still invade your privacy despite you paying them.
I didn't know boost offers different versions for people, it's not something I use, and I'm glad that people are willing to fund the team that keeps it going.
You do you, but realize it's hardly for chumps just because you're too cheap to shell out a couple of dollars for an app you'll potentially spend tens to hundreds of hours on. That's a very strange thing to call others chumps for.
No, I simply do not spend hundreds of hours on any phone app. Social media is not very important to me, and I would always rather use a web browser on one of my nice computers for a superior Internet browsing experience.
Boost dev here. There should be an Ad icon on the top right to report the ad. Not sure why it is not showing in this case. I will try to block those ads in the AdMob console. Edit: Done
thanks for caring!
Awesome, thank you.
This is the stuff I come to Lemmy for. Love the quick feedback and positive approach to the situation.
Thanks, absolutely love the app btw, I've used the Reddit one for years and the Lemmy one is just great.
How about you remove ads entirely like other competing apps do? Until you promise that your app won't advertise to me nor track me, I have no reason to use it over much better alternatives like Voyager that don't invade my privacy.
I'm not a boost user, but why does boost have ads exactly? Why don't you just ask users to buy a license a la grayjay? Make it 0.99 or less. This has a few advantages:
Also quick question, where is the source code for Boost? I can't seem to find it
I don't think Boost is open source, and you can pay a one time fee to permanently remove the ads
oh, so that's why it has ads, they don't care about their users... alright... I'm not interested in this conversation anymore
This is a bad mindset. Even though FOSS software is a good thing, but there is nothing wrong to make money from their hard work, you cannot and should not force developers to work for free if they don't want to.
If you want free software then there are FOSS alternative options out there and nobody forces you to use Boost.
I assume you didn't read my parent comment or perhaps you extrapolated on my beliefs without asking. I even proposed a direct way to ask users to pay.
My word, of course not! Where did you get the impression that I want that from? I would NEVER propose something like that, as it stands against everything I believe in; in fact if you read through my history on lemmy I am certain that you're gonna find plenty of proof of that.
I stand by the original meaning of the word when I say FOSS. It does NOT mean gratis; the misuse of the term FOSS as gratis is my biggest pet peeve. I don't care how much you charge for your software, if I like the software I will pay for it, exactly how much you're asking, without a problem.
The F in FOSS stands for Freedom, not price. I have paid for most FOSS software I use on a regular basis and I'm a HUGE proponent of paid FOSS and I have, multiple times, asked FOSS developers that release gratis software to PLEASE open up donations; I do this constantly and I think I may even have done it here on lemmy once or twice.
Indeed. My preferred client at the moment is the web ui on desktop and jerboa on mobile. Those are FOSS and developed by the developers of lemmy themselves (to whom I HAVE donated to). But I was thinking about switching client, which is why I asked for the code for Boost to see if it's software I would be willing to run on my device (and pay for!).
In fact I will even go as far as to say that it is your RESPONSIBILITY as a user of FOSS applications to donate if you can.
To me if software is not FOSS it signals one thing: they are doing something they don't want me to know about, sometimes this is acceptable (tho never preferred), but that's the exception, not the rule.
Being able to decide what software runs on your machine should never be a point of contention. Non FOSS software is always a trade off, and for most things (including lemmy clients), it's not one I'm willing to make, nor should you!
HOW FUCKING DARE THEY NOT WORK FOR FREE, FLAIL THEM NOW
Other people do it. They also just work for donations.
On a side note, I recommend sideloading Blokada 5 to permanently block all ads in apps.
You can download it from their website: https://blokada.org/#download (pick blokada 5)
You have to sideload it because Google banned it from their store for being too effective.
NextDNS is much easier to set up. You don't even have to install it.
or use grapheneos if youve got a pixel
Neither boost or Grayjay are FOSS. You've got it all wrong.
Regarding boost, yep my bad! I did not know that when I asked that question.
As for grayjay, it's source available, that's fine to me, there is a difference naturally and it's worth discussing, but I'd rather live in a world where every piece of software is source available and we discuss the merits of source availability vs pure FOSS, than in a world where understanding our software requires days or months of work looking at asm and poking it with a stick
It's always fuckin' Ruben breaking shit.
P.S. I want a free license and a BJ. 👍
The ads come from an ad network where there is very little visibility into what's going to be displayed in your app. And bad people also keep managing to get their ads published even though the ad network doesn't allow them
And it all ties into the whole targeted advertising, where they also make sure very few people get the bad ad, and tries to target people they think may be more susceptible to these kinds of tactics. Depending on the amount of interactivity allowed, the ad can even display two different things if it deems you too savvy to fall for it.
It's basically unescapable unless you only use apps without ads, or pay for the ad-free versions.
The whole advertising industry is sketchy, more news at 10.
Pi-hole blocks ads served by these networks just fine. Never seen an ad in Boost for Lemmy or for Reddit, though I tend to use Jerboa now that I've gotten used to it while I was waiting for Boost for Lemmy to release.
DNS based adblocking like Pihole or Adguard limits you to receiving advertising hosted by the app provider (youtube for example) which is usually better curated than third party advertising networks and less commonly found at all.
To be truly effective you must also block DoH and DoT. The first can only be done with endpoint lists, since it is https.
Maybe in comming years, but I've never encountered an ad served explicitly through DoH/DoT. It's certainly possible, just not actually in use yet.
You can also setup DoH front and back ends for pihole so traffic entering and leaving it is encrypted. When/if it becomes necessary I'll probably look into https packet inspection using custom Root certs to force clients to use my local DoH services and block other traffic, or look into inspecting the SNI to apply blocking there; but again its just not needed yet and may not be for a long time. We'll see. I'm sure the pihole/Adguard teams are also investigating solutions.
Hey, could you elaborate or send some lecture? I have the upstream quad9 DoH address in adguard. It's supposed to better encrypt my traffic right? Never saw any ads or strange DNS requests.
Never heard about ads being inject though DoH or DoT, or did I misunderstood your comment?
Theoretically an app could use a custom DoH endpoint to retrieve ads instead of the standard dns provided by the system. As this uses purely https without a preceding dns request, pihole/adguard would fail to block it; but it's just not something currently employed.
Yep, also the ads don't get initialized at all if the user buys the ad-free version (going to top all in the Lemmy Boost community should bring up the post about it). It's relatively cheap and the dev is very active with bugs and requests. The dev is developing for the Fediverse and I'm happy to support that (as well as devs for Sync, Connect, Lemmy, etc.)
I like Boost and paid for ad-Free, but a lot of other clients should work for your needs. While they might not be privacy focussed, many are open source so you can check what is going on.
My preference goes
I uninstalled the other ones and haven't kept up with them. There may be better ones out there, these are the ones I'm keeping up with
Dns adblocking blocks these 100%
Love how the top comment is a rando saying it's unavoidable but the dev literally says below that they fixed it.
The [exact ad from the] specific advertiser will never be seen again, so indeed the issue has been mitigated.
Other bad actors are still out there, though, hence the need for the report button the dev mentioned.
Jerboa (FOSS. Play Store + F-Droid)
Voyager (FOSS. Play Store + F-Droid + PWA + iOS App Store)
Thunder (FOSS. Play Store + IzzyOnDroid + iOS App Store)
Eternity (FOSS. Play Store + F-Droid)
edit: formatting
10/10 for Voyager, with a shout-out to Eternity too!
Eternity is great and there's a work in progress to add multicommunity support.
Also just like Infinity enabling amoled theme makes it look a whole lot more modern.
The only thing it is missing for me is community search. It is great! Also the most customizable of the bunch in my opinion
I need to do another round of trying everything. Currently using Liftoff and happy with it, but I should check out the alternatives anyway.
Voyager is so good! Basically a drop in replacement for Apollo.
As a user of RedReader since launch a decade+ ago, I dig Thunder. Simple, no bullshit, logical settings.
Please. For the love of god, NEVER use a proprietary app to use a piece of FOSS software. I think it's kind of sad that we have this amazing FOSS social network and people use fucking proprietary software to use it.
i use sync. there's nothing even close to the quality of the client. (The onlt client that implements material you in a fun and usable way, sync is usable one-handed)
I had been using Liftoff for a while (before switching to Sync as soon as it came out), which i quite liked but it feels a lot worse than sync
Touchscreen keyboards and their consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Open-source it a better interface then.
Until it's as useful as at least Sync for Lemmy, people will use 3rd party proprietary apps
I mean isn't Lemmy licensed under the AGPL? I'm just asking because AFAIK a proprietary client is not even allowed under this license.
You couldn't make a proprietary server. Client is fine, AGPL doesn't apply when you are accessing the server over a public API.
Thank you, didn't know this :)
There are a bunch of good FOSS Lemmy clients, which I'd argue are as good as Sync or Boost (I can't know for sure since I don't use proprietary software, I judge by the screenshots).
Jerboa sucks, I'll give you that. But both Voyager and Eternity are high quality clients that work amazingly well and are constantly updated. They have plenty of features and are very configurable.
That's silly and I'm a long time Linux user.
Indeed.
Voyager
It's a FOSS privacy respecting Lemmy client.
It's available on Android and IOS
You can also try it as a PWA: https://vger.app
Another one URL I use: https://wefwef.app/
The OG
Your lemmy app has ads???
Jerboa. It lacks some features, but it's the official app and it's also pretty minimalistic with its material you UI. Other than that Thunder is pretty good. They're both FOSS.
I used Thunder at first but it would crash frequently. Why? I don't know. It'd just stop working. Very frustrating because it is otherwise very good.
Switched to Jerboa after a couple of weeks and it's been great.
I start with whatever is on F-Droid, and narrow it down from there.
Jerboa was the only option there until recently. I see Voyager and Eternity are there now. I'll have to give them a try.
Voyager is currently many versions ahead of the one listed on F-Droid. It is still usable but you may want to get the latest version from GitHub.
If new versions don't make it to F-Droid, they might as well not exist for me. There are only a couple of apps that I find important enough that I'll spend time manually building/pulling/installing, and a Lemmy reader isn't one of them. Thanks for the tip, though.
Have you considered using https://github.com/imranr98/obtainium You give it the repository of the app and it will handle checking for new versions and updating them
Part of what I value in F-Droid is the additional layer in the build/release process, because it makes tampering more likely to be detected.
It's still nice to know a tool like obtanium exists, though. Thanks for the link.
This is exactly the reason why I don't like F-Droid as a way to get apps. You'll have to trust an additional party when getting your apps, and updates are often a couple days behind. I prefer to get it straight from the developer's GitHub or Coderberg or whatever.
I know how it works, and in this case, that's fine with me.
F-Droid has an excellent track record; better than many developers have. And I'm not addicted to having the latest versions of everything on the day they're released. In fact, not immediately jumping on the latest versions has saved me from nasty bugs more than once.
Barely and not really. "F-Droid can’t ensure the apps are safe. You still need to trust the upstream developers. We only do some basic check." https://forum.f-droid.org/t/is-it-as-safe-as-it-is-from-fdroid-official-repo/15956/2
N + 1 > N
N + X - Y ? N
Except now you're adding an additional party to trust (the -Y). So it could still be considered less secure than N.
thunder is awesome too
Eternity FTW
I'm not sure why people insist on F-Droid, considering the F-Droid Security Issues.
I use it because, contrary to what that scare piece you linked would have the reader believe, it's better for my needs than the alternatives.
(I'm no stranger to software development and security, by the way. I understand the pros and cons.)
So an indepth and critical analysis of something is now a "scare piece?" Ok.
Eternity is great! free, no ads, and no lag while scrolling. it also supports swipe to go back from posts.
I'm so used to navigating in Eternity at this point that all other apps seem clunky and unintuitive
same
I use Connect for lemmy, it's really great and ad-free.
I've tried all the other popular apps, and keep coming back to Connect.
The main features that pull me back are profile-specific settings so I can set up different accounts without having to reconfigure everything every time I switch instances, and the ability to customize post card quick actions, specifically the Mark As Read quick button combined with the persistent Hide All Read toggle. It's just so convenient, I keep coming back even though it deletes my account info every time it logs me out.
Connect rarely makes it on these lists, but I think it's fantastic.
Eternity.
PREACH, after using infinity for reddit for years this is the only app that I can ever be comfortable with. It's genuinely amazing, thank you to the person who ported it.
This is the right answer
This is why ad blockers should always be used. Small devs don't have relationships with advertisers or control over what ad networks will do.
Or you can pay once and be done with them. I think the price of a burger is not a big ask for something you use every day.
I do both.
Even the FBI recommends ad blockers for security.
As always, use free software. Look for Lemmy clients in F-Droid. Voyager is a good one.
radiowaves are free, radio sets aren't.
It might be greed or to offset their server costs. Or both.
https://vger.app/
voyager is great, progressive web app, or in your favorite app store.
I am using vger right now, in firefox. I also use the web app without a download on my phone, as does my husband. Voyager is amazing.
Install the fdroid apps. Eternity is a good example of a fdroid app for lemmy
I am using Voyager & Eternity and both have no ads.
I use eternity chase its Foss and easily available in the fdroid store
Same with Connect.
I use Eternity, it's a fork of Infinity for reddit
Me too, absolutely love it! Been working great for me the last couple of months.
Thanks for the warning, switching to Jerboa.
Thunder gets regular updates and is open source and ad free.
Second this. Thunder has been great
What about just not using a proprietary client for an open source social media platform? You'll find amazing FOSS Lemmy clients as well as a whole lot of other FOSS software on F-Droid. It's the best source for Android apps. Thunder is my personal favorite.
Sync Pro (paid) Jerboa (free)
Sync pro is an absolute ripoff.
I had it for reddit and I'm not buying it again
I am on Connect, loving it
Connect is proprietary so be careful. I use it too but will slowly move to eternity or some other client from fdroid.
Maybe I'm behind on my terms but does this count as a dark pattern?
It was my understanding that dark patterns are a thing designed to use a service in a way that they wouldn't normally intend to, like renew a subscription or leave privacy options to the benefit of the company instead of the user.
This just seems like a scam, or at best highly deceptive advertising? Like, for it to be a dark pattern it would have to actually be able to send you to some android update system, but it almost certainly isn't ever going to do that.
I suppose that is correct per the definition, thanks for the correction.
Use F-Droid, Google store is a malware vendor at this point.
Jerboa works well
Does it? I moved to Boost because I can't load past one page in Jerboa when viewing a community.
Yep, It work pretty well. Only Lemmy client I ever use
I recall that was a bug for a couple days and only on some sort modes when some instances upgraded to v19 and were shitting errors everywhere. All fixed now
I like Thunder a lot.
Seconded for Thunder and it is available cross platform (iOS and Android). I like Voyager too but Thunder uses iPad screen real estate better IMO. RIP Liftoff
DNS adblocking. I don't see those ads.
Unfortunately this break LTE internet.
It should not. Some phones don't play well with private DNS though, mostly entry level ones that thrives on spying.
What phone? Never had an issue with private DNS on Android. Unfortunately IOS requires it setup on every connection, but works.
https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html
https://youtu.be/ovqRt_qGV7c?si=iMxKS_tMMyKJV6ie
Make sure you restart the app after applying settings, should pickup new DNS and poof, 95% of ads are gone instantly.
https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html
It's on a Fairphone 3 on Android 13. On Wi-Fi Private DNS works perfectly, but as soon as I switch to 4G the internet connection don't work anymore. As soon as I reset the private DNS to default it works as intended again. That's seems to be a carrier issue.
Definitely sounds carrier related... Works fine for me on Android with TMO
Same, Pixel 8 Pro + GrapheneOS + NextDNS, stateside using AT&T, no problems with private DNS
Your carrier probably blocks the DNS. Use a VPN, Proton VPN is trustworthy and reputable and they have a free option.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/ovqRt_qGV7c?si=iMxKS_tMMyKJV6ie
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Eternity. It was a FOSS Reddit client before the API stuff but they became a Lemmy client.
Maybe pedantic, but it's a totally different developer that took the Infinity for Reddit source code and forked it into Eternity for Lemmy. The Infinity dev was not interested.
Voyager, eternity, jerboa in that order
I tried voyager once and it was the worst thing I have ever touched. The UI is absolutely horrible. Way to much stuff and not intuitive(why do I have to click on the three dots to fucking upvote?).
Oh I just use swipe actions. Tap on comment and swipe left/right, there are 2 actions on each side depending on how much you swipe.
Also voyager was the only client allowing me to increase the font size (when I started using lemmy on phone)
Voyager!
+1. No ads; doesn't track you (at least according to the DDG app).
Jerboah??
+1
I don't think it shows any ads.
Of course not.
No h on the end - just Jerboa
Voyager
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.vger.voyager
Also on f-droid
Voyager the 🐐no 🧢
Iirc Sync and Boost are the only proprietary clients right now, so everything else is good. I'm using Eternity right now, it's on f droid
I'm using android Connect for lemmy and it's pretty good
I just found out in this thread that connect is too? But it doesn't have any ads or purchases, so now I'm wondering what that developers goals are
Ads in the feed now? Yikes, that's reason enough for me to switch before I'm forced to update it.
It's wild just how many apps there are for Lemmy, ha
Wow, no kidding
Yeah I love it
connect is never mentioned enough in threads like these
I use it. Very similar to boost. I loved boost for reddit.
However, my experience with this boost has had a few quirks that I don't like:
Hard to tell what instance you're on in the side bar
My inbox won't clear when tapping the double check icon
I agree, it's perfect, except for the side menu which could be nicer, but in the end you almost never use it so it's ok
It hasn't been updated in a while, and it's behavior when you post is quite bad when it reset all the view.
No to get into the refresh issues, too.
Its gotten like three updates in the last month. I will agree the refresh issue is annoying.
The developer has done a fine job at adding requested features, and fixing most bugs that come up as long as you let them know.
I updated it just a couple of minutes ago.
Infinity is great
It's Eternity now but yes it is
i got scared cause i was on infinity and saw this post and thought infinity was showing ads now :p
The dev has to do what they have to do to feed themselves. If you really like the app, deal with the ads or pay for the app. I personally can't deal with ads so I'm on Eternity for Lemmy (through the fdroid store)
I'm not so sure about clients that are specifically focused on security and privacy, however my general FOSS mobile app suggestions would be Voyager for a polished UX, or Eternity for a more native Android experience.
Both are available on GitHub and F-Droid
And iOS
Good god I thought that was my client for a moment. Almost uninstalled before realising it was an image.
Phew
sync does not have ads for me as of now :)
Sync is the only option for me
I'm using Sync but pretty disappointed we still can't post using it
You can definitely post on Sync...
Oh look at that. Must've been added in an update without me noticing. Woohoo!
what
Nvm
Thunder
Happy Thunder user here.
I'm also keeping an eye on Raccoon as another option. Keeping a secondary client since my previous favorite, Liftoff, was abandoned and I wanna be ready if it happens again.
Sync gang rise up!
Thunder! It is
Coming from Relay for Reddit, I feel very at home in Thunder!
Unfortunately thunder dont show profile pics or community pictures, which has lead to people eating the onion couple times.
Out of curiosity, can you give an example of this? I would think the "real identity" of people on Lemmy wouldn't matter nearly as much as on a people-focused platform like Mastodon or Twitter/X. Plus, icons can be faked and there's no concept of a verified identity, so the username is the best indicator of identity anyway.
For example, it is pretty important to realize the post you are reading is from c/theonion, and the most effective way is to see the community picture on top of the post.
Also I find in general more image makes the UI more vibrant and inviting for me.
i bought boost the first day because i loved boost for reddit but, honestly, i'm loving eternity even more these days.
it's on neo store/fdroid and the repo is here: https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Eternity
Kinda sketch if they're not on the official fdroid repo
they are: https://f-droid.org/packages/eu.toldi.infinityforlemmy/
What’s your absolute must needs? I’m on iOS but Voyager (android as well) has been my top choice for a while now even beating out apps I’ve paid lifetime subscriptions for because the developers disappeared or have been extremely quiet. I like Thunder a lot too. It’s missing key features I like in Voyager but I love its design and how smooth it is.
I've used Boost since launch and never once seen something like that happen
Same
Same but also paid for no ads. This isn't a boost issue per se, it's just how ads are made to look and boost free has ads.
I like Voyager a lot but it might be iOS only.
No it is not, even though the Android app also uses that weird style
I have Boost, but I haven't seen any ads like that before. The main one I use is Jerboa though.
Personally I like Connect even though it's not FOSS because it's layout is similar to RiF.
I didn't even realize that it wasn't, tbh. There's no ads or purchases or anything
Idk, I've tried a few but still like Boost; just can't get into Jerboa or Liftoff, which I tried. It's mostly just their ad network being meh --- though I mostly just get crappy fake gameplay ads, and not enough to bother me. I'm not even sure if they're targeting me, cause if they are, they're pretty bad at it.
Unfortunately I'm sure the app developer doesn't get much say, virtually all mobile app networks are cancer.
Jerboa doesn't have ads..?
Not even one ad, it's open source same with Eternity.
I switched from Jerboa to Eternity because of the 0.19 update fuss.
What's this fuss about ? I was a Eternity user before Lemmy (I don't recall the name of this app, when it waS reddit) edit:typo
When the update happened, The version of Jerboa in the app store and fdroid was not compatible with the 0.19 changes as you could not sign in, so I just switched to Eternity (which seemed to handle 0.19 better) instead of looking for a RC version of Jerboa.
Edit: There are no problems with the current version of Jerboa (0.0.55) and Lemmy 0.19.2, just to make things clear.
That is why i am confused. The person I replied to claims that Jerboa and Liftoff have a bad ad-network. While i don't know Liftoff Jerboa for sure has no ads 🤔
No ads whatsoever on voyager. Maybe give that a shot?
Wefwef. It's so normal.
I use the webpage as a webapp. It's adless.
Lemmy website does provide official PWA app.
On iOS: Safari > Lemmy website > Hit share button > Add to home screen. On android, I assume steps will be similar.
I wholeheartedly recommend PWA app as such is published by the publisher of website itself, and I don’t need to download it either from official or 3rd party store.
In case you don’t know, PWA is basically a web app, running using your browser engine, which has almost same look-n-feel of native app.
Wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app
Wait, Boost has ads? I've literally never seen an ad.
have you installed anything like pihole or your own dns?
Nope. Standard router and DNS.
I did pay for Boost since it was a one-time payment and I have free googlebucks.
Yes, quite the concept this whole issue goes away for spending a couple bucks on something that likely gets used daily.
Connect does not have ads
I paid $3.49 to support the developers and the ads go away as a bonus.
Why would you need an app when an account settings page and a web interface for posts exist? What need is that combination not meeting for you?
https://xkcd.com/1367/
https://xkcd.com/1174/
Yup, lemmy works fine in a browser.
Also basically no apps support mod and admin actions or do it weird.
I'll say that DMs could be a bit better in the browser, but otherwise it's fine.
I don't undestand the need to have an app for stuff that works just fine on browser. In my books less apps is always better. The desktop and mobile version of Lemmy on browser gets the job done perfectly and is way more polished looking aswell.
Mobile browsers suck imho. Everything has to reload all the time, no good notifications, it's slow etc
I'm reading this on Boost (once off payment) and no ads...
I take it schools aren't teaching tech literacy. We wouldn't want the kids to get in the way of our overlord marketing agencies.
I recommend ignoring update requests when they pop up. It's not just Boost, I've seen so many of those kids of ads now that I just go check for updates through the system.
Use Jerboa.
Also not FOSS, but I'm using Summit.
It's the only client on Android I'm aware of that has mod-tools built in.
I think your ads got hacked.
I used my Google rewards credit to remove ads in Sync, because I ain't paying for that shit and they would have expired anyway.
As long as you go out every now and then (to shops or next to shops) and consistently answer the rewards stuff (doesn't need to be true it seems, just consistent) then you'll eventually be in the same boat as me and probably many others where you'll eventually have nothing to spend the rewards on as you'll have bought all the apps you need and will ditch the rewards in the end.
Sync, but it still has ads. Honestly just get an adblocker, it's free.
The title is a little disingenuous. Claiming this is a property of the Boost app isn't correct... It's just an ad network.
Boost loads adds from a shitty network though. Most open source apps don't do this stuff because nobody wants a Lemmy client to load ads; users only ever tolerate it in return for a more polished UI or whatever.
I didn't make the statement that it's their property, I made the statement that it's being displayed through their application.
Hell naw. Paid social media apps are for chumps
Look, I get where you're coming from, but there's a difference between a $965B corporation whose sole purpose is to harvest your personal info for ads, and a solo dev who just wants to make their (and your) Lemmy browsing a bit less painful. They're putting in a hellofa lot of time and effort into this thing, which means a hellofa lot of time not spent making money at a regular job. I'm more than happy to kick a few bucks here and there to keep something like that afloat, especially given how apps like Boost and Sync make me actually want to spend time on Lemmy. Encouraging fediverse adoption is a win for the whole ecosystem. You don't have to use Boost, and if you do choose to install it, you don't have to pay. There's an inexpensive ad-free version alongside the ad-supported one for exactly that reason. But complaining about Boost because you hate "social media apps" is like yelling "Fuck Nestle" at the 12-year-old selling lemonade from their driveway. Different scale, different purpose.
It's fine to not pay, but I'm glad that some people do support indie devs when they can. The world would be a lot bleaker without little passion projects like this dotting the landscape and filling in the gaps to help bigger projects like Lemmy take off.
Probably a hot take but paying to remove ads vs paying for a little passion project aren't the same things. Especially when it comes to privacy and how much of the data collection is still running but not serving you ads.
Good point, and we should probably tease apart that distinction between funding models and project intent/scope. For me, I've always seen apps like Boost, Sync, Infinity, and Jerboa as being "indie passion projects" regardless of how they pay their devs because of things like the project's scope, the dev team size, and their community involvement. They just don't strike me as the kind of apps you build for their "explosive growth and profit potential," you know? So by extension, I've got to assume anyone who builds one is doing it because they love lemmy, wish it was better, and happen to have a little coding knowledge to do something about it. That's a mission I can get behind.
Funding, on the other hand, is something that everyone needs but no one has actually figured out. So as long as it looks like a dev is experimenting with their options in good faith and honestly engaging with the community to figure out what's best, I can't really fault them for going with one model over another. I've got my own preference for open-source community-funded projects of course, but I'm not going to begrudge a dev for seeing it differently.
With Boost, there's an ad-free and privacy-respecting option, and then there's an Admob version. Those are the two most common funding methods out there, and I'm not surprised in the slightest by any dev who reaches for them as off-the-shelf answers. Lemmy has an open-source vibe, sure, but Boost started as a reddit app. Go with what you know. I might be wrong, but it doesn't feel like the ad supported one is being built to harvest data - it's just a drop-in advertising space like websites have used since the beginning of time. And if I'm really that concerned about it, I can pay for ad-free. Do I wish that it was open-source, patreon supported, and community built? Sure. But this ticks enough of my boxes to say "sure, why not," and then casually watch how the conversation about funding plays out in the comments. Who knows, maybe the dev will open things up or add a donation-ware version based on feedback, and I can upvote the Lemmings who suggest it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the project feels genuine and in a spirit that I can support. The foundation is solid. Everything else is just details, and I'll happily tag along for the ride as the developer, the community, and Lemmy as a platform figure out what that means.
I'm all for funding the people who put all the work into these projects, just so we're clear. But Youtube Premium for example, you spend money to remove ads but google is still tracking you and will still invade your privacy despite you paying them.
I didn't know boost offers different versions for people, it's not something I use, and I'm glad that people are willing to fund the team that keeps it going.
Get a job lol
Nope, I don't need another one. I'm fully capable of buying any app I want but I do not buy mobile apps.
You do you, but realize it's hardly for chumps just because you're too cheap to shell out a couple of dollars for an app you'll potentially spend tens to hundreds of hours on. That's a very strange thing to call others chumps for.
No, I simply do not spend hundreds of hours on any phone app. Social media is not very important to me, and I would always rather use a web browser on one of my nice computers for a superior Internet browsing experience.
That's awesome, but what you personally do is irrelevant
That's exactly the kind of thing a chump would say about it
My dude use a vpn
I'm not sure how VPN will help against ads, without VPN Boost access the ads from IP A, with VPN Boost access the ads from IP B.