Reddit is just as guilty of this. If you want to see all the comments on a thread on their mobile site, you're pushed to install their official app and presumably create an account when doing so. As far as I can tell, the best workaround is to use the desktop site.
And on iOS at least, whenever you visit the site you'll get a popup that blocks the page with two options: continue in mobile app, or continue in safari.
It's basically "install our shitty app, or keep using the web version?", except it's worded and displayed in a confusing/misleading way with what seems to be an attempt to mimic a system dialog.
Not to mention how awful their AMP pages (redundant, blame grammar) are already. Searching for topics on Reddit is a nightmare, you’re stuck with their awful native search, their awful mobile app, or the awful mobile site.
Thank you! I almost universally use the mobile website but it just keeps getting worse, presumably on purpose. I installed the official app but it’s very bad. I’ll download this one now!
You will still have the annoyance of search results only opening the official client but Apollo is a great app made by a single developer who has put a lot of time and effort into the app. He (Christian) is also very active on the /r/apolloapp subreddit and communicates upcoming features/bug fixes. Apollo does have an option to scan your Copy/Paste buffer so when you open the app, and if there is a reddit link in your buffer, it can open it for you. The downside is you will always see "Apollo read the clipboard" (or whatever the iOS message is) when you open Apollo. Another workaround is to create (or use an existing [0]) iOS shortcut. The way this works is you will pretend you are sharing the reddit page and then click on the shortcut and it will launch Apollo and open the page you are on. The shortcut is pretty basic, just uses some string replacement and Apollo's url scheme to achieve it.
Just to add to this: I can highly recommend Apollo as well, it's the official app in my mind. Nothing else even comes close. Also, there is no need for a shortcut. If I open the sharing menu, "Open in Apollo" is already present and I never needed to add the shortcut.
Can confirm that you cannot use the app with logging in with a Reddit account.
Just yesterday, I got tired of the annoying "use the app or login" messages when tapping to view more comments on a post, so I caved and installed the app - given the language of the nag, I thought I wouldn't have to login, and the Reddit UX of constant full-page reloads just to view more comments is such a joke I figured the app had to be better.
But no, you have to login with a Reddit account to use the app :/
I don't know about macOS specifically, but elsewhere it can be defeated. The link to join from the browser appears if you dismiss the initial offer to open the app and force a retry. It's absolutely disgusting. https://gauginggadgets.com/join-zoom-meeting-without-install...
Long pressing and opening in a new tab works for expanding child comment threads (but not for viewing all 500+ commends under a post).
Once that stops working, I'll have to always use old.reddit on my phone, which won't be great UI on mobile - but I suppose it can't be too hard to make a Stylus stylesheet to make it usable. And once old.reddit is gone, well, that's the end of Reddit for me.
On mobile, reddit.com/.compact is an option. It's pretty stripped down but has some solid pros: it's fast, it has evenly sized (height) posts, the comments are easy to view. The post links with in-reddit photos/video do direct to the bad site, unfortunately. Another con (or pro) is infinite scrolling.
Has anyone else noticed reddit on mobile browsers being ridiculously slow? My experience is that the page loads fine, but then there's 10 seconds or so of loading animation before the page displays. Requesting desktop site makes it load immediately. I'm 95% sure they just have a timer they make you sit through in an effort to get you onto their app.
Just opened a Reddit page on Desktop and it has 7.77mb resources and 97 requests and 4 seconds till DOM loads. Its bloated, probably to boost app downloads. Imgur also features fighter plane levels of bloat to show an image and comments.
On Reddit's mobile web page, after clicking the 'continue in browser' button, go to hamburger menu -> settings -> "Ask to Open In App" and uncheck the checkbox. Removes all the 'reminders'.
Now reddit have gone from blocking 'adult' content on mobile browser to flagging stuff as 'unknown content' and trying to force you to install app.
I was trying to research a vinyl cutter purchase instore with spotty coverage and every bloody reddit page would be blocked within seconds of loading with this stupid unknown content crap.
So I’m in the same boat but I’ve noticed an interesting dark pattern they use now to discourage old Reddit.
I often land in a comment section of a specific post, and then want to see more of the subreddit by clicking the link of the subreddit in the top of the page. Since about a month now, every subreddit shows me it’s only available through the app. I used to then preface the url with old. however now they’ve somehow done it that I will see the specific (locked) subreddit page, but the url will just be Reddit.com with nothing else, effectively making it impossible to add the old. before the url.
