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Ugh, maybe this will finally push forums to burn those infernal Tapatalk interstitials. Forum owners: I'm looking for one piece of information from a web searc

Ugh, maybe this will finally push forums to burn those infernal Tapatalk interstitials. Forum owners: I'm looking for one piece of information from a web search, not a whole dumb app that will completely ignore my search goals.

reilly3000 11y ago
I've never actually taken the bait. What is the app like?
- jbigelow76 11y ago
  I must be in the minority but the Tapatalk app seems okay to me. It takes the cruft and ads out of the forum you are on and just presents you the content in a relatively stripped down format. Maybe my use case is out of the ordinary compared to a lot of HN, I use it for a single forum that I am an active member of, and I can't recall the last time I googled something and was redirected to a result that was a forum entry that redirected to a Tapatalk ad (99% of my google searches end up at stackoverflow or blog entries).
  - michaelmrose 11y ago
    I think people aren't complaining about the quality of the app. Rather we dislike the fact that when clicking a link to a forum we are forced to decline to install their app before we can view what we are looking for. Personally I close the page. I really hope the creators of tapatalk go out of business.
    - reilly3000 11y ago
      If Google, phpBB and tapatalk and get their shit together they would support deeplinking and make the experience seemless. It's not even that technically challenging but could run afoul of existing ad models...
Vexs 11y ago
God I hate tapatalk with a passion. It's even worse when it redirects you to the front of a forum instead of the thread you were trying to get to.
- axx 11y ago
  Even worse, there are a lot of sites with outdated and insecure tapatalk plugins. We ran tapatalk for a few month and you had to patch it every other week. Maybe they fixed many of those issues by now, but it is still annoying.
alkonaut 11y ago
Tapatalk splash is a sure sign of a phpBB forum, meaning I won't find what I'm looking for anyway. Close tab. I can't believe those forums don't just migrate to Discourse.
- aikah 11y ago
  well , it's easy , because Discourse is extremely complicated to deploy for the average joe. phpBB is ... in php , ie cheap hosting , sftp deployment ... Server side Ruby was never easy to deploy.
  - schneidmaster 11y ago
    This may have formerly been the case but at least since they switched to Docker based installs it's incredibly easy. I migrated an ancient vBulletin forum over to Discourse last week and had no problems with the basic (fairly short) instructions. https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INST...
    - abritinthebay 11y ago
      > since they switched to Docker based installs it's incredibly easy For you. A developer. The average deployer of a PHPBB forum clicks a button on their cheap host and sets the options in the admin page. They don't even have the foggiest idea what Docker even is.
      - alkonaut 11y ago
        It's not very easy for an average developer either. I have worked 12 years as a developer, know my way reasonably around linux, and find docker about as easy to understand as chinese.
        abritinthebay 11y ago
        in what way? I totally understand being bewildered by it at first but once you start with it it's a lot easier to get to grips with than many things in the Nixverse. I just had to create our Docker setup at my work, basically from scratch (and I'm a front end dev) and if I can, you can :) How can I help you grok it?

reilly3000 11y ago

I've never actually taken the bait. What is the app like?

jbigelow76 11y ago
I must be in the minority but the Tapatalk app seems okay to me. It takes the cruft and ads out of the forum you are on and just presents you the content in a relatively stripped down format. Maybe my use case is out of the ordinary compared to a lot of HN, I use it for a single forum that I am an active member of, and I can't recall the last time I googled something and was redirected to a result that was a forum entry that redirected to a Tapatalk ad (99% of my google searches end up at stackoverflow or blog entries).
- michaelmrose 11y ago
  I think people aren't complaining about the quality of the app. Rather we dislike the fact that when clicking a link to a forum we are forced to decline to install their app before we can view what we are looking for. Personally I close the page. I really hope the creators of tapatalk go out of business.
  - reilly3000 11y ago
    If Google, phpBB and tapatalk and get their shit together they would support deeplinking and make the experience seemless. It's not even that technically challenging but could run afoul of existing ad models...

Vexs 11y ago

God I hate tapatalk with a passion. It's even worse when it redirects you to the front of a forum instead of the thread you were trying to get to.

axx 11y ago
Even worse, there are a lot of sites with outdated and insecure tapatalk plugins. We ran tapatalk for a few month and you had to patch it every other week. Maybe they fixed many of those issues by now, but it is still annoying.

alkonaut 11y ago

Tapatalk splash is a sure sign of a phpBB forum, meaning I won't find what I'm looking for anyway. Close tab. I can't believe those forums don't just migrate to Discourse.

aikah 11y ago
well , it's easy , because Discourse is extremely complicated to deploy for the average joe. phpBB is ... in php , ie cheap hosting , sftp deployment ... Server side Ruby was never easy to deploy.
- schneidmaster 11y ago
  This may have formerly been the case but at least since they switched to Docker based installs it's incredibly easy. I migrated an ancient vBulletin forum over to Discourse last week and had no problems with the basic (fairly short) instructions. https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INST...
  - abritinthebay 11y ago
    > since they switched to Docker based installs it's incredibly easy For you. A developer. The average deployer of a PHPBB forum clicks a button on their cheap host and sets the options in the admin page. They don't even have the foggiest idea what Docker even is.
    - alkonaut 11y ago
      It's not very easy for an average developer either. I have worked 12 years as a developer, know my way reasonably around linux, and find docker about as easy to understand as chinese.
      - abritinthebay 11y ago
        in what way? I totally understand being bewildered by it at first but once you start with it it's a lot easier to get to grips with than many things in the Nixverse. I just had to create our Docker setup at my work, basically from scratch (and I'm a front end dev) and if I can, you can :) How can I help you grok it?