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> If you try to force me to install a native app, that's a strong signal that the app is going to do something against my interest. That's a really sorry state

> If you try to force me to install a native app, that's a strong signal that the app is going to do something against my interest. That's a really sorry state of affairs. We should be able to trust our OS to work only towards our best interests. To me a web app represents a complete lack of user control over the content & metadata created by the user; my expectation for a desktop app is the opposite. The signal I take that an app is going to do something shitty is the level to which the vendor asks/suggests/begs me to install the app. If they don't push it (other and advertising it for sale), I'm more likely to trust it. If they push it ("download our app for a better experience"), it's obviously on their side more than mine.

periheli0n 5y ago
Reddit as a point in case. They deliberately break their mobile web version subtly to coerce users to install their app. Shudder.
- dasKrokodil 5y ago
  I agree with you, except for the word 'subtly'. It's not subtle at all.
  - periheli0n 5y ago
    Well, it still works, but the UX is terrible, and usually one has to reload the page after something like 20 clicks or so because it stops responding or UX elements disappear. So yeah, not really that subtle, I agree.
    - edude03 5y ago
      For me recently it hasn't worked at all for example - I'm signed into reddit on the webapp, I click a link on the front page, it renders the page, then overlays a popup saying "this page is only available in the app" and despite having the app, clicking "open in app" takes me to the apple store, so really I can only reliably use reddit if I start my reddit "session" in the app
  - paledot 5y ago
    I see it as a feature. Using Facebook's deliberately shitty mobile interface with Firefox Focus, which clears cookies every time I close a browser tab, helped me to kick my Facebook habit by making it too inconvenient to check except for a specific purpose. I now log in about once a month.
- qwertyuiop_ 5y ago
  Reddit makes life miserable on the mobile web.
  - noir_lord 5y ago
    https://i.reddit.com/ https://i.reddit.com/ and https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com still work - when they don't I'll likely stop using reddit entirely. I won't install the app and the mobile experience is broken. Which is a shame since I've used it for 14 years.
    - mrwizrd 5y ago
      There are some great options on mobile from third parties if that might work well for you: Apollo for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apollo-for-reddit/id979274575 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apollo-for-reddit/id979274575 Boost, for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayayo.reddit&hl=en_GB&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayay... Hopefully on desktops old.reddit sticks around forever. https://redditenhancementsuite.com/ https://redditenhancementsuite.com/ is essential.
    - hsdropout 5y ago
      There is also the little-known ". compact". E.g. https://www.reddit.com/.compact https://www.reddit.com/.compact
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - pixelpoet 5y ago
      100% agree as a user of 12 years, and I'm getting pretty close to quitting because if the shenanigans they're pulling recently with making links not work for old reddit by inserting slashes. If I wanted a Fisher Price styled social media thing full of user avatars and giant gifs, I'd use Facebook.
  - danuker 5y ago
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Facebook does the same thing. I won't install the Facebook app, because I can almost watch the battery drain; even when it's in the background. It's easy for me to prevent any app from listening. I use an external monitor that doesn't have a microphone, and I connect via the DisplayPort, so there's no audio. The only time I use anything with a mic, it's for Zoom, and I explicitly turn on my AirPods.
  - vaxman 5y ago
    > my AirPods. You had me until that L0L. Anything with a mic (especially the AirPods) would need to be "unpaired" (or better yet, never paired) to avoid activation by covert code. Apple once sold EarPods that had no microphone (for use on iPods) that do the trick. (However, I would wager that it's possible to remotely activate and pair a set of AirPods laying by your Mac using the Apple protocols designed to make it easier for legit users to set them up.) The Chinese app called "genie" used with devices like cheap Merkury cameras, sold at places like Walmart for impossibly low prices and that livestream thru "Tuya" (which likely provides the inputs to China-based deep learning models) also does this on all Apple Silicon platforms. Yes, the "Terms" for that app would seem to allow for it, just like other Chinese apps: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/05/953515627/facial-recognition-and-beyond-journalist-ventures-inside-chinas-surveillance-sta https://www.npr.org/2021/01/05/953515627/facial-recognition-... Such streams help China develop models that interpret emotions and behaviorally profile all types of people, not just Uyghurs: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57101248 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57101248 They can also be used like https://www.aei.org/articles/chinas-olympics-app-is-pure-spyware-preparing-for-cyber-spillover-simulating-tomorrows-reality/ https://www.aei.org/articles/chinas-olympics-app-is-pure-spy... Pretty sure China has hacked all of the telecom companies to know which IPs (Tuya streams) would go with which Experian® profiles (https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-hackers-charged-in-equifax-breach-021020 https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-hackers-charged-in-...) too, though such a hack probably involves somethingStupid™ like keyboard firmware injected into customer service terminals at multi-provider offshore customer/provisioning centers. (Those account number to DHCP lease servers/loggers are probably the least protected part of the consumer networks...BigTech has erybody thinking it's about surveillance capitalism, when it's really about surveillance period.) Apple's iCloud Private Relay service doesn't help much here either, as "Tuya" can associate the Apple-device running the app with the IOT devices that are streaming through the "Tuya" platform, providing a pretty good estimation of the identity of the user of the app on the Apple-device (which, of course, can be passed along in realtime to other apps in the "Tuya" family, even as Private Relay is rotating the IP addresses, so long as the "genie" like app is running in the background enough to phone home with an IP update packet). (Originally posted to someone's duplicate of this thread.)
- Ntrails 5y ago
  I use the desktop site on mobile because it may be garbage but it at least works
  - make3 5y ago
    just use old.reddit.com
- druadh 5y ago
  ^ One of the reasons I stopped using Reddit. Other than it being a toxic dump
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  > subtly Nothing subtle about that. Some of the subreddits are completely blocked on mobile web, telling you to get the app. Unfortunately, Android supports this by only letting verified apps respond to URLs by default and making it really hard for users to allowing unofficial apps to do it.
  - pja 5y ago
    They're not blocked if you login on the mobile website.
- make3 5y ago
  I assume that's because of AdBlock
phkahler 5y ago
>> That's a really sorry state of affairs. We should be able to trust our OS to work only towards our best interests. Yes, It's sad that browsers offer better security than our OS. I also like to point out that browsers pioneered tabs because the GUI toolkit and DE developers failed to do a good job at opening multiple documents well. Another case pointing to failure with our OSes is the fad of running in containers. This is an extra layer doing what the OS should be offering. The problem is our OS security models are a relic from the 1970's.
- ddtaylor 5y ago
  > This is an extra layer doing what the OS should be offering. FWIW Linux containers are OS-level with cgroups.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- the_other 5y ago
  > I also like to point out that browsers pioneered tabs because the GUI toolkit and DE developers failed to do a good job at opening multiple documents well. Windows and macOS had tabbed interfaces long before browsers made them cute. This is also an irrelevant distraction from the conversation about trust levels. > This is an extra layer doing what the OS should be offering. As pointed out by a sibling, this is an OS provided tool. I run macOS and I find containerisation an annoying distraction from doing my front-end dev work. I see why you might want it for back-end work and I feel your frustration at being forced to use a VM to support a Linux feature in an OS that doesn't share the same feature (or provide a directly comparable alternative). That would be nice. I don't think it's relevant to the web vs OS trust level conversation either. Containers might support better OS-level sandboxing, but they're still open to the web and to siphoning off user-generated data to the cloud. The core thing we should collectively work towards is a mind-set (and tools) that better supports users owning their own data more often, and vendors making tools to support that data, rather than monetising it independently of the users they provide tools to. This was the norm through 'til Hotmail and Yahoomail took off; it swung exponentially away from user-benefit when Gmail took off.

periheli0n 5y ago

Reddit as a point in case. They deliberately break their mobile web version subtly to coerce users to install their app. Shudder.

dasKrokodil 5y ago
I agree with you, except for the word 'subtly'. It's not subtle at all.
- periheli0n 5y ago
  Well, it still works, but the UX is terrible, and usually one has to reload the page after something like 20 clicks or so because it stops responding or UX elements disappear. So yeah, not really that subtle, I agree.
  - edude03 5y ago
    For me recently it hasn't worked at all for example - I'm signed into reddit on the webapp, I click a link on the front page, it renders the page, then overlays a popup saying "this page is only available in the app" and despite having the app, clicking "open in app" takes me to the apple store, so really I can only reliably use reddit if I start my reddit "session" in the app
- paledot 5y ago
  I see it as a feature. Using Facebook's deliberately shitty mobile interface with Firefox Focus, which clears cookies every time I close a browser tab, helped me to kick my Facebook habit by making it too inconvenient to check except for a specific purpose. I now log in about once a month.
qwertyuiop_ 5y ago
Reddit makes life miserable on the mobile web.
- noir_lord 5y ago
  https://i.reddit.com/ https://i.reddit.com/ and https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com still work - when they don't I'll likely stop using reddit entirely. I won't install the app and the mobile experience is broken. Which is a shame since I've used it for 14 years.
  - mrwizrd 5y ago
    There are some great options on mobile from third parties if that might work well for you: Apollo for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apollo-for-reddit/id979274575 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apollo-for-reddit/id979274575 Boost, for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayayo.reddit&hl=en_GB&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubenmayay... Hopefully on desktops old.reddit sticks around forever. https://redditenhancementsuite.com/ https://redditenhancementsuite.com/ is essential.
  - hsdropout 5y ago
    There is also the little-known ". compact". E.g. https://www.reddit.com/.compact https://www.reddit.com/.compact
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - pixelpoet 5y ago
    100% agree as a user of 12 years, and I'm getting pretty close to quitting because if the shenanigans they're pulling recently with making links not work for old reddit by inserting slashes. If I wanted a Fisher Price styled social media thing full of user avatars and giant gifs, I'd use Facebook.
- danuker 5y ago
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Facebook does the same thing. I won't install the Facebook app, because I can almost watch the battery drain; even when it's in the background. It's easy for me to prevent any app from listening. I use an external monitor that doesn't have a microphone, and I connect via the DisplayPort, so there's no audio. The only time I use anything with a mic, it's for Zoom, and I explicitly turn on my AirPods.
- vaxman 5y ago
  > my AirPods. You had me until that L0L. Anything with a mic (especially the AirPods) would need to be "unpaired" (or better yet, never paired) to avoid activation by covert code. Apple once sold EarPods that had no microphone (for use on iPods) that do the trick. (However, I would wager that it's possible to remotely activate and pair a set of AirPods laying by your Mac using the Apple protocols designed to make it easier for legit users to set them up.) The Chinese app called "genie" used with devices like cheap Merkury cameras, sold at places like Walmart for impossibly low prices and that livestream thru "Tuya" (which likely provides the inputs to China-based deep learning models) also does this on all Apple Silicon platforms. Yes, the "Terms" for that app would seem to allow for it, just like other Chinese apps: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/05/953515627/facial-recognition-and-beyond-journalist-ventures-inside-chinas-surveillance-sta https://www.npr.org/2021/01/05/953515627/facial-recognition-... Such streams help China develop models that interpret emotions and behaviorally profile all types of people, not just Uyghurs: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57101248 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57101248 They can also be used like https://www.aei.org/articles/chinas-olympics-app-is-pure-spyware-preparing-for-cyber-spillover-simulating-tomorrows-reality/ https://www.aei.org/articles/chinas-olympics-app-is-pure-spy... Pretty sure China has hacked all of the telecom companies to know which IPs (Tuya streams) would go with which Experian® profiles (https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-hackers-charged-in-equifax-breach-021020 https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-hackers-charged-in-...) too, though such a hack probably involves somethingStupid™ like keyboard firmware injected into customer service terminals at multi-provider offshore customer/provisioning centers. (Those account number to DHCP lease servers/loggers are probably the least protected part of the consumer networks...BigTech has erybody thinking it's about surveillance capitalism, when it's really about surveillance period.) Apple's iCloud Private Relay service doesn't help much here either, as "Tuya" can associate the Apple-device running the app with the IOT devices that are streaming through the "Tuya" platform, providing a pretty good estimation of the identity of the user of the app on the Apple-device (which, of course, can be passed along in realtime to other apps in the "Tuya" family, even as Private Relay is rotating the IP addresses, so long as the "genie" like app is running in the background enough to phone home with an IP update packet). (Originally posted to someone's duplicate of this thread.)
Ntrails 5y ago
I use the desktop site on mobile because it may be garbage but it at least works
- make3 5y ago
  just use old.reddit.com
druadh 5y ago
^ One of the reasons I stopped using Reddit. Other than it being a toxic dump
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
> subtly Nothing subtle about that. Some of the subreddits are completely blocked on mobile web, telling you to get the app. Unfortunately, Android supports this by only letting verified apps respond to URLs by default and making it really hard for users to allowing unofficial apps to do it.
- pja 5y ago
  They're not blocked if you login on the mobile website.
make3 5y ago
I assume that's because of AdBlock

phkahler 5y ago

>> That's a really sorry state of affairs. We should be able to trust our OS to work only towards our best interests. Yes, It's sad that browsers offer better security than our OS. I also like to point out that browsers pioneered tabs because the GUI toolkit and DE developers failed to do a good job at opening multiple documents well. Another case pointing to failure with our OSes is the fad of running in containers. This is an extra layer doing what the OS should be offering. The problem is our OS security models are a relic from the 1970's.

ddtaylor 5y ago
> This is an extra layer doing what the OS should be offering. FWIW Linux containers are OS-level with cgroups.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
the_other 5y ago
> I also like to point out that browsers pioneered tabs because the GUI toolkit and DE developers failed to do a good job at opening multiple documents well. Windows and macOS had tabbed interfaces long before browsers made them cute. This is also an irrelevant distraction from the conversation about trust levels. > This is an extra layer doing what the OS should be offering. As pointed out by a sibling, this is an OS provided tool. I run macOS and I find containerisation an annoying distraction from doing my front-end dev work. I see why you might want it for back-end work and I feel your frustration at being forced to use a VM to support a Linux feature in an OS that doesn't share the same feature (or provide a directly comparable alternative). That would be nice. I don't think it's relevant to the web vs OS trust level conversation either. Containers might support better OS-level sandboxing, but they're still open to the web and to siphoning off user-generated data to the cloud. The core thing we should collectively work towards is a mind-set (and tools) that better supports users owning their own data more often, and vendors making tools to support that data, rather than monetising it independently of the users they provide tools to. This was the norm through 'til Hotmail and Yahoomail took off; it swung exponentially away from user-benefit when Gmail took off.