In a way I’m thankful that Reddit has made using their site so inhospitable to mobile browsers. I’ve simply stopped using it. Though it seems they’ve at least brought back old.reddit.com but i.reddit.com still seems to redirect to the incredibly unusable www.reddit.com on mobile.
Now, in its place, I load up a .epub book in the iOS Books app and set it to continuous scroll mode. This way I’m getting the dopamine hit from the continuous scrolling AND I’m actually reading something worth my time, energy, and effort rather than outrage bait, astroturfing posts, or karma farm threads.
Here is another tangent. What the hell is with Reddit's popup on mobile to get you to install their app?! That thing is plain destructive, and you used to be able to dismiss it but not it even redirects you to /r/popular. So I guess your only option to read reddit on mobile is the app despite having a perfectly functional website
Browsing Reddit is so much easier in a mobile browser - at least for me. Allows me to open multiple pages in new tabs and browse them when convenient. Also makes sharing articles or pages to other places easier.
I've tried the apps - but nothing beats the browser for me. If they kill the mobile website, I'll just stop using Reddit.
I am a big fan of Reddit, give them a few dollars every month. I just stopped reading reddit on my iPhone: I don’t like the mobile app and the mobile web. I use the desktop version on my iPad Pro and MacBook. I don;t need to read Reddit on my phone.
I really wish they would write a great mobile web app. I use Facebook once a week to catch up on family stuff, and go all mobile. I also use Twitter sometimes, always mobile.
I try to avoid other sites that try to force me to install an app. I can do without their content.
I have a different take: The main problem with reddit is in how badly it's bungled its several different redesigns over the last few years, and how it's slowly ruined its users' experience in misguided attempts to drive mobile traffic to its app.
Right now, here's the process for browsing a subreddit on mobile without the (ads and tracking loaded) reddit app:
1. Navigate to subreddit. Find out which of two (non-NSFW) or three (NSFW) "experiences" reddit decides to give me on mobile.
2. Depending on experience, jump through hoops including random "get the app!" prompts, failures to load content, failures to load nested comments, and outright refusal to display all the content in a thread unless I install the app.
3. If on an NSFW subreddit, and on about 50% of "unapproved" non-NSFW subreddits: Be blocked from viewing any additional content by an unremovable prompt. (Often, content loads in before the prompt, so you enjoy about 30 seconds of looking at your content before it's blocked.)
4. Give up, and go to old.reddit.com, which is ugly and not designed for mobile, but at least works okay.
Desktop isn't much better, but I have long had browser extensions installed that redirect everything to old.reddit.com on most of my browsers, so it becomes less of an issue.
If reddit took away my ability to use old.reddit.com, I'd probably stop browsing the site within weeks.
When Reddit first introduced their terrible mobile site years ago, they thankfully left around the old i.reddit.com (also known as .compact) around, which I exclusively used and so didn't really care much about the horrendously user-hostile current mobile site, with its popup windows begging you to use the app. They removed it entirely a month or so ago. I now no longer use Reddit.
In almost all situations, I prefer the mobile web over apps. But reddit's mobile offerings are _so bad_ compared to Reddit Sync. I know at some point Reddit will pull the plug on third party apps, and that's when I stop using Reddit.
Reddit is horrible to use on mobile devices as well. They're trying to force you to download the app, but I'm not interested to download an app to browse a website. I already have a browser.
I use old reddit redirect. If old.reddit ever went away I would stop going to reddit completely, similar to what happened with the digg bar.
I don't use reddit on mobile specifically because I don't download apps on my phone (outside of a few small games such as bejeweled), and I think surfing the internet on the phone is miserable regardless. The only thing I ever crack my browser open for is to look something up while at the grocery store, etc.
You can use https://i.reddit.com. it is so much faster than m.reddit.com, it's unbelievable. Really shows how those JavaScript frameworks slow down everything and have a severe impact on my browsing experience. When reddit closes down i.reddit.com, I will not use Reddit on mobile anymore; maybe not even on desktop.
I hate using Reddit on mobile. I’m generally reading on a bus or train in Safari and it will virtually force me to use the app. 90% of those times it will open the store instead and maybe want to update the app, or I’m not logged in so I will have to take a few minutes to reset the password, even though I’m logged into the web app. If the app does load it’s slow and buggy. I wish I could make the mobile web page the default.
I can't be alone in just pretending Reddit doesn't exist on mobile. It's weird, I like Reddit a lot, on desktop I post and comment, but on mobile it is so shabby that I just ignore it instead of seeing if it can be made bearable by being logged in to an app.
Now, in its place, I load up a .epub book in the iOS Books app and set it to continuous scroll mode. This way I’m getting the dopamine hit from the continuous scrolling AND I’m actually reading something worth my time, energy, and effort rather than outrage bait, astroturfing posts, or karma farm threads.
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