I have about 5 different apps installed right now, and while I plan to test them all out, curious what people’s conclusions are thus far.
The moment I tried Sync for Lemmy I have this feeling of closure, like I finally can make peace with the fact that I’m leaving Reddit behind for good after using it for 13 years (8 years of those on Sync). The only thing that top this is the first time I saw federation in action where people from various lemmy, kbin and mastodon instances talk to each other in the same thread and deciding to jump ship on the spot.
Yeah, man. I’m with you and I’m incredibly pleased. My old experience I’ve enjoyed on reddit for years is finally back and is functionally identical, at least for the basics I missed so much.
Infinity, because it’s the best FOSS option in my opinion
I’ve tried Connect, Liftoff, Thunder, Voyager, and Infinity. It’s just bugs galore. The back button will take you to the wrong activity, comments won’t post (due to the app not the instance), some instances or accounts won’t load, and a laundry list of UI or functionality bugs. Liftoff gave me the fewest issues of all of them, apart from using Lemmy in the browser.
But Sync really is polished, and the experience is night and day. I’m a big FOSS proponent, but I don’t think it’s wrong for a developer to want to make money when their income source suddenly disappears and they need to pay bills (and region-specific pricing is coming soon). The level of customizability, spit and polish in the other apps doesn’t even come close. I’m sure they’ll get there eventually, but I think it’s a mistake to drive away passionate developers who want to help Lemmy succeed.
I’ve given pretty much every app or browser front-end a fair shake at this point, and I’m gladly choosing Sync for now.
The amount of bitching I’ve seen on Lemmy over paying the developer for their hard work has been insane. I was happy to pay the measly fee for ultra. This isn’t in response to you, just the general vibe I’ve seen here. I thought we had a more tech-minded space where people might understand the need to monetize these things, but that doesn’t seem to be the case lol
measly fee for ultra
you have to take into consideration that not all people have your level of pay, your quality of life and so on. That ‘measly fee’ is two day’s pay for some and they can’t afford that. Yes, I understand that the dev has to make a living, but I think it’s a bit expensive. And I was paying for Sync (for reddit) since the beginning. I even got Pro for my wife, who didn’t use it at all, just to help LJ.
The other apps are not free to dev and maintain either. You got to give what you can.
I agree. I will donate to liftoff and summit. I feel better when I use open source software.
Okay, people who can’t afford two dollars per month to pay for something that they use every day are welcome to use another app, or deal with occasional ads. That’s the thing, there’s a variety of different app choices. The bitching comes off as “I love this app but I want to use it without paying for it or dealing with ads” more than anything else.
It’s not about paying the Developer. It’s about paying the developer that much. $20 just to remove ads is a lot and a price people are not willing to pay
They’re welcome to use whatever other app they want, or deal with ads. Options abound. I seriously doubt the sync for lemmy dev is swimming in cash. We’re not talking about shoveling money at a company like reddit, we’re talking about supporting a solitary, highly trusted dev who’s worked hard to create a great app.
you fail to realize that the dev barely did any work to the app, it’s literally a direct port from reddit to lemmy, yet he’s recharging people money at a very steep price too and he’s running ads on the app when the official lemmy site has NO ads nor does it’s official app Jerboa.
Lmfao recharging people money. Base sync for reddit was free and then you could pay like $5 for lifetime support. Sorry the dev is looking to be compensated for his work, I know $2 per month is a “very steep price.”
Use Jerboa.
It’s not just about Sync being the only app with ads or the fee to remove them (whether one thinks it’s steep or not is apparently up for debate – I find $20 steep for a mobile app, full stop).
It’s also about the fact that Lemmy is a FOSS system that requires independent instances to run. These instances incur costs. I hope that the people paying $20 to remove these ads are also donating to their home instances. If that isn’t happening, we need better messaging to users: paying to remove ads on an app does not support Lemmy itself or any individual instances, though the app and its popularity puts strain on those instances.
I get the idea of paying a dev for their work if you like it – though mandating it vs. relying on donations is a difference between Sync and pretty much everything else. However, it seems strange that the people pushing to support this single dev who happened to chose an ad model aren’t equally pushing for people to support their instances. Sync is useless if everyone just pays to remove the ads but doesn’t donate to help with the costs of running this platform, and I wonder how many people who came to Lemmy on the heels of the Sync release actually know that.
I agree with you that we need better messaging to users about instance donations. For the record, I’d also support instance admins who employ an “ads or pay a fee” model. I think it’s probably the best option for larger instances. I doubt purely donation based models will be sustainable over time.
Been using sync for years now and it’s just a great app.
It runs so smooth, very clean looking, easy to read, highly customizable, tablet mode, dev is always updating and adding in requested features from the users.
Small features that make the app stand out like sharing a setting from the settings menu that will take you straight to it:
Settings shortcut: Comment options > Display navigation bar
Used connect and liftoff before and on Reddit RiF but for me sync is just the best.
I found all of the prior Lemmy apps to either be missing something, clunky, or buggy. The one I liked most was Voyager/Wefwef, but even then it was missing stuff.
Now Sync is in beta and has bugs, but thanks to past development from Reddit it’s already so much more polished than all the others, my Lemmy usage has gone up considerably, I’ve barely touched Reddit today. It does have ads, but they aren’t visible when using DNS Adblocking.
I am using Sync, and I paid for a year of it. A year from now, I’ll evaluate and maybe pick something else. Do I care if it costs a tiny bit of $ for a solid app experience that performs better than the rest, because it has dedicated development resources? Nope. Having read the details on what data is collected, do I have privacy concerns? Nope. Do I think folks have gone a little over the top about certain things? Yes. Bad enough having to leave reddit without making it even more complicated.
Just fyi, the tracking is only for ads and all tracking is gone once you remove the ads through Ultra or the one time payment. I don’t expect this to please most, but as someone who has used Sync for Reddit for basically my entire existence on Reddit, I’ve only paid a couple bucks back then for an app I used every day. So far I feel right at home here and I’m willing to pay after some time and seeing how this goes. The number of options is only growing and Sync is bringing new users to Lemmy either way. I’ve been through like 6 other Lemmy clients and Sync is still the one for me.
Edit: Several users confirmed tracking wasn’t present after removing ads.
I mean hypothetically the tracking is gone
I haven’t got a single hit on the duckduckgo app tracking. I bought a year, and if I’m still liking it then, I’ll probably drop ultra and just go for the lifetime no ads. Not even sure how bad the ads are on free, because I was on my piholed network when I installed it, and paid before going to mobile data.
Hopefully the developer keeps respecting user privacy in the future.
My pihole hasn’t shown any tracking. Ad free truly gets rid of it.
I prefer Connect.
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Could you share what your favourite features of Infinity are? I’ve never used it before, here or on the old site.
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Voyager, clone of Apollo which is fantastic
I agree, Voyager works so well it doesn’t even feel like a webapp.
It’s probably the best webapp I’ve ever tried
I’m surprised by how much of a big deal apps are for the users. I would have kept Jerboa if it was more stable. I got Connect for no specific reason and don’t really see a reason to try anything else… I was still using old reddit and an app called Slide, so I guess I’m some removed user or something. Happy that those apps brings more users tho.
you might want to know that slide is being ported to lemmy
Nice.
Honestly just using Lemmy in a browser (or Tildes even more so I imagine) I keep wondering why apps are a big deal to begin with. They both work 100% perfectly fine.
It’s the same with Mastodon, in fact their official PWA gives a fair few apps a run for their money.
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That’s interesting. All the sync stuff feels the same between sync, summit, and thunder. I guess ymmv
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I’m using Sync, while waiting for Boost.
Infinity by a long way. It’s very early though, not really a fair comparison.
I can’t find Infinity on the play store. How are people using it?
I use obtainium for it and other Lemmy apps.
Infinity, the king is reclaiming its thrown, and huge thanks to the fevelopper who forked it.
Voyager.
I fell in love with the webapp first and now I like the android native app!
I’ve just installed the native app, and it’s pretty snappy, definitely my favorite Lemmy app.
