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.
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.
Can’t you just get lifetime?
The cost of lifetime is 6x the cost of one year. I can understand just getting one year to see how things go.
Ultra (subscription) and “no-ads” are two different options…no ads is a one time 20USD. Ultra includes additional features beyond the core app. It also has a lifetime option, which is the very expensive one.
Infinity is exactly what I was waiting for.
Still want LIF in my life.
Thunder is better than RIF, then Summit is a close second. The best part about Lemmy apps is how close in comparison they are. After an update one is better than the others, but they’re each getting updated multiple times a week.
Like Summit for example, the first week it came out you could only browse, no login, no upvoting, no anything. Now it’s pretty damn close to being better than RIF.
Thunder is better than RIF
You take that back, blasphemor! And so far nobody has hit RIF for feel yet, I was a daily driver on it since release.
So far I’m between Liftoff and Sync. Does Thunder and/or Summit offer anything particularly unique by comparison?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I mean, I paid $3-4 for Sync literally years ago. Once. I personally don’t have a problem kicking the dude shekels given that I literally paid pennies a month for how much I used it. To play devil’s advocate, groceries cost twice what they did 2 years ago. Everything is more expensive across the board and it sucks, but these are the seas we swim in
Infinity is AWESOME although I’m not quite sure how to get automatic updates for it yet.
You can install and update it using obtainium. I haven’t used it before using it for infinity for lemmy and it works perfectly. Obtainium itself can be installed over android, although I’m not sure it’s in the standard repo (I got it from the IzzyOnDroid repo)
Thank you!! Never used obtanium but just installed it and I love it!
There’s Obtainium, but the dev said that he’s trying to get it released on F-Droid, so I’m waiting for that.
Sync is far superior to the other apps so far, even with some features missing in the beta. I was using Liftoff, which is good, but not even close to the polish of sync.
People hating on sync’s optional cost have me laughing. Mf has to deal with the same inflation as my ass, I hope he’s gettin his.
He added the sync pro option to remove ads so I’m good.
I was using Jerboa for the first month. It’s good, functional. However, with all due respect to the penguin people, it felt like working on Linux. Just a bit too utilitarian and function focused.
Yesterday I installed Sync and it was like switching to Windows/OSX. So much more polish, much more pleasant experience.
On Reddit I was using BaconReader - and had no idea Sync looked (and felt) this good. Great UX, though still has some ways to go. The comment font size when typing is super tiny!
As a Linux guy, i disagree. I don’t know what version of Linux (or how long ago) you tried. Sync is more like Linux, so many options and features to make it exactly what you want.
Maybe it’s not just the OS vs OS but more like Gimp vs Photoshop. Both accomplish pretty much the same tasks, but one feels way more polished than the other.
Maybe this will work: Sync feels like a Product, while Jerboa feels like a Project.
There are pros and cons to both approaches. I happen to be looking for a clean, pretty app that integrates with my Android 13 theming etc.
i get the idea of your comment but i don’t like the examples
Connect or Liftoff
I use Sync because it’s just what I’m used to. I’ve been using it for more than 3 years, but I’ve also used Jerboa, Thunder, Liftoff, Lemotiff, Connect and Voyager.
Here’s what I think about those:
Jerboa is good, maybe a bit laggy and things take a bit to load, but overall good. Nothing that stands out.
Thunder is very good, but I’ve been unable to reply DMs and comments from my notifications, I’d have to go to the browser or use another app to reply. I’m almost sure it’ll get fixed in the future.
Connect is very, very good, but, and it’s a huge BUT for me, every time I’m commenting and I want to change part of my comment, I click on the part I want to add or erase more text but instead of doing that it selects the text from where I was to where I clicked, and it happens with every comment and DM, to fix it I have to copy the whole thing, go back to the post, paste the comment again and keep on writing. I stopped using it.
Liftoff is very good, but I don’t like that when I collapse a comment it says “comment collapsed, tap to expand” (that’s it, it’s just nit picking, everything else is good), I still sometimes use the app.
Lemotiff I can’t log in but the idea/design is good.
Voyager is one of the best but sometimes it jumps to random parts of the timeline, I also prefer having an app not a PAW (or was it PWA? I don’t remember the correct term)
Lemmur says my instance doesn’t exist so I can’t even try it.
Haven’t used infinity or Boost yet, just downloaded Sync and it just works perfectly.
Sync is great, but I’m not the biggest fan of introducing ads in a service that doesn’t inherently have ads - nothing against the dev getting paid. You also can’t currently create a new post (just says “coming soon”). I used Sync on Reddit for years, so I’m otherwise pretty biased toward it.
Connect is a close second, for me. It’s still a work in progress, but I feel it’s pretty close to Sync. Given time, I think it’ll be there.
But I have to say, for its lack of polish, Jerboa still comes out on top for me. It’s not as smooth scrolling the feed and it needs an option to handle links in-app, but with it being open source, a bunch of contributors adding features, every time I think it’s missing something, it’s just a matter of time waiting for the next update. The one from today added DMing, which was the big thing I saw other apps handling better. Plus, I think (other than Sync), it’s the only app that handles multiple accounts the best.
I also still pop into Thunder, Summit, Liftoff, and Voyager periodically to see how they’re coming along. And now, I’m including Infinity (and Boost or any others wherever they’re ready).
At the end of the day, people are just going to have to try the different apps for themselves to see what works for them.
Tbh I didn’t notice the ads haha I have ads completely removed from my device using a private DNS so none of the apps I use show me ads.
I prefer supporting devs via donations whenever I have the extra money but I’m waiting for the lifetime donation for Sync, I not doing aubscription models and I have 0 tolerance for ads.
Like you, though, I’ll be jumping from time to time to other apps because what I’ve been loving about this Fediverse experience more than anything is how every app has been evolving and updating, it’s just amazing.
I’m also waiting for Boost and Infinity to realease, god damn this is why I love competition.
Ad removal on Sync is US$19.99. Lifetime Sync Ultra is $99… 👀
Try summit. I’m hopping between it and sync now. Thunder sometimes for the variations in feed but the comment issue persists and is an overall no-go
Shit, forgot to write about Summit, it was one of the ones I liked the most but only when I’m viewing content as a “list” as opposed to “cards”, IMO that’s when Summit shines more than any other app.
I feel like Summit works more for me as a news site rather than a “social media” app, so I like that a lot. I’m still jumping in between apps atm.
Oh, and Voyager JUST released as an official app in the play store, I just saw the post a few minutes ago.
Thanks for the heads up!
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 prefer Connect.
Agreed, it’s the perfect balance of looking nice and functional
Using Jerboa, feels a lot like RIF.
And opensource.
I love Jerboa, very minimal which is great for me. If it had a search function it be perfect
Removed by mod
Tried sync but honestly given that it’s an advertisement supported app, I couldn’t find a single justification to keep using it, short of the generic “spez bad sync good” base.
I switched to Jerboa, I don’t like the idea of accessing a free community via a paid/tracking app. It doesn’t make any sense to use an app that actively works against my interests, just because they did a good job making the app fast.
Jerboa seems good so far, I’m only ~9 hours into it though. It’s definitely more stable than lemmy beta was.
Also honestly I’m already tired of every fan boy (you’re out there don’t act coy) yelling about how amazing it is. My all page has waaaaay too many posts about sync, doesn’t feel organic. Was instantly not an issue when I switched to Jerboa however.
Reminds me a lot of how I had to block the “enough musk spam” because ironically they were filling my all page with TOO MUCH MUSK SPAM. Wtf
