Just installed what popped up first in F-Droid search (Jerboa) and not feeling like I need something else - everything just works and UI/UX feels natural.
I’m using connect, it’s simple and just works. It was rough when I first came over but had been fine for a while now. I’m assuming they worked out some of the bugs they had at the beginning.
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.
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.
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 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.
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. The dev is also very responsive. Features are pretty community driven as well - so if you want something, post in the community.
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 and there being a bunch of contributors adding features, every time I think it’s missing something, it’s just a matter of 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 if you want sorting and defaults per account rather than app-wide.
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 whenever 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.
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.
For the time being I’m sticking with Voyager. Sync is a lil too pricey and Infinity doesn’t quite feel finished it’s Lemmy migration (was my fav reddit app)
It’s a fork since the original dev still tries to work out a deal with Reddit or something and still in a very early stage but I won’t switch away again, loved it for Reddit and love it now! :)
I’m using Infinity at the moment, since it is what I have used with Reddit until the API changes. I’ve always loved Infinity’s swipe actions, and I haven’t encountered any serious bugs so far. I’m gonna try and help contribute back to the app when I can.
It keeps complaining that it can’t sync multireddits (whatever tf that’s supposed to be) and I used Jerboa to edit my post because Infinity crashed but over all it’s been a great experience so far!
I prefer Infinity but I did so for Reddit too so it’s just my prefered app in general, Sync definitely seems to have less rough edges! I think the main advantage over fresh Lemmy apps are their UX and Animations, those are increadably hard to get right without years of user feedback!
I also did not see any ads, but today, I paid for ads removal nevertheless, just to support the development. I hope, Sync for Lemmy will go a long way similar to Sync for Reddit.
I’ve got an ad blocker built into my router, so in sync I only see the empty blocks where an ad would be. I’m still trying all the different apps, hopefully one if the open source ones become better. What I like a lot about sync is the gesture based up/down voting. Not sure if anyone else has that yet.
Finally, I got around to downloading Sync, and I’m impressed. I’m still going to use Infinity as my main access to Lemmy, but all my other programs were uninstalled, and Sync is now backing up Infinity.
BTW, not saying do it but to those complaining about ads, adguard.dns.com or quad9 dns are both free.
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