Been using Memmy on iOS but used to use Sync on my Android device. Now I got that and using it more and more. Love the customization features on Sync and this is the first time I truly didn’t miss Reddit.
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
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.
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.
Thunder is very nice but it’s very slow to populate comments and posts to the point that it just skips through the comments. I’m trying to decide if I care about the whole sync data collection nonsense or if I want to use a FOSS app instead. I was also using Voyager and it was pretty good.
Edit: thunder doesn’t seem to be updating my subscriptions automatically for my secondary account so that’s a bummer. I was starting to slowly lean towards thunder as my primary app since it seems to be the smoothest UI experience outside of Sync. Voyager also has a really smooth UI, but it’s not a dedicated app. Liftoff is my default at the moment. It just works.
I’m using Voyager (!voyagerapp) and it’s near perfect! Only thing that could make it even better is having it as a standalone app instead of a PWA (which currently you’d really have to install via Chrome as PWAs are just slower with Firefox), and aeharding is working on it!
I’m trying Sync, Infinity and Thunder. I like Sync and Thunder because I like the polished UI. Infinity looks and feels kinda ‘old’. But this is just me. All three deliver the feeling of coming home. They work like before, but with Lemmy features like images in comments. It’s like Reddit but on the fediverse.
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