With the ad adjustment came these banner ads on the top of comment sections and they are atrocious so much so I don’t bother reading comments anymore. They all have the obnoxious white backgrounds and they flicker since they move. It feels light no matter my phones britness they are blinding and since content doesnt get loads of comments the banner is just distracting while reading. I’m on board with ads as I haven’t paid to remove but this specific style changes how I’m using sync now.
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Those legit made me change my lemmy client after 6 months of sync.
Yea it’s a bit unfortunate. In my opinion sync is the smoothest and most polished lemmy app. I get that ljdawson should be compensated for making a great app, but the amount of ads is kinda ridiculous now and the $20 ad removal price just feels exorbitant for a mobile app.
How much poop in the soup is too much poop before $20 becomes reasonable? Just deal with it, switch apps, ad block, or pay the man. There’s an option in there for everyone
I have switched apps. Didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to share my opinion.
God why do you people keep posting on discussions forums it’s like ugh stop already /s
I find it hard to respect opinions of those who do not seem to respect developers. Lemmy is a very niche product, third-party clients are an even more niche subproduct. We are lucky to get something as polished as sync and if the guy values his own time at $20/user for the good experience with this few paying users, it seems very ungrateful to complain about it without suggesting an alternative to keep the guy fed. There cannot be a very large market for premium lemmy apps. Compound that with designing his app in a way that dns adblocking doesn’t break the app. I dns adblock, have never seen an ad on sync, and I still paid for the ad-free version anyway just to support the project.
I am a software developer, I understand what goes into developing software. He is allowed to value his work at whatever he thinks it’s worth.
But as users we are allowed to think he is asking too much or pushing too many ads or whatever. It’s not disrespect, it’s an opinion, about a mobile app that now has ads on the main feed and in every comment section, that only works based on a platform that is very specifically known for being open and not pushing ads. And it’s an especially high price for an app that is still very under development and has only recently just gotten an update for the first time in months, even when some features had stopped working.
I have no issues with him asking to be compensated for his work, and I am glad he makes it available for free, but the ads are getting intrusive, and we are all entitled to our opinions. I don’t think there was anything disrespectful about the way I shared my opinion, but I do think it’s crap to tell us we are being disrespectful just because you don’t share that opinion.
New here commenter chiming in…
You do raise some good points about maybe there not being as many customers as I thought, but there sure was a lot of buzz when the app first launched. Sync for Reddit was an very popular app. We essentially got kicked off of reddit and didn’t want to be there anymore, so we moved the Lemmy.
Hell, maybe it was only a few hundred people paying $20 and a few dozen paying for lifetime Sync Ultra at… $99?
But the Discord server has 2600+ members. If even half paid $20, I would think we deserve to be able to edit titles on our posts 6 months after launch of the app. Or use the proper Lemmy markdown, or not crash when you enable certain features, but that wasn’t the case! (Plus a hundred more bugs.)
If you charge money for an app, it shouldn’t have such dumb bugs for literally months. Don’t charge a premium price for a beta app. $20 is kinda nuts for a phone app where there are free alternatives that do exactly what you want 9 times out of 10, but maybe aren’t as fancy or are missing a bunch of niche features.
I’m not trying to rail on LJ too hard. I don’t know what demons he has. But saying we’re “lucky” to get a hasty hack of a reddit app rubs me wrong. Especially when having to pay for it or get horrible ads.
This is kinda working for me
Why would you use literally the only lemmy client with ads, then complain about the ads?
Boost, summit and connect left the chat
Xxxxx(redacted as per community rule) was $4.92 CAD to remove ads while Sync is $27.99. For the record I think Sync is the better app but like maybe 4-5 dollars better not nearly 600% better.
The Boost dev also didn’t abandon their app\platform for months during its infancy where it certainly needed the attention then comes back and drop more ads in the app.
Is there something you wanted me to work on specifically…?
I didn’t down vote you but to share the sentiment of why you’re getting down voted. While you make one of the best apps on the platform your pricing and availability is one of the worst.
Your time would be better spent improving those aspects your business. If you just want to be a niche high priced app that caters to people obscure feature requests and have erratic development cycles you should at least be transparent about it.
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because it didnt have ads?
Because it’s from a dev I support because I like the app. I dont mind ads I’m just saying this specfic type of ad is very intrusive which LJ typically takes into consideration when implementing them.
If you supported the dev you’d pay to remove the ads. Clicking the ads would also support them.
It’s alright to like an app just because it’s familiar. I feel the same way with Boost.
Just use a Lemmy app without ads
No can do. I don’t care for any apps besides sync. Been using it since day one for reddit. Everything else feels weird.
I agree with that, the lack of swiping actions are a real deal breaker on other apps
I just downloaded voyager, it has swipe actions. I’m still using sync, but I’m always looking for alternatives.
I just downloaded it to check it out. Thanks! I’ll give it a whirl. First impressions are positive
I’m the similar situation but as a result I thought the one-time adfree payment was justified.
Either pay for it or use a free app like Thunder.
I’ve been using Thunder for over a week in protest of Sync’s dev walking out on us mid conversation and not saying a thing or looking at any bugs for four month. “Us” being the people who paid good money for the app ($20 dollars), who test the betas, write bug reports on github, and participate on Discord.
He left us with bugs that crash the app, broken markdown, uneditable titles, and more very basic things. He rushed out a minorly tweaked version of Sync for Reddit, took our money, then bailed.
And when he comes back everyone’s sniffing his butt and wagging their tails like they’re so happy to see him! But he left us out to dry for four months.
I’d like to see an open source app eclipse Sync in every way so no one has to be forced to choose between not using a great Lemmy client, paying $20, or suffering horrible ads.
Thunder is pretty great right now. And if the main dev or devs walk away, someone else can pick up the reigns. And it’s completely free.
So I’m giving Thunder a real try and reporting bugs and offering suggestions.
the gall of going mia for months then coming back to shove ads down our throats first thing.
we were wagging our tails and got a swift kick.
Try jerboa and voyager while at it
Voyager isn’t anywhere near as customizable as Thunder. I gave it a shot and almost immediately uninstalled it. I haven’t tried Jerboa since the mass reddit exodus. It was pretty bad back then and had very unintuitive user switching.
If your looking for customisation you should try eternity you can’t even fully customize it under an hour its insane.
Is there a manual on how to setup post filters? 😂
I tried putting “Elon” in either the include and exclude box (wasn’t sure which one it should be) and neither will filter a post with “Elon” in the title.
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Thanks for the tip! I’ll try it out.
I plan to buy it just don’t have the money and I don’t like any of the other apps. I’m not gonna breath down the neck of the one guy working on this in his free time. He does a lot of work in the background and I’m actually fine dealing with the ads this specfic set of ads just makes using the app very uncomfortable to look at.
A lot of people act entitled to others free time and having on demand responses it’s exhausting for anyone trying to do anything when people slam on them for not relaying messages of every little thing they’re doing.
slam on them for not relaying messages of every little thing they’re doing.
That’s not an accurate characterization of it. He went from chatting all the time on Discord to completely disappearing for four months, leaving all us paid users in the wind to suffer all the bugs. From his communication since then, he hadn’t touched the project in the meantime. No one should pay for a beta app and then get abandoned for months. That’s just not right. I don’t understand how that doesn’t leave a bitter taste in your mouth.
If you call that “slamming”, you must work for a newspaper.
Sorry but I haven’t touched the project in the meantime?
I said “hadn’t”. When you came back from your sabbatical you fixed the newest crash, and a few very old bugs, and the limited fixes in the patch notes seemed to indicate you weren’t working on the project over those 4 months. Obviously, you done a bunch since then. But I don’t know for sure, of course, because you weren’t communicating at all.
Don’t feel too bad from my comments, LJ. I don’t know what you’ve got going on in your life. I’ve been a vocal supporter of Sync since the beginning, and I was still supporting and defending it in February, but after the fourth month of your complete silence, I started to lose hope and got very frustrated; started telling people the app appeared to be abandoned and not to spend money on it.
You do your thing. I’m going to try to refrain from making any more comments about your app or your process, but I still don’t feel good about it.
The latest update adds better editing for posts including titles. Thought you’d appreciate that ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Better at the bottom?
On sync for reddit I was annoyed by the permanent ad bar at the bottom of the screen, because it is where the android buttons (home, back, app overview) are and sometimes I would accidentally click an ad.
I actually really like the new placement.
- I no longer accidentally click it
- It only shows up when viewing the comments on a post
- it’s gone when i scroll down/read long discussions. (And doesn’t annoy me for long when there are few comments to read)
Edit: also they don’t flicker for me at all (Fairphone 3). And the beta already has redgif support, so I don’t understand half of OPs complaints anyway. Darktheme matching would be really nice, but I have never heard of that being a thing supported by ads.
Better €10 to get rid of them. Anything above that is too much; I’m sure you’d get double the sales if you weren’t taking the piss
Then they would be there even if you scroll down into the comments. Not better IMO…
If you make more money at the top, leave it at the top. If you make more at the bottom, put it at the bottom.
Yeah, I agree, the better would be bottom. Also, I’m guessing not, but it’s there any way of making them respect dark theme?
Better gone.
Then pay for them or learn to bypass them, you ungrateful pissant.
Oh no, it’s way better like it is now.
Would be more bearable at the bottom the issue of how bright it is would still play a factor. I’ve been with you since day 1 of sync for reddit so I won’t be scared off I know you can only do so much. The price for premium is a touch more than I can pull together but maybe one day as I would love to support the development of the app!
Its too jarring in the middle for users of Dark Mode. I’ve used your app and paid for premium on reddit. I haven’t here because the price to value isn’t there compared to other options at its current price point. I’ve been using your lemmy app since it released but this ad change had me immediately switch.
Yeah, much better at the bottom. I suspect that this allows them to be loaded each time we load comment section (allowing you to be paid for your efforts), regardless of how long the comments section is?
Yeah, after years and years on Reddit sync, buying pro multiple times, and buying Ultra when the API changes were announced, I think I’m done.
Holy shit, please keep those datamining screen estate wasting cancer cells of a dogturds away from Lemmy
Seriously
wait, you guys don’t use adblockers ?
Are there any free ones these days? I haven’t looked in a few years. Last I knew the free ones were all scams.
personally, I use NextDNS which offers 300,000 queries per month, it’s basically a dns server that doesn’t let your phone connect to ad servers. you can put it’s dns address in your phone settings, pretty easy to use.
if however you want something without limits, you can use dns.adguard.com (just put it in private dns settings in your phone.
that’s only for android though, Idk about iOS as I don’t own an iPhone but it should be possible on iOS too.Adguard - the paid one - was the best purchase I made in a year. And there was tough competition for this spot.
I appreciate the desire to go all FOSS, but there is still the need to feed all these great people who make it work.
Do not stop yourself, get it!
Adguard-DNS cloud is similar to NextDNS.
AdGuard Home is an self hosted open source adblocker that can run in a Pi, I run that. More features than PiHole and I’ve had for less issues with it.
arent they already selling our data? at least the settings page seems to suggest it.
anyone can suggest a good FOSS app thats polished like sync?
I just switched to Voyager, it’s pretty good so far.
How does it compare to boost?
I’ve not tried boost, but Voyager has a pwa, just try it for yourself if you’re curious.
have you tried jerboa ?
Jerboa user here. It’s functional, though I still open sync whenever I want to search the platform for something. I haven’t been a fan of most updates (dev likes to change how votes are displayed without giving users the option to revert) but overall I like it
Same here. I like Jerboa but it drives me nuts with the new way votes are displayed. I gotta calculate how much upvotes a post/comment has.
Thunder is great.
and if google admob/adsense is blocked, it just displays as a black rectangle, taking up space…
minor issue i guessI was wondering what that was. I thought it was just an issue with comment loading and rendering.
Glad I’m using Adguard’s DNS
There are some of us, maybe dozens
If I was not using Pihole, I’d gladly ditch Sync. While I think this is the best app around for browsing Lemmy, the business model and prices are fucking ridiculous.
Otherwise, I’d probably been using boost.
