I was looking forward to trying Sync today now that it’s live, but my enthusiasm was immediately dampened after seeing the “Data Safety” section on the Google Play store.
Liftoff has been great, and want to say thanks for making an awesome app. This will continue to be my daily driver.
Edit: for clarity, because the post got way bigger than I expected.
Sync looks like a fantastic app, and the dev/s should charge whatever they feel is fair for their efforts, even if that’s through the usual ads + ad tracking.
My intent was just to post here in /c/Liftoff to thank the Liftoff devs for managing to somehow offer an awesome app without any of that.
Sync has just updated to allow a one off payment to remove ads. Dawson is also adding a one off payment for lifetime Ultra as well.
Aren’t they still tracking after that? Simply hiding ads doesn’t make you less of a commodity.
No. The data tracking is because of the Google services ads. An app developer gets no compensation for data tracking, only serving ads which causes the tracking.
An app developer gets no compensation for data tracking, only serving ads which causes the tracking.
That’s seriously splitting hairs. The tracking is part and parcel with the ads, the compensation is for the tracking too.
What I was responding to was about what happens when the ads are removed by subscribing. If the ads are removed, there is no more tracking.
Isnt tracking done by Google service app and not sync itself? I am not an app developer but it doesn’t seem logical for someone to add tracking elements that they have no control over.
It’s been confirmed that if you pay to remove ads, the ad sdk doesn’t even get loaded
But lemmy doesn’t have ads?
It’s a monetization strategy for the work he’s put into the app. I see why people don’t like it but I never intended to see a single ad in Sync anyway
Ahhh that’s a no from me. I’d pay if I like it, but injecting ads into the feed and I’m out. Just trying liftoff now. Seems solid.
I like liftoff a lot. There are a couple of features I’d like to see (such as an option to automatically hide child comments) however they’ve already added other features I’ve suggested.
That’s why there’s the option to remove ads
Shouldn’t some of the ad revenue be going to the Lemmy servers? Seems kinda wack.
I’ve read elsewhere that this app is his full time job, and this is obviously my opinion, but FWIW sync has by far the best UX of any app I’ve ever used and I’ve been using it for about a decade.
Weird, I remember him having a job and sync being a side thing. Something the moderators mentioned after LJ pushed that big update on sync for reddit and some users attacked him to the point he took a break.
I think that may have been before he went full time on the app, I could definitely be wrong though
How much is it to remove all ads?
20$
It’s $20 to remove ads but there are also ultra features you have to pay extra for
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Nice of “Dawson” to think to formally add that after people already signed up for subscriptions and others started calling him out on it. There was no reason Sync needed to release today if that option wasn’t prepared, and if it was seriously being considered, maybe he should of notified users in the app before they started spending money.
It’s still in beta. Beta doesn’t mean feature-complete.
Given the popularity of the app, waiting for perfection wasn’t going to make sense. With sync, I have near parity on features with Jerboa, a smoother experience and what’s lacking will be added.
Also, why put the dev’s name in quotes? It just makes things look hateful. Full name is ljdawson… but that’s the dev’s name.
I’m not entitled to another’s labor for free. Some may choose to give it, but I’m not entitled to it. And if I like something, I expect there’s a cost. If it makes me happy enough, I pay.
I dont get you people. Making those apps is maybe a hobby for some but a job for others. People asked for Synch for Lemmy and the dev WORKED on it and will continue WORKING on it.
Love to see how many of you guys will work for free. And you probably all work for places that NEVER collect any data.
Could I use a free app for Lemmy? Sure, but I want Synch, because I know what Synch has to offer is what I want. I don’t need to settle for an “almost” solution. I can use Synch and I gladly paid for it.
I think OP doesn’t mind paying for an app, it’s the “collect data” that was his issue. If the free version collects data to send you ads, and there is an option to buy and remove the data collection and ads, then that’s probably fine with most people.
Another thing to consider is that in the past apps could be sold separately with an ad version and an ad free version. So people could flat out avoid having an app that had any ad elements.
So there now only being an ad version, and then the initial first impression people saw was a subscription model to remove ads rubbed people the wrong way.
Either way, people can use the app or not, but it’s been odd how some people have been so emotional over people choosing to not use Sync. Like one of the top comments in this thread is just someone insulting foss and people not paying for Sync.
I don’t you should be forced to pay for it to stop collecting data assuming it does. Just give them non personalized ones instead. Unless that’s also what you meant then nvm.
That’s the way it is being reported. Buy to remove ads and the tracking goes away.
Yeah, I’ve been really disappointed in Lemmy’s response to sync. I thought this community was supposed to be technically minded but in every thread on Sync, the top comment is repeating disinformation about tracking and there’s tons of people tearing down the developer.
I get not wanting to use an App that has ads, but people are getting downright toxic over an App that no one is forcing them to use lol.
Where are the disinformation? Show me how I can have the ad-free version on my phone that doesn’t have Play Services and I’ll be very happy.
The fediverse has a very high percentage of users who are FOSS zealots. These people would rather drink rancid gnu piss from Richard Stallman’s sweaty jock strap than deal with commercialized software. After you’ve been around them long enough (1996 in my case) you learn to tune them out.
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Hard disagree. I find Sync the best user experience so far, including the best looking UI hands down
I’ve been using Voyager until today. It was a fine app, but anyone who thinks it holds a candle to Sync is off their rocker. Sync has more features, runs far more smoothly, and looks a hell of a lot better.
Exactly. I don’t think many of the people who are claiming Sync is no better than others have actually used and thoroughly explored Sync, even for Reddit.
The customization options are incredible. Beautiful UI. Backup options. Filters. Settings that are fine tuned, and separate per account. It feels like years of work and polish, compared to weeks or months for others. Others work fine (fan of Liftoff), getting better, but I’m blown away with Dawson and Sync. The “ad outrage” is disappointing and silly to me at this stage (literally day one).
Well the years of work is literally that. Sync for lemmy is based on sync for reddit base. Or so it seems
Same with Jerboa.
I prefer Infinity
(Sadly the Lemmy version is not ready yet)
It isn’t? I’m on it right now, works totally fine
Yeah, same here, seems to working very nicely.
I was in the same boat, but I find Connect pretty similar to Sync’s usability.
Yeah, the free apps have really raised the bar. I think there’s a lot of passion out there for the fediverse and non-corporate social media.
I haven’t tried Voyager yet, but it sounds like I should give it a shot!
Lol, claiming that Jerboa is just as good if not better than sync is wild!
Isn’t that down to what one individually consider “good”?
I find notepad-style text editors better word processors than Microsoft’s online Office system. It’s not because notepads are technically better or more visually appealing. It’s because I value not being tracked more.
What does liftoff have that the others don’t?
For one, it handles account switching much more smoothly than most apps I’ve tried.
While viewing a post, commenting, searching, or posting, you can choose your originating instance from a drop-down. Most other apps have to reload your feed and/or relaunch.
It’s been really helpful for me whenever an instance is bogged down or acting funny, and I can just hop over without losing my place.
Oh man I didn’t even see that in the menu. That is handy.
Liftoff is great, it’s true. Sadly, it lacks the only feature I’m after : hide read posts on scroll. Saw requests for this not being answered, so I guess it’s not coming.
Great app I admit, but a hard pass for me because of this.
I’d love this to be added too.
I want it to scroll to the comment in the post. I’m always manually trying to find the context of a comment by scrolling and looking.
I mean when you get a notification about a response and it takes you to the comment. It just shows you the comment. And then you click on Show Context. And here I was hoping it would scroll to the location of the comment in the post.
Yes, this is really handy every time world gets attacked. I still have my world account set as my main, but it’s super easy to just switch over.
Does Liftoff offer keyword filtering or blocking instances at the account level?
A better question is, what does Liftoff lack that others don’t?
I miss being able to hide posts, for example.
In Sync settings under View Type, you can enable the option to hide a post from the main feed view. In fact, there’s a lot of additional features that can be enabled and customized, the options menu is enormous and it really can be customized to your personal preferences.
I hear you, but nothing matters after ads, trackers, and money. Which is why I should also say that if you download and use TrackerControl from f-droid, you wont see ads on Sync, which is neat. My heart still lies with liftoff, they added double tap home button to scroll to the top and I about lost my shit in excitement, lol.
Fucking love Infinity. Amazing what the devs are doing in a short amount of time
Infinity is coming? Is it similar to the reddit version? And where can I see updates for it?
Yep! Here’s the website where you can find it right now: https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy
You can download it from the Releases section manually or install and keep it updated with Obtainium
I tried adding it to Obtanium, but it says “could not find suitable release”
Enable the prereleases slider
This solved the issue, thanks!
Hmm, that’s strange, I’m on version
0.13.22and my phone’s architecture isarm64v8a, what’s your setup?
It’s already out, but it still has lots of references to reddit. There’s even still a ui for giving out awards
Summit (#1 in my heart), also lemmotif is in early development but has promise.
Whoa summit is pretty nice. I’ve been using Connect but maybe not anymore.
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ROFLCOPTER
claiming these are just as good as sync just tells what you expect the apps to do
but what I’ve seen and (a lot of the other posters) is that sync is a whole lot smoother than all these apps and is the most feature-rich client
if getting tracked is your main problem in using sync, just use nextdns or pihole to block connections to google servers or pay up (currently only using google, I wish there was some other way)
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I used Sync for a long time on Reddit, but there didn’t seem to be any free clients (with no ads) there.
I like “no ads” a lot more than I like “a very slightly better UI”, and the free ones for Lemmy offer enough for what I need. I don’t know what a paid one could offer over that to convince me to buy it.
And for me, font is just too smal and hard to setup in Sync. And slow.
Jerboa wins again.
Tell me you haven’t gone through Sync’s settings without telling me you haven’t gone through Sync’s settings
You can edit that in settings, but I appreciate that a new app has a learning curve.
Sync VS FOSS thing isn’t over yet? Let everyone use what they like the most. Let everyone be the judge of their own data and how it is being used. For god’s sake, live and let live folks
I would rather not normalize closed source software. Might as well just go back to Reddit.
I would rather not nornalize closed source software
Ah yes, closed source software, definitely not a normal, common occurance. Better not normalize it otherwise most of the world might end up using some kind of closed source software daily!
I, for one would rather actively work to de-normalize it!
There, is that written accurately enough for you?
I should clarify. I don’t want to normalize it… In the FOSS sphere (Lemmy).
But also you really shouldn’t flout how frequently your data is pillaged and sold out. Its an embarrassing look.
I for one use exclusively FOSS software outside of my banking app.
None of my data is being taken by Sync.
A lot of your data is being taken and shared by your bank.
Different people will place different levels of importance to obsessively chasing privacy - which is fine. Your constant attempt in this post to make your views on the importance of FOSS somehow a morally superior choice is the only embarrassing thing so far.
Do you know yourself for a fact that no data is being taken by Sync itself?
And its a fact that Google and Firebase are taking your data. Even if Sync itself doesn’t collect any data, it uses Google products (as stated in their Privacy Policy which I’m 1000% you did read), and any and all google products will take your data.
That’s the point of using a FOSS client, if it collected data people would know, the code is public. And the data collection can be removed, since the code is public.
Even outside of data collection or privacy, which clearly you don’t care about, we should avoid giving Google more power. Look at manifest v3 or the web integrity API. That affects not only your privacy, but your security and ability to use the internet. And not only yours, but the whole world
Do you know yourself for a fact that no data is being taken by Sync itself?
Yes. You might be surprised, but given how I control my own network, I don’t actually need access to the source code to discover if Sync is collecting data.
Unless you’re somehow worried about Sync collecting a ton of data and never sending it anywhere, which would be a ridiculous claim.
As for Google… Yeah, I’m sure on my Android device, the one where I sync my photos to Google Photos and my files to Google Drive, Sync is most definitely the way Google is collecting my data.
But just as an addendum, you’re indeed doubly wrong. When I enable my subscription, Sync only contacts Google when checking the subscription status. No crashlogs or similar data being shared here.
Well, you are just one of the (majority of) people who apparently don’t care about being tracked by google. Me personally, others in the comments and maybe OP don’t use anything google related, have custom ROMs without gapps and avoid Google like the plague. So it is a concern for us, using Sync would open the door to google tracking.
Others have pointed out that even if you pay for pro, Sync still requires Play Services.
You seem to happily Google products, so my point wouldn’t apply to you. I just thought that most people would be concerned about google and tracking and fingerprinting and all that stuff, since we are in Lemmy and the Liftoff sub.
Firebase is typically a dependency for key app features. If the app still works 100%, you’re probably not even blocking the traffic.
Using Google Drive/Photos is just another problem. Amazing to me people keep bringing that up like a “you’re a hypocrite” trump card.
Morals have nothing to do with it. Im, quite plainly, saying that is is pretty stupid to put your data into closed source apps.
Only ignorant people do that.
The only reason I use my bank app is because its literally required to exist in America. If it were up to me, it wouldn’t be.
Only ignorant people do that.
Yeah, most of the world is massively dumb, but you’re a genius. It must be hard getting inside a bus with such a massive brain poking out.
Most of the world is by definition ignorant of data privacy.
Absolutely.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand it, just someone who is not ignorant.
But, by all means, continue to give your data to whoever you want to.
But you don’t actually know what code is running on a given lemmy server. Just because the source is open, doesn’t mean that any given server is using the reference implementation, admins could be running whatever they want on their backend.
That’s why it’s imperative that the app which communicates with the server via Lemmy’s api, IS open and auditable. That’s how we prevent maligned actors from using data they shouldn’t have. You can audit what is being sent from an open source app.
Christ, closed source is not the devil, and if you treat it like it is then it shows you don’t actually know how open or closed source works, or the pros and cons of both types of software.
Let’s break it down this way. Let’s look at incentive structure’s.
An Open Source application can be forked, and has no incentive to use data in a maligned way.
A closed one can earn tons of money by doing just that.
As I argue with most things, Capitalism is the main issue and it permeates through all facets of life by having backwards incentive structures
God forbid a developer wants to own the code they write and be able to pay their bills doing it.
A fork “can be used” to stab someone in the jugular but it doesn’t mean we need to get rid of all forks to ensure it never happens. People need to be smart with who they trust and who they give their money to. LJ isn’t putting a gun to your head and forcing you to buy his app, but I’m gladly paying for it because I feel like he’s an upstanding guy and frankly he’s just better at building a good UI than anyone else on Lemmy (and yes, I’ve tried at least 5 different apps. Second best was Connect.)
I would rather not normalize software that looks and works like a high school project made by someone who doesn’t know what UI or UX are.
UI UX Can be fixed tho.
You like eating shit?
Closed source enthusiasts sure seem to.
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Bro, of course it has a data safety section, it offers a paid version so it will need to be able to collect your financial information, and any trackers are removed if you remove ads or turn off personalized ads. That doesn’t mean it’s stealing your data, those are regular app functions for apps that have iaps or show ads.
download camera app
App requirements: Access to files
OMFG THE CAMERA APP IS STEALING ALL OF MY DATA
Chinese apps do most probably
The race to make a Lemmy app has made some solid contenders step up. There are a lot of legitimately good apps.
Definitely. It’s like we’re the prettiest girl at the dance!
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Because I want to support the developer? Sync has had a ton of work put into it over the last few years, it’s a non trivial task for a developer to commit that much time to a free app. I also hate patreon, so $17 a year is a steal. It’s also literally like a chipotle burrito every 12 months. I think I can fit that into the budget.
It’s seriously a great app, so I don’t get the fuss about Sync either. I’ve been a Sync and Boost user before but I’m very content with the apps we already got for Lemmy so I won’t throw in another one to choose from.
I’ve been switching between Liftoff, Voyager and Thunder because they all seem to good to just lose them right now lol
Sync looks super clean and is probably a fantastic app, but I’m just a little put off by the data privacy. It’s like a month or so in the fediverse has spoiled me, and I can’t go back to being a product.
Yes, thanks for pointing that aspect out. I get the motivation to collect data to serve ads but I wish to stay with privacy respecting options too and I hope the contributors to those clients see enough donations to make their efforts worthwhile as well.
The data privacy stuff is all related to the plumbing required to serve ads.
If you pay for the ad-free version none of that stuff gets loaded.
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Because people have run analysis on the activity of the app already and the trackers don’t fire if you aren’t on the ad supported version.
All of the listed stuff is also required for serving ads through services like Google and pretty normal for ad-supported apps.
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His dad works at Sync for Lemmy
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lil reminder that this was posted to the liftoff community. the sheer volume of comments echoing the same “fuck you for complaining, you’re wrong” sentiment would really make you wonder. it’s not like you wandered, drunk, into their community and started shit talking sync.
coincidentally that does seem to be what most of the sync-stans in here have done, though.
I’ll play devil’s advocate. Let’s look at some facts and the timeline.
Sync for Reddit has 1,000,000+ downloads, according to the Play Store listing as of writing. It has existed since ~2012 and is well established as one of the best Android reddit apps. To put that number into perspective, that’s roughly one Sync user for every 2 posts on Lemmy (https://lemmy.world/post/2581495).
Liftoff is a brand new app created for Lemmy. Further, Lemmy itself is just becoming known. There aren’t many people here.
Sync announces and releases the beta of Sync for Lemmy.
Everyone who has Sync for Reddit installed still gets a notification that Sync for Lemmy is available.
Sync for Lemmy becoming available means that many more people are about to sign up.
The topic of Sync for Lemmy, regardless of whether it’s positive or negative, is at the top of Lemmy’s “All” in multiple posts all week. That is happening on a lot of communities, this post on Liftoff being one of them. Naturally, people who enjoy sync are going to see these posts and will want to voice their opinion. Can you blame them?
I think it is disingenuous to assume malice in the sense that sync-stans are actively searching for negative Sync posts like you are claiming.
Adding in my personal bias: I think the majority of the anti-Sync conversation is rooted in gatekeeping newcomers to the fediverse. Which is really, really unfortunate. But that’s the kind of attitude that exists in online forums like this so that’s what we’ll get.
I am using Sync and will continue to. That’s my personal choice. Everyone has their personal choice and that means others should fuck off about that choice. This goes for both sides, but I think it’s more important for the anti-Sync crowd to hear because right now it seems like they are the ones who are truly up in arms about it all.
OP here, and I honestly didn’t expect this post yesterday to get so big, or to cause a debate.
Sync looks fantastic. Ads and ad tracking stuff isn’t abnormal and is totally up to the devs, but I just wanted to express my gratitude here in /c/Liftoff for managing to offer an awesome app for free, without any of that.
to be clear, i don’t think they’re actively searching. the “drunken wander” bit is specifically aimed at people who got here from an “all” or “local” front page, but then started engaging without acknowledging or even noticing where they were, much like a drunk might do after wandering into someone’s home lol
i do love the response though, very well thought out and structured. thank you for being so constructive on such a hot-button topic.
I…uhh… I totally did that to the sync community stone cold sober, I just wasn’t paying attention. I thought I was still in the memes community. And then I doubled down with a Futurama reference. My bad y’all.
honestly i think a lot of it is just growing pains, for a huge swath of users this is a new and potentially confusing environment lmao
I’ve used liftoff, connect, Jerboa, voyager, and sync. For me personally, sync is easily the best app functionally out of all of them, followed by voyager. I liked liftoff better than Jerboa, but stopped using it and went mainly to using voyager because of how liftoff handled messaging which I found frustrating and confusing. Idk if they’ve changed it since then, but that ship has sailed for me anyway since liftoff doesn’t offer anything I want that I couldn’t get from sync or voyager. I didn’t use connect much because it was very buggy for me so I can’t really compare it to the others. Voyager is my next choice after sync, but it still had a lot of issues that I haven’t experienced with sync so it’s still only my second choice.
I’m biased, since I’ve liked sync since I used it for reddit, but I’m not a stan by any means. I’m waiting to see how things play out since the app has only been available publicly for a day or two. Personally, I think if someone wants to make a salty post in the liftoff community about another app that isn’t liftoff, then it’s only fair that people who use that other app can share their own opinions in the comment section of a post on a public community, particularly when the post specifically brings up that other app as a topic.
Yeah, there is this feeling of a weird cult movement from them where daring to not use Sync or criticize anything about it is seen as an affront. I could understand the reaction if this was posted on the Sync community. They leap to accusations of you must not pay for anything you cheapskate as opposed to not understanding that some just don’t support the current model, so don’t use the product.
There’s lot of products that are better than alternatives, but people choose to not use for whatever reasons. Like dare I say it…reddit still when it comes to niche communities.
I’m very impressed with liftoff and lemmy too actually. Honestly it feels like I’ve struck gold with installing liftoff. I’m not looking for anything else to browse lemmy with, liftoff is all I need. I’m really happy with it!
“I’m impressed with the rotary telephone and Ma Bell too actually. I’m not looking for anything else to make calls with, the rotary phone is all I need. I’m really happy with it!”
So liftoff being a rotary phone and lemmy a bell. Care to elaborate? What feels like “in no time” apps like liftoff have filled the RIF void for me with much success. I like to give credit where it’s due.
Yeah, one glance at the terms of use had me uninstalling the app. I don’t feel like “decentralized social media” and “sale of personal data” pair well together.
It’s like people are trying to misinterpret.
Liftoff is strictly using Lemmy’s free API and for the developer 5 users or 5M users doesn’t make a difference to his expenses.
The Sync developer is obviously trying to do something more ambitious.
It’s great that we have FOSS apps that do a decent job but we shouldn’t look down on developers who put a lot of time, effort, and money into something expecting to make a return on their investment.
I don’t like data collecting either but I accept that if you want to offer a free version - it’s inevitable. What I hate is when you’re not able to pay for ads to go away.
But I might be biased as I’m a developer myself and would hate to put 8-9 weeks of hard work into delivering a great app and then get hate for wanting to get something in return for that work.
You’ve been able to pay for ads to go away for about the last 16hrs, the update to B25 dropped last night.
The original plan was not to release version like that until it was more polished, but the masses have spoken and been listened to almost immediately.
In terms of data collection, LJD is literally just bothered about Crashlytics.
I am honestly fine with giving these permissions for a free version of the app as I understand the developers need to monetize with ads for the free version. What I would like to see though that the paid version with subscription is another app that does not ask for these permissions. If I am paying for the app to remove ads and/or get additional paid features, the app seemingly still collects that data. As a user I have no way to tell what the developer is doing with that data. Is it only to retain sessions / enable features or is my data being given to third parties regardless if I pay or not
The Sync developer is obviously trying to do something more ambitious.
Hm, what exactly? It doesn’t seem to have any particularly remarkable features 🤨
Sounds like you didn’t actually try the app. It’s super fast and smooth. Lots of customization, great UI. I happily pay for that effort.
Sync will surely make the lemmy ecosystem more attractive and bring in a ton more people, which is a great thing for everyone here whether you use the app or not.
Ok, so I have been trying out Sync… and well, yes, the UI is slightly better, but most of the “fancy” stuff is only in the paid version… which is kind of steep for stuff I could wait a year or two without.
Most interesting feature I’ve seen, is the search function, but it still fails in many places, so that’s somewhat bittersweet. Curiously, it’s one of the free ones, so… well, I guess I’ll leave it installed for a while and see how things go.
More people isn’t great. It’s how social media begin to sink. It was like this on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.
Yeah, Google+ was such a hit thanks to its lack of users
There is an optimum. But, the more is the best isn’t true for communities and social media.
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Maybe, but we are waaaay under that “optimum” right now, so for now the more is the best
The problem with those sites was not the amount of users.
Tons of more options and a faster and smoother interface. And moving subscriptions across instances is coming. And it has cloud sync.
But I agree, it’s quite pricy for the extra bells and whistles.
Migrating accounts across instances is a pending Lemmy core feature, the server part has to sort that out.
Liftoff’s interface seems fast and smooth to me, only thing I might be missing is some sort of “multireddits” or Mastodon-like “timelines” to sort things out a bit better, but using multiple accounts kind of works too.
I mean it’s probably better if the server has it, but it can be implemented client side too. All the information about a users subs is right there in the api.
And it feels like the server devs have their hands full, so features like this could be quite some time.
This sounds exactly like the conversations we have at work. Cries in frontend.
I’m backend. :)
Nothing more than what the free apis do.
Well yeah, but I think the apis are enough. There are already utilities using those apis to copy subscriptions.
“Something” is $115 for the lifetime subscription. I paid $35 for the same thing 13 months ago, and it was $3 before that. He didn’t exactly build the app from scratch either. It’s greed, so I’ll be getting the cracked version on Mobilism as soon as it’s released
One time ad removal is $20, the ultra subscription is clearly a very different thing so.
You did think it’s unusual that he’s more than tripled the price of Ultra? After selling a “lifetime” sub 13 months ago? This is a total swizz
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And yet you expect to be able to use the software they produce for free
I lean on the same opinion, and it’s not like that at all, if Liftoff or whichever application were to be on the store with a pricetag they would probably even be happy to pay for it, this is not about cost for us users, it’s about being sold to trackers and advertisers and it being proprietary. You can argue that if the developer made it open source then someone would have just forked it off without all the restrictions and privacy problems and that version would have effectively taken the place of the original, that may or may not be true, it seems like a lot of people are faithful to the original developer.
If it were to happen though, I think it would speak numbers on the practice itself, this is fundamentally an ethical issue, the developer made an application that he maintained over the years, I have huge respect for that in and of itself, he also made it paid for, absolutely fine still, but the free version has ads, that’s not cool, not because ads are bad, but because the current ad landscape depends on tracking/profiling the users who consume them, now he will have made a fair bit of money in all these years so I’d say he already reaped the benefits of his own work, that doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to make more money off it, but as long as his work was based on another proprietary platform (Reddit) I’d say the ethics of it were in a gray area, kind of understandable, now he adapts his app to a new platform (Lemmy) that doesn’t monetize its users and is libre software (can’t go further than AGPL) and he keeps his app proprietary and with the very same downsides as before, not only that, it costs more, even though there are no API costs and the transition to it couldn’t have cost him some ungodly amount of effort to implement, but that’s beside the point, everyone names their price, I may not agree with it, but it’s not a bad thing per se. What I’m not ok with is how he’s half profiting off some other people’s work, i.e. the server developers, I think it’s morally wrong, but I would have never thought that if, for instance, he made it open source with no ads trackers and sold it for any amount (20€? 30€? Idk) on the Play Store. You probably wouldn’t agree with me simply because ethics are subjective and free software is a matter of ethics, not money, I care about it because, to a certain extent (I’m not a maximalist) I care for my own freedom in computing and black boxes just hurt a free ecosystem.deleted by creator
It asks for consent to personalize ads / sell your data, you can say no. I did, and I just see a black square with “Sponsored Content” in the centre, no ad, probably a bug.
You can also pay for the version without ads; there’s Ultra, but Sync Pro one time purchase will be available soon.
I used Sync Pro for Reddit for years, it was awesome. Liftoff is great, and I recommend it, but I’m going to use Sync Pro.
I think it’s a little uncharitable to Sync to characterise it like this. Yes, it collects personal data to show ads. However, you have the choice to refuse or pay a one time fee to get rid of it entirely. It’s the nonconsensual nature of data collection that robs users of their agency that makes it problematic.
Devs need to eat and donations are not always a realistic revenue scheme. With the one time fee, Sync has signalled it cares about its users and not just value extraction like Big Tech. I will probably pay that and be happy.
I like Liftoff, I also like Sync. I use both atm.
I totally get that, and the sync dev seems like a good guy who is well within his rights to charge whatever he feels is reasonable for his time. To an average end user like me though, it feels a bit like there are 5-6 booths offering bananas for free, but then someone set up a booth right next to them selling bananas for $20 a pop or requiring me to sit through a sales pitch.
I just wanted to show my appreciation for the guy at my favorite booth who is doing it for free when they really didn’t have to.
Okay, but in this scenario one guy offers it for free because he helps to grow bananas as a hobby with a bunch of other guys who also help, and he doesn’t need to sell the bananas to make a living, while the guy offering bananas for money grows bananas himself or just with his family for a living and so selling them is how he can afford to make more and also put food on the table. You can also have his bananas for free too, as long as you’re okay with the bananas having stickers with sponsored brand names on them. I can understand not wanting to pay for something when there are free versions available, and the prices can be a bit high for some people atm, assuming they don’t change in the coming days, but the guy selling bananas for money isn’t forcing you to buy his bananas instead of getting the free ones from other booths, he’s offering his bananas for people who are willing and able to pay for them or willing to tolerate ads on them to support him. Presumably you didn’t feel the need to thank liftoff before the stuff with sync happened, so it doesn’t come across like you’re just thankful to liftoff in general, more like you’re doing it because you’re unhappy with sync.
Man, that’s Ferrari. That’s how they operate. You can buy lots of cars, but you can’t walk into a dealer and buy a Ferrari.
You can sit and be fucking mad at Ferrari, or just choose to say “that’s an expensive thing for a dumb privilege”, … and drive an Audi instead.
I think @Laticauda@lemmy.ca has already made a good point regarding your example.
I’m not judging you or anything, just that the appreciation could have been shown without comparing it to Sync. It can come off as a bit combative, when you didn’t mean it like that.
And look what you’ve done. You brought the crazies out. The extremists.
you have the choice to refuse
If you’re in the EU, of course.
pay a one time fee to get rid of it entirely
If you already have spyware called Play Services on your phone.
I just used a VPN to the EU and refused. Yeah it sucks that governments don’t care, but nothing I can do about it right now.
As for Play Services, most people will never run a degoogled phone. So, that’s that.
We keep looking at this like it’s about the apps themselves and not the precedent it sets. paying for a app while possibly neglecting the financial requirements of the instance admins (I set up my monthly payment to .world’s Patreon Yesterday) that actually host the content you’re looking at on said app.
And how is it different than reddit?
We paid for the app (or free app) but zero direct financial contribution to the platform.
I do not like corporation but it seems disingenous to post like you just did on an app’s ‘subreddit’.
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Mmmm… I deleted my original response because yours disappeared for some reason, but I use liftoff and everybody should donate. That pretty much covers what I said in my original comment. I still don’t understand what you’re getting at though.
Yeah, I would continue using Liftoff and Voyager. Just because we have sync doesn’t mean we have to jump ship. I love getting involved with the community over at github.
Where do you download voyager?
https://lemmy.world/post/2613340
Just released in the play store
Thank you
The hard client is on testflight if you’re on IOS. Not sure for Android, but you can use the PWA.
Thx, but whats PWA?
Progressive Web App, basically a website on steroids.
More specifically it’s a webpage that has many capabilities of an application (notifications, working offline etc.) and is installable to your phone. If done right you basically can’t tell the difference between a standard app and a PWA.
Thx
I just wish more apps would allow blocking instances. I don’t want to hide all NSFW content, but hot damn there is a lot of different porn communities in @lemmynsfw and it is a pain to block each individually.
Sync has this feature. Liftoff does not and voyager(my old daily use) did not.
Sync also does feature markup settings that voyager does not like bold hidden text ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Liftoff just implemented blocking instances based on words contained in the instance name, it should be out on the next version: https://github.com/liftoff-app/liftoff/pull/372
So you will soon be able to solve that issue.
Connect has the option. There is also the option to block comments, but it seems to be a toggle for all blocked instances instead of a per-instance basis. Currently I’ve only blocked feddit.de because I don’t speak the language. Don’t know what I’ll end up doing if I want to block an instance and its comments though.
Connect blocks the comments of blocked instances by default, at least it does for me. They still show up and you can click on them to show the content if you want. There is a setting to not block the comments of blocked instances. I too blocked feddit.de cause of ze german.
Connect allows this, great app.
Instance blocking would be really nice. There are also some bot instances that mirror content from reddit, and while I get the appeal, I’d rather not have it in my feed. I’ve just been blocking the bots individually.
Sync and connect both have block instance options.
BTW if you have blocked communities, that is account level and will travel with you when you install one of the other apps.
I’m pretty sure instance locking is app based and not tied to your account.
Hm… not sure whether it’s app or account based, I think Mastodon has it as account based… or does it? 🤔
Thunder has this and so does liftoff (at least the latest versions I am using through obtainium).
Ugh. Lemmy turning into Reddit with dumbasses.
so just normal reddit then?
We did it Lemmy
Well we got what we wanted I guess.
