I’ve used Lemmur in the past but lately I’ve realized that the web client is perfectly usable on mobile, much more so than most other social media. This is probably a testament to non-profit-driven development because the web client is really light, scales perfectly to an app-like form factor, there’s no weird behavior with the touchscreen instead of a mouse, and it also gives you all the features of the site instead of arbitrary not letting you do more advanced stuff because they want you to download the app. It also has the extra benefit that it syncs my browsing history to desktop so you pick up where you left off. Since making this latest account I have not felt the need to download an app at all and have been right at home using it from the browser.

Then again, I refuse to get the Reddit app and still use old.reddit.com on mobile (it’s just as annoying as you assume and you have to zoom in and out to click on stuff but I’m used to it by now, also I’m barely using Reddit anymore so that helps too) so maybe I’m somewhat unique? Just curious as to if anyone else exclusively uses the Lemmy web client on mobile and what your thoughts on it. Those on the other side, are there any killer features that apps give that I’m missing?

  • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
    2·
    14 days ago

    I primarily use PieFed, which has a wonderful if not entirely finished web UI. It has so many features that Lemmy lacks, like categories of communities, hashtags, YouTube embeds, and shows the sidebar content (though down below) for every single post - e.g. you wouldn’t make a comment in ChapoTrapHouse so readily without knowing what it is, oh and similarly it puts messages for certain instances like Beehaw.org warning you that their standards differ, which is quite welcoming b/c it allows the instance owners to state in their own words what that message is.

    But it also lacks some features that Lemmy has, like many times Notifications don’t work (pointing to collapsed, deleted, blocked, or whatever I don’t even know sometimes content), and user tagging isn’t implemented yet, plus I’m constantly wanting to upvote someone, only to realize that I must have done so already but since it wasn’t showing the indicator properly that I had just removed it, and have to hit it again to restore.

    So it’s a great idea of something that will eventually come, if not quite fully here now (for the masses). That said, it uses ~1/25th the amount of data that Lemmy does, which is REALLY something! See this post, specifically the 3rd link to “Comparing network utilization of Lemmy, Kbin and PieFed”, and my comment there:

    And uses less data - helpful for using a mobile data plan. Those numbers shown in the article are all the more impressive even for sending 5x more posts on the home screen than Lemmy’s default, even while still sending >4/5 less data - i.e. it’s more like sending roughly only 1/25th the data per post, if I’m reading that right.

    On Lemmy I likewise always used the web UI - it’s not perfect but it’s fairly good. One thing I despise is how you cannot see both up- and down-votes for something… except you can (only from mobile) though you can’t (from desktop). So like if you get a +1 total, is that like no votes at all, or equal up- & down-votes - those are very different scenarios, the latter being far more “active”.

    I’ve tried the Voyager app but had lots of technical problems with it - like I’d make a comment, but I’d have to force-quit and re-open the app for it to show up. Apparently that’s really odd so it could somehow be due to my own set-up, not something that most people would see. Voyager doesn’t work with PieFed btw - this is for the Lemmy instance Discuss.Online.

    I thought about trying Thunder but haven’t yet.