alt Hacker NewsIt's almost impossible to use social networks on mobile without installing their apps
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It's impossible for me to use YouTube with the app. Safari + uBlock origin lite and I never see an ad.
They artificially lock it down, because the app will give them more data to collect than the web app plus a larger surface to annoy the user with notifications, widgets, and other advertisement.
So there's 2 reasons to not install apps
When I rejoined X at the start of this year I consciously decided not to install the app on my phone. It's addicting enough in the web browser on my laptop.
So I have zero social media networks on my phone and, looking at everyone around me who does, I'm very pleased with this decision.
I found that installing facebook dot com to my Home Screen on iOS works acceptably. Lets me check in on things every now and then and still be confident they’re very limited in what they can track.
Messenger doesn’t work but luckily I rarely if ever use it.
Even more of a reason to get off them
They're digital drugs
If you don't install it they keep you from spending time on them. It's a feature, not a bug.
you can with liberedirect or ublock origin and firefox for android.
Bug or feature?
Didn't use to be. I stopped using facebook shortly after they blocked messenger on their webpage, so jokes on them I guess.
I just finished making a social application (for skateboarding) with the express intent of making it fully featured/pleasant to use on mobile simply as web app, without login or installation.
Web is such a powerful platform and so many people still treat their web applications like they're just interactive documents. I think the most bothersome thing on mobile web is if an application has shifting framing ("chrome") when you pan around, like you're looking at a PDF.
Let me know, but I developed it almost entirely focused on iPhone SE as a target to give myself the most claustrophobic possible experience, and I think that helped guide a lot of the decisions.
When I got a new phone about a year ago, I decided that I wouldn't be installing any traditional social media apps (Tusky doesn't count) and that I'd use the web when "necessary". This has been a very successful experiment and resulted in me looking at Instagram _maybe_ once per week.