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.
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.
Not to mention that Sync for Reddit had the same exact data advisory tag. The developer has been very open that he doesn’t store or sell the data, it is just needed for the free version to work properly.
I think the issue is not with wether the dev collects data, its about the dev using google products, which do collect, store and sell data.
There are alternatives to Firebase, (i think they can even be self hosted), so its something that can be improved without affecting much the development time or other aspects.
The Dev has shown countless times that he listens to his community and is willing to make changes. I mean for fucks sake he spent untold hours completely building a new UI and still made sure the old styling was available for users who prefer the classic look.
If enough people raise a stink about Google services I’m sure he will look at alternatives.
I mean, you can’t even install the pro version (without ads) unless you’re deep in the ass of the Google ecosystem. Someone checked and the pro version doesn’t send any tracking requests (which checks with what the developer said - the ad library is not even initialized in the pro version) so it’s not that bad for me.
But the part where I have to have Play Services is a huge no-no for me. So with Sync I can choose a) have spying ads or b) have different spying ads.
Of course it has the same data advisory tag, they both have/had a paid version of the app. It needs to collect financial information for that. That’s data that you have to offer voluntarily for christ sake, and then it checks whether your account is subscribed or not since lemmy itself wouldn’t indicate that. Even if it didn’t show ads, it would still have a data advisory tag. I can understand people who are extremely privacy obsessed online avoiding any app that collects data, even benign or optional data, just in case, but some people are treating it like sync is spyware just because it has a data advisory tag, which is ridiculous.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Shouldn’t some of the ad revenue be going to the Lemmy servers? Seems kinda wack.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
thing is, with all you list (and sync) the key thing is there is CHOICE
Nobody is forcing anyone to use Sync. If you don’t like the model it uses, then use something else that better fits what you want. People in this thread are acting like its compulsory to use sync.
BUT. what sync will do is bring people over from reddit. Sync for Reddit was hugely popular and there are tens of thousands of people that used Sync for years that had not shown any interest in Lemmy. Sync will bring some of those to this community which can only be a benefit to everyone.
Don’t like it, don’t use it.
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”
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.
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.
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)
I’ve read sync for reddit stopped connections to google after paying up
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
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
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.
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.
All I’ve learned from today’s drama is some of you people really love apps. People getting enraged over which apps people are using…
Lemmy really seems to attract even more terminally online people
I mean a lot of the people on here seem a bit more on the technical side, so it’d make sense imo
You’d think that, but so many of these users complaining don’t understand how ad serving works. They’re acting like this is some outrageous conspiracy to gather user data by the dev himself, or are being willfully ignorant about the proof that none of ad tracking SDK even loads when you use either the one time removal or the subscription.
I really thought that most of the early adopter crowd for a federated service like this would be at least mildly technical. But no, that’s a stupid assumption in hind sight.
I honestly didn’t know this and I’d consider myself pretty technical, just not very familiar with serving ads. This is really cool, how’d u learn this?
Often times people on the internet think they are more techy or correct than they are. The other issue is this makes other users feel like the are actually less techy but the truth is an internet search can teach you a lot about how the Internet works.
My issue with the Lemmy community is that they think FOSS some how makes things more private and secure when that is indeed not at all how privacy or security works and there is enough evidence to suggest you are not secure no matter if it’s FOSS or not FOSS.
There is also a mentality that paying for something makes it harmful or bad.
My argument for this is, “you will bother to pirate a game like Zelda for free because you love Zelda so much but then complain about Nintendo being bad because it walls things off. Zelda however would not exist without Nintendo and paying for Zelda would pay the devs to continue making Zelda even if it also means giving Nintendo money. So your logic is play a game you love but don’t contribute to that game because you hate Nintendo?”
The same can be said about the sync drama. You want FOSS but can openly admit Sync looks nice and operates nice but you won’t pay a price for something that seems better. Well the good thing is you don’t have to. Sync isn’t a problem because people want to pay money for an app that works. You are the problem however if you want to dictate how people use browse the web with an app of their choice.
FOSS is great. Lemmy wouldn’t be here without FOSS but Lemmy’s users decreased because Reddit’s downfall and the community of users that came have talked about how poor some of the FOSS Lemmy apps are. However, they love Sync and sync also brought more people to Lemmy. People who are willing to pay. People who are making your platform more well known. An app like Sync is also offering a smooth experience and introduction to Lemmy and people will pay for things that work nicely.
I think your comment brings up a good point about the intersection between what the old user base of Lemmy wants (everything is foss and transparent) and the newer user base that doesn’t necessarily not want that, but it isn’t as much of a priority to them as it was. And with the change in the user base you see a change in opinion towards deprioiritizing what the old user base wanted.
Dynamics like this are always so interesting, huh.
And a lot of us are only trying lemmy because of reddit killing 3rd party apps, which were great apps. Now using lemmy through infinity and it feels good
