According to the tracking scanner Exodus (can be found on F-Droid), which keeps an updated database on trackers and runs your installed app against its register, you can track what apps are tracking you and clues of how. Saw that Boost is tracking me and uninstalled it and went straight to Jerboa. Jerboa is pretty similar to good ole’ RedditIsFun-app and easy to use, so I am personally recommending it.
From F-Droid:
Exodus (Exodus show you trackers and permissions in apps installed on your device.) https://f-droid.org/packages/org.eu.exodus_privacy.exodusprivacy/
Jerboa is better apps
Big fan Of Sync, but idk if it has tracking
Would like to throw thunder_app@lemmy.world in the ring as an alternative
You can do a one time purchase to remove the ads and tracking you know, monetising an app without ads is hard.
You’re not wrong but… gestures broadly at the other available apps that don’t do stuff like this
It would also take some huge scandal before voyager seizes to be the absolute king of lemmy apps.
Performance alone i have yet to see anything get close.
Ceases*
Do you get a tracker-free software version, or just an ad-free experience?
The Dev confirmed that the trackers which are part of the ads plugin are not loaded when purchasing the app.
You’re being downvoted for providing true information that disputes sensationalism. This place is truly fucking weird
Lol, dude got aa much upvotes as u
When I posted that the comment I was replying to was sitting at
-13Goes to show that the first people to vote on stuff don’t represent the community as a whole
it probably only changed because Rogue made that comment
just like on Reddit, there’s a lot of sheeple here that downvote a comment just because it’s already being downvoted
I get that lemmy userbase in general dislikes ads, i dislike ads too but not every dev can go without it on their projects. There has to be some income from somewhere after all.
You can serve ads to your users without being Big Brother and selling users data to data brokers… Unfortunately it doesn’t seems to generate enough revenue anymore :'(
At the very least it is bloaty for being a free alternative and predatory they remove it by you paying for it, when the free alternatives are still just as good.
“predatory”. You are really stretching it. A full screen message is displayed on first launch explaining the options.
For sure, it’s worth letting people know if they aren’t aware. It’s been a while since I installed boost, but I remember there being very clear messages about the ads and tracking, explaining it was to compensate the developer for the time he spent converting the reddit client to lemmy, and with the option of a one time fee to completely avoid trackers and ads.
While I love it when things are truly FOSS, I understand that I pay my barber and my plumber for their time, and I don’t have a problem paying a one-off fee to buy software I want. What is exploitative are many subscription models, and all software that takes your money AND still monetises you (looking at you microsoft).
It’s good to make people aware of genuinely free alternatives. But I used jerboa, voyager and a few other lemmy clients and I’m much happier with Boost and it was worth every cent.
As long as you are in the know and knowingly know what you are paying for it’s all good.
I personally wouldn’t because supporting them (by using or paying) will bump them up on App-store popularity lists when you search for “Lemmy” and that would only keep misleading more unaware people.
You’re completely free to support the apps and developers you prefer, but I don’t think I understand what you mean by “keep misleading more unaware people”? The play store listing for Boost for Lemmy says “Contains ads.” and “In-app purchases” in multiple places (for one, it’s the the third line after the name and developer). Its really not misleading anyone. Do you have examples of Boost or the developer claiming it is ad free or FOSS? Or do you mean something else?
I don’t approve of predatory practices, so if you can provide any evidence I would be keen to change my 5 star review and stop using the app.
I mean if a free software that is funded via ads using tracking for their ads (a required for ad networks after all) is “confusing” to users, I honestly don’t know what to say. 🤷
Also what would be that less favorable option? Paying a dev? What a horrible fate indeed. 😅
It’s pretty obvious, nothing is secret here. This strategy has been 1000% standard for like 20 years now.
Lol, it’s not like they have a monopoly (a big base sure).
What they do is transparent, they let you know upfront, and the price for the app it low.
I’m not saying I like that model, so I don’t use Boost, but this is far from megacorp strategy.
I don’t like them because of the (ad) monetisation with the big corpos, but that’s just me going ‘eww’, not me looking at Boost holding a gun to users saying this is the only way to interact with Lemmy.
(I go much more ‘ewwwww’ when I have to install an apk from Google store, via eg Aurora Store)
Also long live the (un??)dead Eternity, rofl.
Also, always use open sauce repos.
What a cool service, thanks for sharing. You can also check the Exodus database via web if you can’t or don’t want to install the native Android app.
That’s great info! Thanks for replying
It’s also built into the Aurora Store (frontend for Google Play Store)
Good work bringing this to the attention of others.
I agree that Jerboa is good. If anyone wants another option, then Connect For Lemmy is clean, simple, and updated frequently. I’m nothing to do with Connect, just someone that has tried loads of Lemmy apps on Android, and has settled on Connect.
Isn’t it possible to provide an ad supported version without tracking?
Ads generally come with tracking, since the advertiser wants to know their ad was seen / effective. Some ad systems might be better than others, but I don’t have experience there
I know Mozilla is working on ‘Privacy respecting ads’, which was also controversial: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2024/article/a-privacy-first-solution-that-meets-advertisers-needs/
How would that work? You want the Boost dev to create their own “ethical ads” network?
Yeah someone would need to create an ad network according to what Mozilla is envisioning, then Boost would have to utilize that and add support for it. There’s an extra step involved. 😅
Well – two extra steps. The first one is huge, which is to create an ad network devoid of the tracking that companies salivate for, then there is Boost adopting it. The latter seems highly likely and a small change. The former is huge and feels unlikely in today’s world.
Connect dev here. In addition to no trackers we also have no ad SDKs, or analytics of any kind. Cheers!
Kuro and Connect are both 10/10
Sync is also pretty good
It has the same trackers problem as Boost.
Ooh, that app is fun! I also recommend Eternity for a Lemmy app (or just Fennec and ublock- not that my lemmy instance has anything to worry about)
I also love the difference in apps I got from the Play Store vs Neo store.
Also, ExpressVPN with 2 trackers? Shame. Mullvad wins again.
Raccoon is also a great alternative for trackerless Lemmy browsing, I personally prefer it over Jerboa and Voyager.
I’ve not found a similar service to Exodus for iOS devices (yeah, I know, but that’s what I’ve got) but to the best of my knowledge Mlem is a pretty good alternative to Boost on apple devices, and the best user-experience I’ve so far found
Mlem is in my opinion the best open source Lemmy client for iOS. There is another amazing client named Arctic for Lemmy that has great UX but the app is proprietary. However it seems to be privacy respecting and nothing compared to Boost privacy nightmare.
Stop using boost ages ago. The lack of updates makes the app unusable anyway.
News to me. Boost is not only extremely usable, it’s more so than the others I tried, which was basically all the android apps.
I have tried most of the android apps there which haven’t been abandoned.
Also, not updating frequently isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I don’t see bugginess and the only feature I actually want but don’t have is spoiler formatting.
In the end, the other apps feel either glitchy, too complicated, or ugly. Sync for example. If the configuration UI was way simpler, I’d probably have used it. But it wasn’t and I had to dick around with settings a lot in various menus to get it about 95% as nice as boost. Why not just use the one with sane defaults? I’m good with giving $4 for software I like and use daily.
I hope you have donated to your lemmy instance too.
I’m not sure why you’re bringing that up, but I have been donating.
Cool just reminding. Insance is more important.
This is a rather sensationalist headline.
Every so often software developers need to eat food and live beneath shelter.
The developer of Boost @rmayayo@lemmy.world provides a free version that’s supported by ads, or you can purchase an ad free experience for a one time cost. That’s been a standard business since forever.
There isn’t any grand conspiracy here.
I agree with you however I think we can built a better internet and the fediverse is in my opinion part of it. However I understand that it’s hard to live on providing a free service, hoping for users to make donations to cover your spends and making a fair revenue is dellusional. I don’t have the magic recipe for making great revenue from a free apps without sacrificing users digital integrity. However I think it’s fair for Lemmy users to know that some clients could behave like proprietary closed and centralized plateforms such as X and Reddit.
The author should have noted that users could pay a fee to disable ads and analytics because you can. He certainly didn’t knew this and that’s making it unfair.
Honestly I don’t like extended analytics such as this and that’s one of the reasons I’m not using Boost. I rather send some sats (bitcoin) to free and open source projects I rely on. Not everybody is like that and I can imagine that many projects I’ve financially contribute to aren’t sustainable businesses, I wish there was another way than enabling global surveillance for people that couldn’t afford paying. Privacy shouldn’t be a privilege yet it is.
TLDR ; Yes it’s standard business but Lemmy users and devs making great free product deserve better !
I paid for the product, I encourage and support products i like instead of seeing ads, whenever i can.
Developer’s needs are pretty simple, however. Keep clean straw for bedding, fresh coffee, and unimpeded access to an Ethernet jack. Your developer can have gummy worms or beer in small quantities, as a treat. Of course, the bulk of their diet should be ramen/developer chow. A simple correction, such as deleting system32 or not properly shutting down Linux, is usually all that is needed. They’ll provide you with years of faithful service.
Adopt a developer today!
What if we want red bull instead of alcohol?
Red bull, in moderation, is acceptable. In fact, when you expect exceptional effort from your developer, such as ‘crunch time’, Red Bull supplementation is encouraged.
A productive developer is a happy developer!
I prefer to feed developers “flat food.” Just slide it under the door!
Pizzas and pancakes!
As long as there is transparency, users can choose. Personally, I would rather not use a service at all than have ads or tracking.
then don’t use it
They probably aren’t using it lol
It is an excellent app, I just paid for the version without ads, that’s all you have to do.
Exactly, we both get what we want, everyone is happy. I’m just saying that it’s important for both of us to have the relevant information so we can make our choices. Which this app provides. So that’s good.
As someone who uses this daily, I had no idea there were ads… So I’m being tracked without knowing it. I’m… Not into this.
That’s literally not the case. If you’ve purchased the app the ad logic isn’t loaded, your porn habits aren’t being tracked.
Yup, the dev commented on this a while back here:
https://lemmy.ca/post/6072534/3382664
Dev here.
The dialog and its content is not created by me, it is a standard solution from Google to comply with GDPR and other laws. More info here: https://support.google.com/admob/answer/10114014?hl=en
The consent dialog is also required by Google AdMob to show ads, and it is shown when the ad network is initialized.
When the app launches, first it checks for the remove ads purchase, and if it is not present, it will initialize the ads sdk. The ad network is not initialized if the remove ads purchase is detected.
Boost for Reddit was using the very same ad networks and consent dialog.
I personally liked Boost, and paid for the ad free version to support the development. For what it’s worth, I’ve also donated to / bought a few others for similar reasons, and I keep a few Lemmy apps installed so I can test things out on the admin side.
Without recommending any particular app, I’d recommend this site, which lets you compare and filter by the factors that are important to you: https://lemmyapps.com/
If you want a guide for new users, we have one here (tldr it links to the site above): https://fedecan.ca/en/guide/lemmy/for-users/mobile-apps
https://www.lemmyapps.com/ is a neat comparison site, but I’m not seeing any criteria around use of tracking data; is that just implied with the free vs paid column?
Just bought the ad-free version. It’s easy to forget developers need to eat too
Lemmy looks and works fine in a mobile browser; why do you even need an app?
Gestures, user tagging, UI improvements.
On mobile web on the default Lemmy UI, you need to scroll to the top to get to other communities and change the sorting of posts and comments, where it’s way more accessible on apps.
Jerboa is very cool and works great
I recommend Thunder. Always been slick and good.
I tried the others and stuck to it. But I think all the apps are great and it just comes down to personal preference on which someone likes to drive most.
YSK also that the paid version does not have ads or trackers
And, importantly, If your account is paid it never even loads the libraries or initializes the ad systems so there is zero data going to these trackers.
I don’t use this app (I use Eternity), but there’s nothing shady going on here. Developing an app isn’t free and it isn’t unfair for the developer to want to earn a living.
How do you know if you paid for the app? Can’t find that section in my profile and I don’t remember if I did.
Well simple, have you seen ads?
