App for a web site is ALWAYS worse. I hate that shit. The only time the app is better is if they purposefully make the mobile site worse so you switch to the app. Facebook was excellent at doing this.
The problem is — or, at least, from my perspective as an old school/pre-WWW computer user — that a lot of sites aren’t made for mobile. If they are, it’s great, it’s fine, the app might offer a couple bonuses, but you should have a good experience just using a browser. If they aren’t — the app is a must.
Forums are a great example of this. When Android and iOS were new, most forums ran like shit in a mobile browser, and if you had a lot to type, you’d often lose it if you didn’t remember to copy it to the clipboard first. Even then, with RAM limitations, you could lose your work. An app was created called Tapatalk, it did require forum owners to install a plugin on their end, but it made forums into an app, and it was good — until they got greedy. Tapatalk was a good way to bypass the ads on the forum (“because phone screens are smaller”). Then Tapatalk started putting their own ads in. They were taking money from the forum operators, not giving them any back, and making money on the whole process. Forums stopped installing the plugin, and many that had it began removing it.
Around the same time, forum software makers, like Invision, phpBB, and vBulletin, began including mobile support natively, so if a forum updated their software, they got mobile support. Thus, the Tapatalk gravy train came to a screeching halt. They’d pissed off forum users and forum owners, and now neither of them needed Tapatalk.
These days, I think most sites are made with mobile in mind. But apps can scrape more data without permission, so they tend to be favoured by the people who run the sites, especially concerning Android users, who can natively run Firefox and uBlock Origin. But they also love Android users who love Chrome, and iOS users in total, because they can get more by those users (generally, a majority of them at least).
iOS can now run uBlock Origin! Before that, there was Wipr/wipr 2 which are still excellent, and the Firefox Focus browser which has some stellar adblocking and wipes all browsing data, cookies, cache, everything every time you exit the browser (or click the button to do it.)
Permissions in iOS have historically been more locked down for apps as well, giving users much more control over what apps can access. This changed a couple years back and now Android gives users more control over what apps can access than it used to.
I remember trying to browse forums before iOS/android were a thing and yah, it was a nightmare. Shoot, when iPhones came out, they couldn’t even copy and paste! I had the first Android phone that was released when it came out, the Dream, and it was revolutionary. I stopped using all Google products and services a long while ago, so iOS was pretty fleshed out by the time I got my first iPhone.
Now, full desktop sites work pretty well on mobile devices—I often prefer them to mobile versions of sites. I’m lucky to have really good eyesight though, so I like my text very small and condensed and all over the screen for maximum info without scrolling.
Yes, uBlock Origin is available for iOS as a Safari plugin. I’ve used uBO, Wipr2, and Adguard (free, $4-6, and $10 respectively) and Wipr2 is a little better. But I own all of them and I can swap Wipr2 out at any point I like. uBO being free means it’s easier to get into for someone new to the platform, though.
Aha, you know what’s up, I ain’t gotta tell you hahaha. I paid the small price for Wipr 2 after loving the first one, and the dev is a really cool person. I don’t use YT much but my one complaint is that it does not tend to block YT ads. Firefox Focus does perfectly, and allows for background play too! I’m interested in adguard to try, but I mostly don’t leave the house and my PiHole lives here for DNS stuff!
App for a web site is ALWAYS worse. I hate that shit. The only time the app is better is if they purposefully make the mobile site worse so you switch to the app. Facebook was excellent at doing this.
The problem is — or, at least, from my perspective as an old school/pre-WWW computer user — that a lot of sites aren’t made for mobile. If they are, it’s great, it’s fine, the app might offer a couple bonuses, but you should have a good experience just using a browser. If they aren’t — the app is a must.
Forums are a great example of this. When Android and iOS were new, most forums ran like shit in a mobile browser, and if you had a lot to type, you’d often lose it if you didn’t remember to copy it to the clipboard first. Even then, with RAM limitations, you could lose your work. An app was created called Tapatalk, it did require forum owners to install a plugin on their end, but it made forums into an app, and it was good — until they got greedy. Tapatalk was a good way to bypass the ads on the forum (“because phone screens are smaller”). Then Tapatalk started putting their own ads in. They were taking money from the forum operators, not giving them any back, and making money on the whole process. Forums stopped installing the plugin, and many that had it began removing it.
Around the same time, forum software makers, like Invision, phpBB, and vBulletin, began including mobile support natively, so if a forum updated their software, they got mobile support. Thus, the Tapatalk gravy train came to a screeching halt. They’d pissed off forum users and forum owners, and now neither of them needed Tapatalk.
These days, I think most sites are made with mobile in mind. But apps can scrape more data without permission, so they tend to be favoured by the people who run the sites, especially concerning Android users, who can natively run Firefox and uBlock Origin. But they also love Android users who love Chrome, and iOS users in total, because they can get more by those users (generally, a majority of them at least).
iOS can now run uBlock Origin! Before that, there was Wipr/wipr 2 which are still excellent, and the Firefox Focus browser which has some stellar adblocking and wipes all browsing data, cookies, cache, everything every time you exit the browser (or click the button to do it.)
Permissions in iOS have historically been more locked down for apps as well, giving users much more control over what apps can access. This changed a couple years back and now Android gives users more control over what apps can access than it used to.
I remember trying to browse forums before iOS/android were a thing and yah, it was a nightmare. Shoot, when iPhones came out, they couldn’t even copy and paste! I had the first Android phone that was released when it came out, the Dream, and it was revolutionary. I stopped using all Google products and services a long while ago, so iOS was pretty fleshed out by the time I got my first iPhone.
Now, full desktop sites work pretty well on mobile devices—I often prefer them to mobile versions of sites. I’m lucky to have really good eyesight though, so I like my text very small and condensed and all over the screen for maximum info without scrolling.
Yes, uBlock Origin is available for iOS as a Safari plugin. I’ve used uBO, Wipr2, and Adguard (free, $4-6, and $10 respectively) and Wipr2 is a little better. But I own all of them and I can swap Wipr2 out at any point I like. uBO being free means it’s easier to get into for someone new to the platform, though.
Aha, you know what’s up, I ain’t gotta tell you hahaha. I paid the small price for Wipr 2 after loving the first one, and the dev is a really cool person. I don’t use YT much but my one complaint is that it does not tend to block YT ads. Firefox Focus does perfectly, and allows for background play too! I’m interested in adguard to try, but I mostly don’t leave the house and my PiHole lives here for DNS stuff!