Reddit Is Blocking Its Mobile Site for Some Users, but There’s a Fix
If you primarily use Reddit on a desktop browser, you probably won’t have any problem switching between subreddits. On mobile, it’s a different story: Reddit Really wants you to use its mobile app, and this is made clear with pop-ups every time you access the site in your browser. If you’d rather not download another app on your phone, it’s pretty simple to close the pop-ups, until you don’t.
This is the situation this week. Some users going to Reddit’s homepage or going directly to individual posts on the mobile site are hitting a new roadblock that brings their browsing to a grinding halt. Things look normal when you first load a thread, but when you start scrolling, a large pop-up appears at the bottom of the page. It shows the Reddit app, with its App Store rating, along with a bold alert: “Get the app to continue using Reddit.” The pop-up says the app lets you “search better, personalize your feed, and never miss an update to your [favorite] communities”, everything the mobile site was also perfectly capable of.
Credit: Lifehacker
If you’ve ever encountered Reddit’s previous mobile app pop-ups, this might not seem like such a big deal. Ignore it and move on, right? But there’s no (X) here, nor any obvious way to clear the popup. Plus, it’s not just about the popup: once it appears, the entire page stops responding to inputs.
Why is Reddit blocking its mobile site?
This is the most aggressive Reddit I’ve ever seen in pushing people to its mobile app, but I don’t quite understand the logic. Why block users from accessing the mobile site? When Futurism contacted the company for comment, it said: “We found that logged-in users have a more personalized experience and can more easily find communities that match their interests… So we’re running a test for a small number of logged-out mobile users that prompts them to download the app after visiting the Reddit site.” The company added that it is also targeting “a small subset of frequent mobile web users” because it believes they are already familiar with how Reddit works and would still benefit from a better in-app experience.
I can attest that the times I encountered this problem, I was actually logged out of the mobile site. But I didn’t even mean to be: I don’t usually intentionally browse Reddit on my phone, I just check out the links that appear in a Google search. As such, it’s extremely frustrating to display this pop-up when I’m casually searching for the answer to a question. I’m definitely not going to download the Reddit app for these random moments; in fact, this experience makes me even less likely to do so.
Based on the App Store’s privacy ratings, the Reddit app collects a number of data points, including purchases, contact information, search history, usage data, location, identifiers, and diagnostics. Of course, it doesn’t link most of this data to your identity, except for identifiers and usage data, but browsing in something like Safari still blocks a plot of this follow-up. In short: thanks but no thanks for recommending the app, Reddit.
What do you think of it so far?
How to bypass Reddit mobile site pop-up
Luckily, you don’t have to choose between downloading the app or forgoing using Reddit on your phone, as there are a few workarounds you can try to continue using the mobile site without interruption.
Log in. If Reddit is indeed only targeting logged out users, log in with your account. I just logged into mine in the browser and so far I haven’t accessed this popup again. It’s promising.
Clear your cache. If you don’t have a Reddit account or prefer not to log in, you still have a few options. As Futurism notes, some Redditors have successfully cleared their browser’s cache and cookies, which could trick Reddit into thinking you’re a different user, allowing you to get rid of targeted pop-ups. (We have guides for clearing cache on iPhone and Android, if you don’t know how.)
Use “Old Reddit”. Finally, before I realized the scale of the problem, I would simply switch to “Old Reddit” every time I came across the pop-up. Reddit still lets you use its original design, which removes many of the bloated “new” features – or, in this case, the pop-up that prevents you from accessing the mobile site. To switch to this slimmer interface when using the mobile site, tap the address bar, then change the “www” in the URL to “old” (e.g. old.reddit.com), without adjusting the rest of the link. The page will open in Reddit’s old design and you’ll be free to browse as you wish, but you’ll miss the more optimized user interface of the current site.
