So Jerboa broke on my phone just now and I didn’t want to stop browsing Lemmy. Unfortunately no suitable alternative was found so I just decided to check if I could open it in my browser and install it.

To my surprise, it worked. And it works really well quite frankly. Sure, the UI is different, but I’m not at all missing any features.

Did any of you guys try it as well? What’s your opinion?

If not, did you even know that was a possibility? It quite frankly never crossed my mind, because Reddit and other platforms always force you to use an app when you open them in a browser.

  • LanternEverywhere@kbin.social
    74·
    2 years ago

    PWA = progressive web app = a webpage-based app, as opposed to a native app for whatever OS you’re using.

    for those like me who didn’t know what it meant

  • Noved@lemmy.caEnglish
    26·
    2 years ago

    Ive been exclusively browsing on mobile web, same as I did reddit. This layout is much more user friendly forsure.

    • Dee@beehaw.orgEnglish
      6·
      2 years ago

      Same. Been using the mobile browser since day one and it has everything the desktop version has just in different spots. I don’t see the need for a dedicated app tbh, unless they muck up the mobile version which I don’t see happening… hopefully.

  • invicticide@programming.devEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    I’m also finding it really effective. I only hate that backing out from a post is a crapshoot on whether it preserves my scroll position, resets to the top, or reloads the entire feed.

  • sikhness@lemmy.caEnglish
    18·
    2 years ago

    The Web app is really good! The only issue I have with it since it got updated to 0.18 is that when you click a post link and press back to go to your community, it reloads the entire community and takes your scroll position all the way to the top. It’s really killed the experience on mobile for me and it didn’t do that prior to 0.18 I found.

    Anyone else having the same issue?

  • jherazob@beehaw.orgEnglish
    18·
    2 years ago

    When you think about it it’s so weird that it feels like a novelty when a website works well as a website without needing dedicated software, but that’s enshittification for ya, has us so used to that artificial barrier that we accept it as normal when it isn’t

  • anlumo@feddit.deEnglish
    15·
    2 years ago

    Installing it as a PWA on my iPhone causes the history buttons to disappear (since they’re part of the browser). This means that if I open a comments page, I can’t get back to the post list again. I can tap on the logo to get to the main page, but my scrolling position is lost, so I’d have to scroll down to find where I stopped scrolling last time.

    Yeah no, still have to use an app.

    • Pechente@lemmy.mlEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      I don’t have it installed right now but I’m pretty sure the system-wide back-swipe gesture still work here, doesn’t it?

      • anlumo@feddit.deEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I discovered that after posting that comment. I never use those gestures, so I forgot to try that.

        • Pechente@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          How do you go back in an app? Do you always tap the button at the top? For me that’s super impractical and I even got a small iPhone.

          • anlumo@feddit.deEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            I can’t reach the left side of the screen with one hand anyways, so both ways are similarly uncomfortable.

        • theUnlikely@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Well, for starters there is no back button in the PWA on Android. Swiping from the right to go back completely refreshes the feed.

          • key@lemmy.keychat.orgEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Strange that’s happening for you. It’s definitely not an all android thing. Must be something about your specific model or your settings. The only time my button bar disappears is with games and even then it’s still accessible by swiping up from the bottom.

            • fische_stix@beehaw.orgEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              This is interesting, I checked all the apps (that are running/enabled) on the two android devices in my household. Mine is set up with the traditional android UI triangle, circle, square, visible whereas my partner’s has the “slide up” feature enabled where the back, home, and “background” buttons need you to slide your finger up or they aren’t visible. Both seem to remain present and usable in apps, although the back button does cause “too much of a back avtion” in the third party camera app she uses, taking you home vs. back a step. These devices are both unlocked (but not rooted currently) devices activated on at&t firstnet. My coworker has a Verizon issued (came from the carrier) Samsung Galaxy and the triangle, circle, and square buttons are missing in a few apps, and totally inaccessible. I am not a fan of how much bloat cell carriers add to their android devices, so much so that I would say the coworker’s phone is running a “Verizon Samsung version” of Android. I did a quick search and didn’t find a full list anywhere of variations of Android by carrier or model phone, but I did find a number of users with similar observations about the extreme variation.

            • theUnlikely@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Count yourself lucky because as you might imagine the bug makes it unusable. It even happens on regular mobile browsing.

  • ⓝⓞ🅞🅝🅔@beehaw.orgEnglish
    13·
    2 years ago

    Did any of you guys try it as well? What’s your opinion?

    In respect to Lemmy as a whole, I’m trying to exercise a lot patience.

    One of the first things I did was install it as a PWA. It has a sleek UI, but some bugs makes it incredibly hard for me to use. One of the worst is an issue with several of the combo boxes which repeatedly flashing on use. I have to try hitting the appropriate selection multiple times in hopes of it eventually taking.

    I use Jerboa most of the time inspite of the many bugs, but I usually end up having to open the PWA for missing functionality.

    Like I said…

    Lots… And lots…

    And lots… of patience.

    • lunarnexus@infosec.pubEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      Why do people keep saying “install” it as a PWA. Doesn’t that mean going to the web page in a mobile browser?

      • ⓝⓞ🅞🅝🅔@beehaw.orgEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        A progressive web app (pwa) is installed as an app on your phone. Developers can publish these web application online without users requiring an app store. They run on multiple platforms and devices from a single codebase, giving a platform-specific like experience. They are very light weight and even offer offline capabilities.

  • CleoTheWizard@beehaw.orgEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    Oh yeah I tried it. And it even worked better than jerboa in some ways until jerboa had some updates. It still has some features that jerboa doesn’t have, like opening links to other instances within your own instance (that’s a huge problem right now for me). So yeah the webpage version is still competitive with this app but probably not for too long.

  • Littlejth@lemmy.littlejth.comEnglish
    9·
    2 years ago

    Agreed! Only deal breaker I can see for me is that using a PWA with Safari in iOS instead of Memmy means that when I open a link and go back it starts from the top again. Obviously doesn’t occur when I can open a new tab in the browser but still definitely annoying.

    • o_o@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      Agreed! This is annoying for me as well, but still I like it a lot. Better than Reddit, even.

    • Prof. Sweetlove@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      Yeah it’s quite unfortunate with iOS. I’m on android but afaik iOS just doesn’t support all the PWA features.

      Which is super interesting in its own right, because when you look back at the first iPhone, Steve Jobs actually announced at first that it wouldn’t have a Software Development Kit for native apps and all applications will be web based. They obviously didn’t stay on that path, but I find it quite ironic.

  • Aninjanameddaryll@beehaw.orgEnglish
    9·
    2 years ago

    Yup, and via hermit as well.

    It has benefits over jerboa in that everything works right.

    But jerboa is a better overall experience because of the way it uses the screen in a balanced way. Coming from reddit 3rd party apps, browsers and PWAs are so clunky. Even old reddit suffers from that, though. New reddit at least is visually closer to app layouts.

    Which is tangential. But until jerboa catches up, it’s going to be glitchy, which is annoying in its own right, like some community links just crashing the app.

  • mrmanagerAEnglish
    9·
    2 years ago

    I started using Lemmy like that, without any apps. It’s fine, specially on desktop.

    • Em Adespoton@lemmy.caEnglish
      9·
      2 years ago

      I started on PWA, got frustrated with it, moved to Mlem, got frustrated with it, moved to Memmy, and then found not all features were implemented yet — so checked out PWA again and found it had somehow massively improved since the last time I used it.

      So now I use both PWA and Memmy, with Memmy getting more use every day (inbox support got added today).

  • brandon@lemmy.zipEnglish
    8·
    2 years ago

    It really is pretty good, especially after 0.18. It’ll obviously be great when high quality apps are available, but the mobile experience is already good enough for being completely free.