Is Sync for Android worth the cost?

blazeknave@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 85 points –

R5: just started checking it out. It's cool and has some advantages of others. It's hella expensive. Thoughts?

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Not worth it. Plenty of free apps like Voyager that are adfree and have all the features needed.

Def check out Boost. I've used both and can't find anything in sync to warrant the coat vs. Boost. That said, Boost is worth the cost for sure, and if Boost wasn't an option, I'd consider sync.

Voyager is free.

Since no one in this thread mentioned it: Thunder is also great, open source and free.

And it's pretty decent, Voyager is definitely worth trying!

I'm a long-time fan of Boost and admittedly biased as I love its UI and UX. But Voyager is definitely a good one.

I use Connect.

Plenty of features. Last time I checked, it was on par, or better, with sync. As ad-supported freeware, sync just bas too many ads, which on my phone turns into endless black squares of blocked content.

You van support Connect with the usual buy-me-coffee thingy.

I also use Connect. I wonder if some of these alternatives have fewer issues.

If you feel you need to burn your money on something that is available elsewhere for free…

Do you.

Is there another client that allows you to sync communities across accounts for free? That has been a huge pain with instances failing.

Sync, with adblock

I'm using Sync with adblock but it has these features locked behind a paywall.

OH sorry I read your comment too fast lol. For that I used lemmy migrate on GitHub, I have about 5 accounts across different instances and they all have mostly the same communities subscribed. I just go in and resync if I've subbed to any new ones lately, and it'll tell you which ones don't sync (like if one's defederated or blocked or something in other instances).

Just always be careful before throwing your credentials willy nilly into tools like this https://github.com/wescode/lemmy_migrate

Edit: I see the other guy responded with lasim which I've also heard is good

Highly recommend Boost

Had been using Sync nonstop. Tried Boost this morning.

I no longer use Sync.

I've been using Boost for Reddit for years but I ditched it in favor of Voyager, which supports mod actions and is FOSS.

If you use lemmy heavily, I would say sync and boost are worth it. They are also a one off payment with plenty of options to go through.

I personally used boost on Reddit and but have been using voyager on lemmy. Voyager has been working great and the developer is very active.

Voyager has been working great and the developer is very active.

This is my biggest problem with Sync. The dev regularly disappears for extended periods of time. It's one of the reasons I have avoided dropping the money to get rid of the ads and pick up the lifetime ultra. If they were more communicative about what's going on in the dev cycle, I think more people would be okay with it, but disappearing for months makes people frustrated and they come off rather entitled, which I'm certain frustrates the dev, and makes them not want to work on Sync, continuing the cycle.

I mean, I have no qualms with this, unless there are bugs and stuff waiting to be resolved. But I've not run into anything at all. I'm guessing the dev has other things going on in life and looking to make Sync sort of a passive income kind of project. I respect that. They might be working quite hard to make ends meet and do this in their spare time, however much that might be. I'd gladly drop the ad removal money if I thought the app was worth it. Which I'm starting to think. It was when it was for Reddit, but in those days it was cheaper.

Actually, there is one bug I'm experiencing. Ads will not load. There is just an empty square where an ad would be. But... I'm calling that a feature.

For me it's that I don't get ads in the first place. I always wondered what was up for that but the ads I'm supposed to get? Never showed up anywhere in Sync.

It's weird and makes me think the app is poorly maintained

What you describe is the reason I switched from sync to boost years ago!

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I use Sync but I haven't paid for it. I turned off all the options in the cookie banner so all I see is a grey box where ads would be and you quickly just don't even see it after a lot of use.

If it were a one off payment of like £5 I'd pay it, I bought it for Reddit, but I can't justify the cost.

If you're a really heavy user then it might be worth it but there's so many great alternatives out there then I think it's hard to justify.

Is this about a Lemmy client app? Sounds silly. Voyager and Jerboa are both nice, depending on your UI preferences. What is so great about sync?

You're being down voted, but now you've got me legitimately curious...

Would anyone out there be able to explain what sort of additional features Sync has they makes it worth the price? I've been a Voyager (formerly weed) user practically since it was created and I think it's a great experience.

I pay the $2/month version. Supports the dev, and keeps an otherwise unused credit card active. And considering this is now the only form of social media and/or interacting with other people online I use, I figure it's worth two bucks a month. The same way the $15 or so I didn't post month, spread across multiple patreon accounts, is worth it to support the small handful of content creators that make the vast majority of my daily entertainment.

I've been trying to take two stances lately. The first being the idea of "if you're not the customer, you're the product."

And the second being the CGPGrey method. Which is basically, if an app or service is important to me, I specifically WANT it to be a paid app/service. If the app in question doesn't have a clear path to being financially viable for those making/running it, there's too much risk that the dev may eventually have to stop working on it in order to go do something else that can earn them a living.

Or no, something being open source, or not, did not change this equation. People gotta live.

It would be nice if more people truly understood what you call the "CGP Grey method". So many people are so used to adblockers in combination with youtube etc. being free, that they never think of the fact that somehow the webspace and content needs to be paid for.

I've been through all the apps but for me nothing feels as good as Sync. $20 a year for something I use hours every single day is a comically good value considering that's the cost of Netflix monthly and don't use it nearly as much.

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I liked Sync Pro on Reddit but there's no way I can justify the huge cost jump for a lemmy version.

I hope lemmy does OK but it could be replaced anytime with something a bit better and there's still a lot less content than Reddit had.

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Bought the lifetime a few months ago when it came out and haven't regretted it!

Same, sync is awesome and the dev clearly worked hard on it.

I bought Reddit Sync years ago and loved it until Reddit shit itself. Had no issues paying for Lemme Sync. Lemme seemed to lost gas recently and I miss the size off the community Reddit has.

Yeah, I miss the size of the reddit community too. But, I found a silver lining with Lemmy's community, I still get my fix but since it's not that big it forced me to reduce my intake and now I'm less addicted and used to just opening the "reddit" app as I used to. But also one thing I found useful is to browse the "top six hours" in everything tab.

Same here. Towards the end I was on reddit way too much. Lemmy, I check maybe 5 or so times a day and have a better balance.

Yes, the ad free for $20 absolutely is. $120 ultimate... Eh not so much for me, currently.

I've initially considered getting the ad-free version, as I did buy it for Reddit Sync, but so far I'm not getting any ads in the free version anyway.

Using free version of sync. Why would I pay for those perks beyond donating?

Nah, Jerboa is great, donate to the project instead, or to your local instance.

Switched recently from jerboa to Raccoon. Tried sync and did not like it at all.

I love sync. I still visit reddit for a few communities, but only on my laptop, never my phone.

Sometimes I use reddit too, and I swear to god the mobile app is so filled with bugs left and right that haven't been fixed for years. It's hard to tolerate. Reddit is best in web searches, because there are many relevant discussions. But I'm so glad kagi added a fediverse lens so I can also search Lemmy as I do reddit for relevant discussions. They also have a forum lens and a discussion search mode which is so useful because it searches many other forums and it helps filter out all those useless listicles, websites that copy others and other websites that contain keywords to popular issues just to get traffic.

I think it is an excellent Lemmy client, I use the free version though.

I'm using it since after the reddit fiasco, no ads as of now so I'm happy with the free version :)

I bought the ultra/whatever when it first came out. Same justification as others who have purchased it. I use it for hours a day and i used it on reddit. I love the similar feel and the dev is amazing. Worth the money in my eyes but i can appreciate the people that use the free and ad block. You do you

The dev is amazing! lemme just pay 20$ for a sporadic update cycle and the same features as most other free and open source alternatives /s

I paid for no ads and that's it. I don't need sync ultra, it's cheap, but I don't need it. Ads didn't bother me, but I had paid before for the reddit app, and the Lemmy one is also great, so I wanted to support the developer.

Haven't seen anybody suggest thunder yet but it's a top notch app.

I used to use it with RethinkDNS's custom DNS so I never had those ads people buy ad-free to get rid of (there are still placeholders which kind of annoyed me). The UI is pretty nice, it also has features Jerboa does not have. Such as advanced searching that can search users and comments as well (this is possible in the web version), or mod tools. There are a few others but I still decided to switch back to Jerboa because FOSS.

ADBLOCK YOUR DNS. Seriously surprised how many free users see ads with sync lol, how do you guys live with so many ads on your phone

I have adblock on my phone. Need to setup pihole again.

not an app. you've got your dns set to use dns.adguard.com?

I pay for the services and apps I care for and I still want to be up, developers need to eat and for the huge corporate bullshit I don't give a shit about I have adblockers such as DNS66.