Native Alpha is an Android app that lets you easily create PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) of your favourite websites. Basically, it’s a way to make a website look and work like an app in a matter of seconds.
I’ve mostly used it to access websites that are effectively spyware (Instagram, Facebook etc) but still somewhat necessary to visit every now and then. This is because Native Alpha also has the added benefit of sandboxing PWAs from the rest of your phone. You can tailor each PWA to your needs (block ads, disable cookies etc).
But with Lemmy, I’ve actually enjoyed using Native Alpha for its primary purpose (easy PWAs) instead of secondary one (privacy).
Here’s how you can set up Lemmy on Native Alpha:
- Download & install Native Alpha from F-Droid or the Play Store
- From the main screen, click the “+” icon from the bottom right
- Input the URL of your Lemmy instance
- Tweak the rest of the settings, or leave them unchanged. Personally, I like to allow the PWA to open links in my browser. I’m not too worried about the privacy risks of this, but YMMV of course.
- You’ll now have the option to create an app icon on the home screen if you’d like. Completely up to you.
- All set! Access the PWA from your homescreen or Native Alpha, login, and you’ve got your very own Lemmy “app” in basically <1 minute
You can stop reading now, but some extra thoughts. Pros of this approach:
- Unlike Jerboa, you can now create communities and search posts (not just communities) from your new Lemmy “app”
- Unlike Jerboa, you can now mark messages read from you inbox
- Jerboa is obviously not invasive, but you save some space on your phone, and prevent any potential additional tracking that would’ve come from installing an extra app
Some cons:
- You still can’t open links to other instances within the app. I’m sure there’s an easy workaround for this, I’m just not sure what that is.
- Native Alpha is a bit glitchy with opening links within a PWA. This is why I chose to open links in my external browser above.
- Some UI gestures are unintuitive. To reload, you need to swipe down with two fingers. But if you also enable the “pinch to zoom” option from your PWA settings, you lose the reload functionality for some reason.
Have you already used Native Alpha? Your thoughts on the experience?
If there’s interest, I can also share a quick recording of the Lemmy experience on my phone.
You can also use the Firefox app to create PWAs with UBlock Origin support
Oh nice, I’ll try this too!
That’s great! I was wary of the functionality of PWAs the first time I used them (fearing a lack of functionality) but it’s been a breeze with every one so far.
Firefox for Android also has the “Install” feature although I don’t know if that’s technically a PWA or just a sandboxed browser window.
I’m using it now with Firefox and Ublock Origin for an easy, no ads youtube app! Thanks for the recommendation!
Amazingggg, never thought of the YouTube use case, I’m gonna try it myself. I’ve been using NewPipe and Libretube, but they just don’t cut it for me hahaha.
Just joined, absolutely puzzled about how this thing is structured. I can (just about) see how things are structured, after some stops and starts and also understand why that’s a positive thing now but it’s all backwards for me. Why should a user need to get to grips with all of that, and flit around wondering which instance might contain content they want when they just want to start reading stuff that interest them? I’ve joined this instance, who am I missing out on seeing in others? What’s being said in others that I’ll regret missing? Why is it all walled off seemingly necessitating me to register afresh each time I want to check someone where else out?
The content needs to come first, the structure should be presented and needed to be understood secondarily, it’s backwards and it WILL put people off I’m afraid.
I think you’re right in that the structure is confusing. Personally, I think it’s less confusing than it is “novel”. Like in a world where the fediverse was the norm, centralised apps would’ve been confusing.
Either which way, I think you’re correct – part of it is because we don’t really have a good analogy for how this whole thing works.
This is how I see it: Lemmy is like a house party hosted in a huge venue that has hundreds of doors (i.e. instances). The doors have some slight differences (maybe some are huge, some are tiny, some have bouncers, some let you bring your own costumes etc). But for the most part, it doesn’t really matter what door you enter the party through, as all doors open into the same common space.
However, the door you choose does make you physically closer to one cluster of people than the rest of the party. That’s how I see the “local” filter. But if you’re just interested in getting into the party asap, just pick any instance and join.
This still isn’t a perfect analogy though – if a door shuts down, you don’t magically disappear from the party. But if an instance goes down, you do. Still, for the uninitiated, I feel like this is a sensible enough analogy.
there is also hermit!
Hermit is great!
Giving it a try now. One thing I noticed it’s lacking or maybe I haven’t found yet is a sort top by hour. A lot of people have been requesting this jerboa also.
Yepp this and being able to create a custom feed are my number 1 requests. If someone can nail that I’ll be all set.
Also the nsfw is always on, no matter if checked or not.
This sounds great, thanks! Gonna try it later
If you are on iOS the Mlem app is pretty good. It’s in beta, but it already is significantly better than Reddit’s official app.
While I like the look and feel of Mlem, I think it has a ways to go before we are even at Reddit app level. While it worked OK for the first day or so, I am getting constant crashes just opening threads.
I know it is still in beta though, so I will be patient.
Thanks for the tip. Now trying it out and it seems to work great. Hopefully Jerboa will continue to improve with time. But this is a nice alternative for the current lack of functions.
I’m trying this out now. I like Jerboa but it has some issues that need worked out first. This seems to be a good alternative for now.
My thoughts exactly! I plan to use Native Alpha mostly to give the devs ample time to improve Jerboa, and will eventually jump ship (I think)
To me it’s fairly laggy… also to do a page refresh I’ve had to resort to tapping on the website banner as it seems that pull-to-refresh isn’t possible.
All that said, it works well enough and always great to have choices!
Yep, the UI can be a bit tricky. If I swipe a few times it usually figures out that I’m trying to refresh, and does so.
Also great for kbinauts!
You mean keebeeweebies.
I’ve been using hermit, I hope that an actually app gets made though.
Hermit has pull down to refresh, which is also nice. I tried Native Alpha and couldn’t find that option
Looks like it’s a 2 finger swipe down to refresh on Native Alpha.
