YSK: Lemmy browsing app Boost is tracking your data for profiling and more! Consider using other trackingless Lemmy apps such as Jerboa or Voyager

You will only pry Boost from my phone over my cold dead hands.

Eternity still good
- Yep it is. It's also free with no ads and open source.
  
  Problem is it had no updates in 6 months. I had problems with images and such. For now i am for Voyager app. Its updated regulary

OP, you suck. This has been (falsely) reported before, and every time it gets shut down as fear-mongering. I really doubt you learned of this, did any kind of source checking or just looked it up without seeing the MANY disproving replies that are always there.
I've seen this enough times, this exact post, to where I'm certain it's consciously done false sensationalist crap. There are several other posts like this about other apps and services that get posted every couple of weeks/months and just like here they always get told off for their idiocy. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a group or person doing much of it, it's the exact same every time.
- What's the explanation? AWS sounds like ad trackage.
  
  The tracking is still a thing, it's just transparent about selling your location and purchase history data to Amazon and the like... So that makes it OK I guess?

ok. I don't mind. this does not bother me at all.

On join-lemmy there is small warning for every closed source app

Thanks. Just uninstalled it.
- good now delete every other app on your phone that contains Google ads
  
  Difficult for Android users.
  
  But that's one less app and there are great alternatives, so why continue using one that tracks you?

As the other comments are saying, this is made very clear when you launch the app for the first time that it is ad supported, and you can donate a small amount to get all tracking and ads removed.
Love the app and I want the dev to continue development so I paid for the ad free. Devs are people and need money to live too, you know this post was just sensationalized for your own clicks.
- I reported this post because it hurts the dev for no reason. Hope it gets removed but the damage is already done. People are stupid.
  
  Don't abuse the report system.
- Lemmings have a huge obsession with shit being both free and adfree, youtube is the most baffling one, they refuse to pay for it, then bitch about the ads, it seems they are entitled to having VoD delivered to them anytime anywhere in the world got completely free.
  
  Lemmings have a huge obsession with shit being both free and adfree
  Not sure thats very accurate. There's a healthy percentage who donate to instances and developers, because on open source platforms/services/software you don't have just trust no ones selling your data for their profit and its good to support that.
  If Google open sourced their clients, got rid of adverts and all tracking and stopped selling or giving away user data but charged a reasonable fee I'd happily use YouTube.
  
  Youtube shouldn't be baffling to you if you pay attention. Youtube still hoards tons of data and tracking on top of its ads. And paying doesn't stop that. Also, they removed the option to pay to remove ads but skip all the other stuff. They removed that option right at the same time they started their war against ad blockers. Combine those points with the typical enshittification and we wind up with a service that doesn't deserve your pity.
  
  Counterpoint I think there's a lot of lemmings who put a lot of money into hosting the very server you just posted this comment on.
  
  For me at least, my objection with YouTube is that Google takes a cut. I'd much rather contribute an equivalent amount to some creators via patreon and adblock the site.
  Also I'm not saying the host doesn't deserve a cut, I just think that corporations like Google are a general pest that should be eradicated
  
  I'd pay for Youtube if Google would guarantee to not track me. I donate to open source projects that I use, rotating every month whom I choose to donate to. I even donated to Manjaro recently even though I don't use it any more, but it was something I had used in the past and I was poor and couldn't donate them then. But I refuse to feel any guilt for watching Youtube for free.
- Ya... I just bought the app. It was like 6 bucks? Totally worth it since I use it all the time and I want to support the dev.
- Same! Boost is awesome and it was a no brainer paying for the ad removal
- Same deal with sync.
  
  Minus the "small amount" part.

Yeah there is a dialogue on first launch telling you it's ad supported software and that you can pay a small fee to remove all ads. Your post here is old news about an old strategy and throughout the comments here you claim it's secretive which is false.
It's a charitable reading to say you're uninformed. I would lean more toward you wanting people to be misinformed about Boost, because as others point out, its ad support is called out in multiple ways before you use it, but you don't care. Instead, you choose to call this completely common and standard way of supporting an app "predatory" and "secret", neither of which near truth. Op, is your account the alt of the Sync dev or something?
- Op, is your account the alt of the Sync dev or something?
  I wish that was the case. @ljdawson@lemmy.world - the Sync dev - has been MIA for over half a year now. Which sucks, because Sync currently has a breaking bug causing it to not show posts as read, making it mostly unusable. I had to cancel my subscription for it that I was happily paying for before to support his work.
  
  You were happily paying it before then? He's done this so many times. I gave up about a year ago when he made markdown work in titles, which no one asked for, and then disappeared again. Everyone who started a title with a hashtag had a giant freaking font for a heading. And spoiler markdown had never worked right. It always used the reddit style. It would even change proper Lemmy spoiler tags into reddit ones when you editted your comment.
  I took the time to try out every other app at the time and settled on Thunder. It's just as good, it's in active development, and it's free and open source, so it can never be abandoned like Sync is. Anyone can fork it if they had to, and keep it going.
  It pisses me off so much that Lawson had the audacity to charge $20 for a broken port of Sync for Reddit and then disappear with severe open bugs for months at a time. I wish I could get my money back.
  
  It does? I've never had this issue on Sync.
  
  wow... subscription and also MIA that long!

This is a rather sensationalist headline.
Every so often software developers need to eat food and live beneath shelter.
The developer of Boost @rmayayo@lemmy.world provides a free version that's supported by ads, or you can purchase an ad free experience for a one time cost. That's been a standard business since forever.
There isn't any grand conspiracy here.
- Yup, the dev commented on this a while back here:
  https://lemmy.ca/post/6072534/3382664
  Dev here.
  The dialog and its content is not created by me, it is a standard solution from Google to comply with GDPR and other laws. More info here: https://support.google.com/admob/answer/10114014?hl=en
  The consent dialog is also required by Google AdMob to show ads, and it is shown when the ad network is initialized.
  When the app launches, first it checks for the remove ads purchase, and if it is not present, it will initialize the ads sdk. The ad network is not initialized if the remove ads purchase is detected.
  Boost for Reddit was using the very same ad networks and consent dialog.
  (In fact they've commented on this a few times)
  I personally liked Boost, and paid for the ad free version to support the development. For what it's worth, I've also donated to / bought a few others for similar reasons, and I keep a few Lemmy apps installed so I can test things out on the admin side.
  Without recommending any particular app, I'd recommend this site, which lets you compare and filter by the factors that are important to you: https://lemmyapps.com/
  If you want a guide for new users, we have one here (tldr it links to the site above): https://fedecan.ca/en/guide/lemmy/for-users/mobile-apps
- Developer's needs are pretty simple, however. Keep clean straw for bedding, fresh coffee, and unimpeded access to an Ethernet jack. Your developer can have gummy worms or beer in small quantities, as a treat. Of course, the bulk of their diet should be ramen/developer chow. A simple correction, such as deleting system32 or not properly shutting down Linux, is usually all that is needed. They'll provide you with years of faithful service.
  Adopt a developer today!
  
  I prefer to feed developers "flat food." Just slide it under the door!
  
  What if we want red bull instead of alcohol?
- As long as there is transparency, users can choose. Personally, I would rather not use a service at all than have ads or tracking.
  
  It is an excellent app, I just paid for the version without ads, that's all you have to do.
  
  then don't use it
- I paid for the product, I encourage and support products i like instead of seeing ads, whenever i can.
- Just bought the ad-free version. It's easy to forget developers need to eat too
- I agree with you however I think we can built a better internet and the fediverse is in my opinion part of it. However I understand that it's hard to live on providing a free service, hoping for users to make donations to cover your spends and making a fair revenue is dellusional. I don't have the magic recipe for making great revenue from a free apps without sacrificing users digital integrity. However I think it's fair for Lemmy users to know that some clients could behave like proprietary closed and centralized plateforms such as X and Reddit.
  The author should have noted that users could pay a fee to disable ads and analytics because you can. He certainly didn't knew this and that's making it unfair.
  Honestly I don't like extended analytics such as this and that's one of the reasons I'm not using Boost. I rather send some sats (bitcoin) to free and open source projects I rely on. Not everybody is like that and I can imagine that many projects I've financially contribute to aren't sustainable businesses, I wish there was another way than enabling global surveillance for people that couldn't afford paying. Privacy shouldn't be a privilege yet it is.
  TLDR ; Yes it's standard business but Lemmy users and devs making great free product deserve better !

I guess I'm just legitimately confused about how to feel about it all. Lemmy is free, signing up on an instance is free, people are posting/creating content for free, moderators are taking care of the space for free. No one's locking in to get "fed" through the entire chain. The arguments about abandoned apps doesn't really compute since plenty paid and advertising friendly apps go under/stop developing further as well (and the entire Lemmy eco-system is free so silly points of "capitalism better"). There's also the crux of "Apps just replace a webpage", they're really not reinventing the wheel here.
But, if people prefer paid apps, if the developers want to construct the apps in that manner, have at it. I do think spreading awareness of what apps are out there is important, and how they operate (this is YSK after all). I also wouldn't spend time in my day coming into defend organizations that want to monetize on open source community projects either.
- Nothing is immune to enshitification, not even non-shitified things.
  To enshitify in human (it seems).
  To grow past & beyond it is to stride for greatness, for the way forward for society to evolve.
  Support foss you would like to see in the future, evolving into next gens.
  And no, I do not mean support with ads of the evil megacorps!! I mean support by directly sending devs coffee or whatever the nice donation button says.
- I guess I'm just legitimately confused about how to feel about it all.
  The freedom of Lemmy and the fediverse let's people choose how to interact with it.
  If a user is looking for a free to use , open source, ad-free experience then that's their choice.
  If others are happy to pay for an app because they prefer the experience that app provides them they can choose to do so.
  I also wouldn't spend time in my day coming into defend organizations that want to monetize on open source community projects either.
  OP read that Boost may contain code used for tracking, then started spewing some conspiracy that "Boost is tracking your data for profiling and more!" without any proof or any actual research.
  This isn't a case of defending some giant corporation, it's just stopping tedious drama before it spreads.
  If you check OPs profile they've been spreading this for over a week. When I first saw this thread the masses were heavily upvoting the conspiracy and downvoting anyone disagreeing.
  
  OP read that Boost may contain code used for tracking, then started spewing some conspiracy that "Boost is tracking your data for profiling and more!" without any proof or any actual research.
  This has actually been on my mind for a while now. Louis Rossmann and his consequences have been a disaster for the human race. He and his ilk talk about profiling in terms so sensationalist ("data stealing", "spying") that any connection to reality goes out the window and people become conspiratorial and paranoid. All reasoning about why it happens gets flattened to "they're evil" and there's no way to actually engage with the reasons.

What about connect?
- The duck duck go app tracker firewall thing their browser comes with stops trackers coming from Connect. It's a bummer cuz I like the app but I've been using a web browser more and more to access lemmy.

There is a reason so many Lemmy apps are abandoned, they were free and free of advertising. Devs need to eat. I prefer the paid app model to support the devs as opposed to ads. The dev of boost has always been open about how ads work.

YSK also that the paid version does not have ads or trackers
- How do you know if you paid for the app? Can't find that section in my profile and I don't remember if I did.
  
  !boostforlemmy@lemmy.world
- And, importantly, If your account is paid it never even loads the libraries or initializes the ad systems so there is zero data going to these trackers.
  I don't use this app (I use Eternity), but there's nothing shady going on here. Developing an app isn't free and it isn't unfair for the developer to want to earn a living.

YSK that, in general, you should only ever use Android apps from F-Droid unless you've got a very good justification for doing otherwise. That's especially true for generic/basic utility apps like calculators, calendars, and file managers, classic games like solitaire or tetris, and Lemmy clients.
- This is completely natural common sense for you and me, but to other people its alien to live with the "guilty until proven innocent" mindset that needs to be applied to software.
- Weird question maybe but are any of the podcast apps as feature rich and pocketcasts? I really like the trim silence function.
  
  AntennaPod is like 10x better than pocketcasts. Anytime someone asks for a podcast app, Foss or not, Antennapod is the first one brought up.

Aside from what everyone else has said regarding the ads: Boost is an amazing app and I don't browse Lemmy without it!
- yeah the ad free version is cheap and a real delight! I don't get why these people are making such a big deal out of it

I just wanna use one that has material design/material you, so it looks good in my Android phone
- Thunder has a toggle for Material You
- Can check out Eternity
- Voyager has two themes: one uses Material design for Android users and one uses the old Apollo look-and-feel for iOS users.

What a cool service, thanks for sharing. You can also check the Exodus database via web if you can't or don't want to install the native Android app.
- It's also built into the Aurora Store (frontend for Google Play Store)
- That's great info! Thanks for replying

You can do a one time purchase to remove the ads and tracking you know, monetising an app without ads is hard.
- You're being downvoted for providing true information that disputes sensationalism. This place is truly fucking weird
  
  I get that lemmy userbase in general dislikes ads, i dislike ads too but not every dev can go without it on their projects. There has to be some income from somewhere after all.
  
  Lol, dude got aa much upvotes as u
- Do you get a tracker-free software version, or just an ad-free experience?
  
  The Dev confirmed that the trackers which are part of the ads plugin are not loaded when purchasing the app.
- You’re not wrong but.. gestures broadly at the other available apps that don’t do stuff like this
  It would also take some huge scandal before voyager ceases to be the absolute king of lemmy apps.
  Performance alone i have yet to see anything get close.
  
  Ceases*
- As a free alternative, it is unfortunately cluttered with ads and tracking features.
  Moreover, it employs a predatory strategy by removing these inconveniences only if users opt to pay, despite the existence of equally effective free alternatives.
  This approach can confuse (especially new) users, potentially leading them to choose a less favorable option due to lack of awareness.
  
  Lol, it's not like they have a monopoly (a big base sure).
  What they do is transparent, they let you know upfront, and the price for the app it low.
  I'm not saying I like that model, so I don't use Boost, but this is far from megacorp strategy.
  I don't like them because of the (ad) monetisation with the big corpos, but that's just me going 'eww', not me looking at Boost holding a gun to users saying this is the only way to interact with Lemmy.
  (I go much more 'ewwwww' when I have to install an apk from Google store, via eg Aurora Store)
  Also long live the (un??)dead Eternity, rofl.
  Also, always use open sauce repos.
  
  "predatory". You are really stretching it. A full screen message is displayed on first launch explaining the options.
  
  For sure, it's worth letting people know if they aren't aware. It's been a while since I installed boost, but I remember there being very clear messages about the ads and tracking, explaining it was to compensate the developer for the time he spent converting the reddit client to lemmy, and with the option of a one time fee to completely avoid trackers and ads.
  While I love it when things are truly FOSS, I understand that I pay my barber and my plumber for their time, and I don't have a problem paying a one-off fee to buy software I want. What is exploitative are many subscription models, and all software that takes your money AND still monetises you (looking at you microsoft).
  It's good to make people aware of genuinely free alternatives. But I used jerboa, voyager and a few other lemmy clients and I'm much happier with Boost and it was worth every cent.
  
  I mean if a free software that is funded via ads using tracking for their ads (a required for ad networks after all) is "confusing" to users, I honestly don't know what to say. 🤷
  Also what would be that less favorable option? Paying a dev? What a horrible fate indeed. 😅
  
  It's pretty obvious, nothing is secret here. This strategy has been 1000% standard for like 20 years now.

Good work bringing this to the attention of others.
I agree that Jerboa is good. If anyone wants another option, then Connect For Lemmy is clean, simple, and updated frequently. I'm nothing to do with Connect, just someone that has tried loads of Lemmy apps on Android, and has settled on Connect.
- Isn’t it possible to provide an ad supported version without tracking?
  
  Ads generally come with tracking, since the advertiser wants to know their ad was seen / effective. Some ad systems might be better than others, but I don't have experience there
  I know Mozilla is working on 'Privacy respecting ads', which was also controversial: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2024/article/a-privacy-first-solution-that-meets-advertisers-needs/
  
  How would that work? You want the Boost dev to create their own "ethical ads" network?
- Sync is also pretty good
  
  It has the same trackers problem as Boost.

Boost is the best!
Launch the Rocket! 🚀

Raccoon is also a great alternative for trackerless Lemmy browsing, I personally prefer it over Jerboa and Voyager.

Voyager is pretty good but mr. Voyager developer, for the love of god, add some left-right margin! I don't know why but this makes me irrationally angry to the point I simply can't use Voyager
- Nooo, I hate useless margins (especially on the narrow side of the screen)! :D
- As long as it's toggleable, cause I like the no margin
  
  Excessive configuration can be a problem of its own (can lead to decision fatigue, for example). I think it's okay for the Voyager dev not to try to please everybody all the time, and for people who really want margins to use a different app.
- Nice example! 😜

I recommend Thunder. Always been slick and good.
I tried the others and stuck to it. But I think all the apps are great and it just comes down to personal preference on which someone likes to drive most.

Would like to throw thunder_app@lemmy.world in the ring as an alternative

Ooh, that app is fun! I also recommend Eternity for a Lemmy app (or just Fennec and ublock- not that my lemmy instance has anything to worry about)
I also love the difference in apps I got from the Play Store vs Neo store.
Also, ExpressVPN with 2 trackers? Shame. Mullvad wins again.

Jerboa is very cool and works great

I’ve not found a similar service to Exodus for iOS devices (yeah, I know, but that’s what I’ve got) but to the best of my knowledge Mlem is a pretty good alternative to Boost on apple devices, and the best user-experience I’ve so far found
- Mlem is in my opinion the best open source Lemmy client for iOS. There is another amazing client named Arctic for Lemmy that has great UX but the app is proprietary. However it seems to be privacy respecting and nothing compared to Boost privacy nightmare on free tier.

Glad I stick with Thunder.
I have no problems with devs making money on their work. But ads are a privacy violation for me.
If Thunder ever went this route I'd immediately fork.
- Boost is great though, and the low cost to remove ads is worth it. Devs need to eat and stuff too, I just choose to support them directly instead of seeing ads.

I find it funny that one app is called Jerboa which is a local delicacy in Najd and other parts of the Arabian Peninsula.
I am personally happy with the web app.

Jerboa is better apps

Lemmy looks and works fine in a mobile browser; why do you even need an app?
- Gestures, user tagging, UI improvements.
  On mobile web on the default Lemmy UI, you need to scroll to the top to get to other communities and change the sorting of posts and comments, where it's way more accessible on apps.

Stop using boost ages ago. The lack of updates makes the app ~~unusable~~ hardly usable anyway.
- News to me. Boost is not only extremely usable, it's more so than the others I tried, which was basically all the android apps.
  
  Try more apps, my friend.
  https://www.lemmyapps.com/