RuudJun 23, 2023

Jerboa app and Lemmy 0.18

https://lemmy.world/post/469761

Jerboa app and Lemmy 0.18 - Lemmy.world

The 0.18 version of Lemmy was announced [https://join-lemmy.org/news/2023-06-23_-_Lemmy_Release_v0.18.0]. This will solve many issues. But we can’t upgrade yet because the captcha was removed, and captcha relied on Websockets, which are removed in 0.18 so despite the devs agreeing on my request to add captcha back [https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3200], this will not be until 0.18.1. Without captcha we will be overrun by bots. Hopefully this 0.18.1 will be released soon, because another issue is that the newest version of the Jerboa app won’t work with servers older than 0.18. So if you’re on Lemmy.world, please (temporarily) use another app or the web version.

Show threadsolrizeJun 24, 2023
Jerboa also won't work with Android older than 8.0 though that's less of a problem for server ops. But it still seems like reliance on unnecessary shiny tech. My 5yo Android 7 phone still works perfectly well and I plan to keep using it a while longer, so I can't use the official Lemmy app. I wonder how fundamental Jerboa's dependence on Android 8 is. Anyone know?
Show threadwoelkchenJun 24, 2023

seems like reliance on unnecessary shiny tech. My 5yo Android 7 phone still works perfectly well

I don't think it's the responsibility of unpaid app developers to work around that, especially when you can probably install a somewhat recent custom ROM. I have an ancient Nexus 4 with LineageOS 18.1 (Android 11, the last version for 32bit CPUs) and that version of LineageOS is still getting updates every few months.

Show threadsolrizeJun 24, 2023

Asking users to install custom roms to browse Lemmy doesn't seem sound a good strategy for Lemmy to beat Reddit. What I'm wondering is whether Android 8 development is somehow easier than Android 7 development. I have not looked at the source code of RedReader. Someone mentioned the existence of Reddit API emulation for Lemmy. Maybe the easiest thing is run that, and point a copy of RedReader at it.

Lineage does sound nice, but it doesn't support my phone.

Show threadwoelkchen

Asking users to install custom roms to browse Lemmy doesn’t seem sound a good strategy for Lemmy to beat Reddit.

I don't ask anything of you. You're the one asking volunteer app developers to support your insecure ancient Android version. Installing a new version of Android is a good idea in any case but if you want to continue "resisting" just deal with apps becoming incompatible with time.

Jun 24, 2023 at 9:13pmWeb
Show threadsolrizeJun 24, 2023

My phone came with Android 6, the vendor shipped an upgrade to Android 7, and I installed that. They didn't release any more upgrades. The phone hardware itself is still perfectly good so I really don't want to take part in a hardware upgrade treadmill just because the vendors like to play Wintel. I'm typing this on a laptop from 2011 (Thinkpad X220) that also still works (hasn't fallen apart yet), running Debian 11. It won't run the latest Windows but I don't care.

I still haven't heard any type of explanation what of what stops Jerboa from working with older Androids. If it would take a total rewrite then I can understand the devs not wanting to do that. If it means changing a #define then I'd say change the #define. As a general matter I find Lemmy's web design to be bloatier and more annoying than old.reddit so I'm not sure I would like Jerboa anyway (I haven't seen it). I appreciate the work that the devs and ops have put into Lemmy but Ifrankly prefer the user interfaces of 40 year old Usenet readers to these Javascript pages that squirm all over the screen. So I want to keep persuing text based viewers like RedReader and Gnus. I'd try Jerboa if it was convenient for me to do so, but I'm not going to buy a new phone to run a program that I have doubts about to begin with.