Reddit · Reviewed

Mobile site constantly pushes app download, hard to use

Raised by 395 people over 10 years (2017–2026), in 10 of them.

What people report

2017-01
On smaller devices they pop up the App download every time you visit.
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2020-07
I honestly think their strategy is to piss off non app users into using their app.
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2021-06
they're almost certainly discouraged by many such practices
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2022-11
makes the mobile web experience awful to force people to install their shitty application
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2026-10
Reddit is absolutely unusable, an ocean of dark patterns.
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Principle

User control and freedom

People report that repeated app-install prompts interrupt browsing, that the large "Continue" button opens the app store while the option to stay on the site is small gray text with a hard-to-hit dismiss control, and many feel the mobile site is made slow to push them toward the app, leaving them little real choice about how to read Reddit.

A fix

Make "Continue in browser" a full-size option at least as prominent as "Open app", label each button with exactly where it leads, and give the dismiss control a large touch target. Remember a dismissal so the prompt shows at most once per session instead of on every page, and never block content behind the prompt.

Grouping, principle and fix drafted with Claude and reviewed by Justusability. Counts are people whose comment Claude labelled a usability complaint about this issue; see Method for how, and its limits. Something wrong here?

All 439 source comments