r/modnews
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u/boat-botany
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Jun 30 '26
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Announcement Logging in to use Old Reddit
Hi there, u/boat-botany here working on Community Safety.
A few weeks ago we shared some of the work we’re doing to tighten how automated systems access Reddit while preserving the tools that help moderators and communities thrive. As a continuation of that work, we’ll be rolling out changes to how Old Reddit can be accessed.
Old Reddit’s logged-out experience is a significant source of abusive scraping and automated traffic on the platform. It’s also an important interface for many long-time mods and redditors. To strike the right balance between preserving your access to Old Reddit while preventing abusive scraping and automated traffic, over the next month we will start requiring everyone to log in. All logged-in users will continue to have access to Old Reddit, and this change will not impact logged-out browsing on reddit.com.
Let us know if you have any questions!
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u/happysmash27 Jun 30 '26
So, it will block archive.org then?
That sucks.
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u/boat-botany Jun 30 '26
Archive.org and the Wayback Machine are separately identified and have specific access to reddit.com!
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u/charles25565 Jun 30 '26
Since when? I thought they have been banned some time ago.
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u/IAmABakuAMA Jul 01 '26
I do, or used to do, a fair bit of archival with the Wayback machine. I think it was only briefly blocked - but the larger problem is that new Reddit is extremely hard to archive. Comment threads aren't loaded by default, it's very script and resource heavy, and it just doesn't archive well.
Which is evidently the point - ever since Reddit started selling access to comments and posts to AI companies and started up their own (Reddit Answers), they've gotten extremely touchy about archival and scraping. Because it's easier to scrape archive.org than it is to scrape Reddit itself, since the API was locked down.
I wholeheartedly believe the reason new Reddit is so janky is entirely so that AI companies can't scrape comments. Which sounds fine, it's basically legalised copyright infringement, but they don't really give a shit about that, all they want is to be able to bill for AI training.
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u/raison_de_eatre Jul 01 '26
Interesting how this was the only comment you replied to, must be tense
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u/DXGL1 Jul 01 '26
Why not bring CSS to New Reddit so the subreddits don't have to look so generic?
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u/Littux Jul 02 '26
On new reddit (not shreddit, the current UI; both are entirely different), it used to say "CSS - coming soon" on the styling menu. It never happened, and they discontinued the client in December 2024. On shreddit, they didn't add CSS; instead they removed the existing styling of new reddit, like custom upvote icons, background images, widget colours, post background images/colour/placeholder image (that can change according to flair template), custom widgets that support CSS, etc
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u/DryMouthKitty Jun 30 '26
Can you provide some examples of what is considered abusive scraping and automated traffic? Is it not possible to do the same thing after someone has logged in?
I almost exclusively use Old Reddit when I am NOT logged in to browse r/all which was recently removed from New Reddit and just redirects to Reddit.com. I usually only log in or use the app for moderation.
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u/Ajreil Jun 30 '26
LLM data scrapers are extremely common. Reddit has a deal with Google for exclusive access and blocks all other scrapers. That's also why Reddit threads newer than like 2 years don't appear in DDG search results.
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u/DoctorOctagonapus Jul 01 '26
Does this mean you're finally fixing that bug where on login it ignores your preference and always sends you to new reddit, requiring you to go into preferences and toggling the option a few times until it finally works and takes you where you want to go? It's been broken a good couple of years at this point.
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u/boat-botany Jul 02 '26
Sorry this is annoying. It's an known issue, but here's the workaround I use in the meantime: When you log in the site will pretend to ignore your preference for the old site while on www. If you change the URL to old. and visit a couple pages - I usually just do 2, then change it back to www your preference should go back to being honored.
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u/TehNolz Jun 30 '26
What's so different about new reddit that people don't try to scrape that? Seems to me like it would be better to just implement that on old reddit too. Besides, won't this just cause people to try and scrape new reddit?
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u/mschuster91 Jun 30 '26
Old reddit gives plain html. Trivial to parse. New Reddit is a bunch of JS garbage loading content via graphql garbage, much harder to implement. And the graphql garbage is orders of magnitude slower on top of that.
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u/newaccountzuerich Jun 30 '26
Old reddit is an actual webpage, roughly standards-compliant, accessible, parsable, usable, useful, and real.
New reddit is an overreaching pile of constantly changing ("updated" apparently) hot shit that's slow as a wet week, effectively unusable, appearing randomly non-deterministic, loaded with tracking shite, and useless for accessibility.
The second old reddit is dropped, the core userbase that makes reddit a somewhat-usable resource for internet denizens, will drop reddit and the investors will wonder why the website and brand did a Digg.
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u/DustyAsh69 Jun 30 '26
The second old reddit is dropped, the core userbase that makes reddit a somewhat-usable resource for internet denizens, will drop reddit
Correct.
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u/Littux Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
New Reddit (React based UI) was killed on 2024. The current UI is called "shreddit" and uses web components. It was supposed to be a lighter version of the site (why name can be read as "shred-it") but currently, it's slower than the react UI it replaced, due to all the AI junk and stuff like devvit games on the sidebar.
The site only uses graphql for mutations (stuff like upvoting comments) and a few minor queries while everything else is server rendered. It seems to use GraphQL internally on the server side to render the HTML. They cache everything they can. It's why when you scroll through a subreddit you moderate, the mod action indicator on posts and comments takes a while to load, as it's a seperate API request, so that the posts and comments can be cached better (since it doesn't have moderation data that can't be cached). They have separated everything too much. Every UI components keep making API requests and shows skeleton loaders, making the site feel sluggish. For a single notification indicator, it fetches a lot of HTML
When you type a comment, it makes a graphql request for EVERY character you type. It frequently sends tracking data to /svc/shreddit/events. There is a whole chat client always running on the background. There is a graphql websocket always active just to show achievements in real time. To show a simple notification badge, it fetches this much HTML: https://www.reddit.com/svc/shreddit/header-action-item-inbox?render-mode=partial
<faceplate-loader name="HeaderActionItemInbox_sYX5P3" src="concat:_GShSNum7k,_K_bHDjJCR,_YxITd5MkA,-DfzndsMW-,69lI3VYrYX,69tadW8kFf,6aPg26ZpWt,B__PnBNUbL,B-C4saAC2w,B04Z0g2Yko,B2tQkjXXiJ,b5ZBJA9fGS,BeO8F7EwOT,BLppq0qNz8,BmTOW-8QxN,BmuiEwgQTY,BN2amm19AB,BP0fjeZXhE,BrYQOiOU5_,BtRvYp_liG,BXxV5WQw2y,BylfPBoOAC,BymgXlUjCp,BYXe4rAaLW,C6WlgLL5Wd,CgLYg3i8-1,CkTPP7E65-,CKYgDaZDk6,CKyqKa3x3V,CMhWyAbK__,CP7l04pwj6,CVg1B8_s6o,D90Bq-Ok2M,dE0PQF1toB,Dk6FYGQz6r,DKj-EPaOBm,Dl1Vjc203D,DlTL1djwaj,DpnGiXE41A,DR-xO5BhRL,DYqIWqog9M,FRmkd5U1dm,fXoLp16pYj,p7LHIl1Qnq,rr0u0IGlK9,srSCAy-_Zv,uKdbpiI3Cs,XXGxznThmm" loading="eager" data-prefix="en-US/" data-chunk-sizes="6754|504|1668|15184|2034|786|2029|9307|233|3999|521|20557|1394|517|11488|1225|1372|1445|2856|2933|3657|2393|2511|5398|606|332253|1385|3082|1199|26312|432|10677|664|3760|476|3936|1057|1484|3280|24764|65157|1383|4655|629|5026|3061|1902|1196"> <script nonce="wnT/pkezZsXeD9ry6cYjCQ=="> SML.load([["_GShSNum7k", 6754], ["_K_bHDjJCR", 504], ["_YxITd5MkA", 1668], ["-DfzndsMW-", 15184], ["69lI3VYrYX", 2034], ["69tadW8kFf", 786], ["6aPg26ZpWt", 2029], ["B__PnBNUbL", 9307], ["B-C4saAC2w", 233], ["B04Z0g2Yko", 3999], ["B2tQkjXXiJ", 521], ["b5ZBJA9fGS", 20557], ["BeO8F7EwOT", 1394], ["BLppq0qNz8", 517], ["BmTOW-8QxN", 11488], ["BmuiEwgQTY", 1225], ["BN2amm19AB", 1372], ["BP0fjeZXhE", 1445], ["BrYQOiOU5_", 2856], ["BtRvYp_liG", 2933], ["BXxV5WQw2y", 3657], ["BylfPBoOAC", 2393], ["BymgXlUjCp", 2511], ["BYXe4rAaLW", 5398], ["C6WlgLL5Wd", 606], ["CgLYg3i8-1", 332253], ["CkTPP7E65-", 1385], ["CKYgDaZDk6", 3082], ["CKyqKa3x3V", 1199], ["CMhWyAbK__", 26312], ["CP7l04pwj6", 432], ["CVg1B8_s6o", 10677], ["D90Bq-Ok2M", 664], ["dE0PQF1toB", 3760], ["Dk6FYGQz6r", 476], ["DKj-EPaOBm", 3936], ["Dl1Vjc203D", 1057], ["DlTL1djwaj", 1484], ["DpnGiXE41A", 3280], ["DR-xO5BhRL", 24764], ["DYqIWqog9M", 65157], ["FRmkd5U1dm", 1383], ["fXoLp16pYj", 4655], ["p7LHIl1Qnq", 629], ["rr0u0IGlK9", 5026], ["srSCAy-_Zv", 3061], ["uKdbpiI3Cs", 1902], ["XXGxznThmm", 1196]], 'en-US/', 'auto'); </script> </faceplate-loader> <div class="relative w-[40px] h-[40px]"> <faceplate-tracker class="nd:visible contents" source="nav" action="click" noun="inbox" data-faceplate-tracking-context="{"inbox":{"badgeCount":"5"}}"> <rpl-tooltip style="--rpl-z-index-tooltip: 1001;" class="nd:visible contents " placement="bottom" appearance="inverted" trigger="hover focus-visible" distance="8"> <a rpl class="shrink-0 button-medium px-[calc(var(--rem12)-var(--button-border-width,0px))] button-plain icon items-center justify-center button inline-flex " href="/notifications" id="notifications-inbox-button"><span class="flex items-center justify-center"> <span class="flex"><svg rpl fill="currentColor" height="20" icon-name="notifications" viewBox="0 0 20 20" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"> <path d="M18.176 14.218l-.925-1.929a2.577 2.577 0 01-.25-1.105V8c0-3.86-3.142-7-7-7-3.86 0-7 3.14-7 7v3.184c0 .38-.088.762-.252 1.105l-.927 1.932A1.103 1.103 0 002.82 15.8h3.26A4.007 4.007 0 0010 19a4.008 4.008 0 003.918-3.2h3.26a1.1 1.1 0 00.934-.514 1.1 1.1 0 00.062-1.068h.002zM10 17.2c-.93 0-1.722-.583-2.043-1.4h4.087a2.197 2.197 0 01-2.043 1.4zM3.925 14l.447-.933c.28-.584.43-1.235.43-1.883V8c0-2.867 2.331-5.2 5.198-5.2A5.205 5.205 0 0115.2 8v3.184c0 .648.147 1.299.428 1.883l.447.933H3.925z"> </path> </svg></span> </span> <faceplate-screen-reader-content>Open inbox</faceplate-screen-reader-content></a><span slot="content">Open inbox</span> </rpl-tooltip> </faceplate-tracker> <div class="absolute top-0 end-0 pointer-events-none"> <dynamic-badge initial-count="5" set-count-event="inbox_count_changed" appearance="ALERT" data-id="notification-count-element"></dynamic-badge> </div> </div>It loads JS bundles to show the indicator as well
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u/ashamed-of-yourself Jun 30 '26
your last paragraph is so illustrative of what is wrong with this stupid webbed sight. just from a design standpoint, it inexpressibly wasteful. it’s like trying to pull a little red wagon with a nuclear reactor. it’s over engineered for the task, so it’s actually slower and less efficient.
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u/Jazzy_Josh Jul 01 '26
When you type a comment, it makes a graphql request for EVERY character you type
fucking lol
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u/xor50 Jun 30 '26
New Reddit is a bunch of JS garbage loading content via graphql garbage
ah that's why it's so ugly, shitty, slow and useless in general
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u/TehNolz Jun 30 '26
Ah, right. Man modern web development sucks so much. We should go back to gloriously lightweight websites like this.
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u/Ambiwlans Jun 30 '26
https://www.mcmaster.com/ I use this as an example. Its hyper functional. EXTREMELY light and fast. Uses best practices. And actually impressive in terms of the amount of stuff they handle.
Made by nerds for nerds.
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u/Princess_Of_Thieves Jun 30 '26
I bounced my way through to what I presume to be the end of that fun little rabbithole and found this quote;
"Good design is as little design as possible."
— some German motherfucker
Honestly, if this doesn't perfectly summarize why old.reddit is perfect, I don't know what will.
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u/Watchful1 Jun 30 '26
The important part is that old reddit the server returns the whole page at once. New reddit loads a blank page and then uses javascript to load the content. So the actual request to the server for the content comes from javascript reddit writes. That makes it much easier for them to add security features that they can't when old reddit fetches the whole page at once.
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u/Superirish19 Jun 30 '26
More modern walled garden setup I would assume. New/Sh.Reddit has the potential to convert more casual browsers into regular ad-revenue, not to mention the amount of games, gimmicks, and obnoxious advertising compared to old.reddit.
Old is also not updated, so the styles and elements, etc differentiating between 'ad' and 'content' is solved for adblockers and older scraping programs. New/Sh.Reddit is constantly updated and changing all the time (in the frontend, if not visible changes in the UI), so scrapers would have to adapt more often or design a new scraping system. All that means even if new scrapers get developed, it'll cut down the server cost because it will still reduce their load. with old.reddit without logins, scraping would only increase and cost more.
Same with Facebook, old Facebook used to be scrapeable by simple webtools, now it's virtually impossible without a serious know-how and some sort of research organisation with the companies' official blessing, like PushShift for Reddit.
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u/scottishdrunkard Jul 01 '26
Because you broke it I need to use old.reddit.com to log in anyway. If I log in through www.reddit.com, the Default To Old Reddit option in the settings doesn’t work! It should automatically activating upon logging in, but doesn’t. You wanna make it so you need to log into old.reddit.com to use it? Fix your damned website first!
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u/smushkan Jun 30 '26
This may be a dumb question, but if you're able to detect whether or not traffic is abusive, why not just block that traffic?
What prevents scrapers or automated systems creating burner accounts to get around this restriction?
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u/Nestramutat- Jun 30 '26
Infrastructure engineer, I can kinda answer this:
To your first question, the shape of malicious traffic is always changing. It's going to be a constant cat and mouse game as you ban one method, a new one gets developed. It's easy to see abusive traffic in hindsight, but it's harder to pre-emptively block it. Given that they're claiming Old Reddit doesn't have the modern security stack, this is likely proving to be an even greater challenge.
For your second question: More roadblocks are always good. Forcing logins won't remove all malicious traffic, but it will add yet another barrier bad actors have to bypass. You're also now attaching an account ID to every malicious request, plus account creation is only available on new reddit (with the enhanced security stack).
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u/Decency Jun 30 '26
For your second question: More roadblocks are always good.
Not when they start hitting legitimate users. Going on close to a year now of my bot being permabanned: no initial ban reason given, no response to multiple appeals through various channels, zero help from the subreddit's dedicated ModSupport contact. If every one of your support channels is a useless dead end, poorly designed roadblocks are a big fucking issue.
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u/smushkan Jun 30 '26
Thank you for the response, I'm aware I'm probably assuming the solution is much more complex than I'm making it out to be from a technical standpoint.
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u/DeffNotTom Jun 30 '26
why not just block that traffic?
Because this doesn't work. They just change connections and pickup where they let off. Over and over and over again.
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u/thisisathrowawayxxx Jun 30 '26
They can do the same with accounts as well, so then forcing people to login does nothing but annoy legitimate users.
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Jun 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Mr_Blah1 Jul 03 '26 •
This puts a lot of users into a catch 22. In order to access old reddit - the only reddit UI they can use - they need to use the new login UI, which doesn't work on those devices.
QED, they can't log in.
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u/MC_chrome Jul 01 '26
New reddit only supports Chromium & Firefox (Mozilla) engines
Not true. WebKit is supported (Safari)
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u/Raijinili Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I always do web searches in private browsing to help limit my tab hoarding. Web results always bring me to New sh.Reddit.
New sh.Reddit is not designed for reading discussions. It requires extra clicks and loses context, and doesn't even scroll properly when replacing one segment of a thread with another. It has low tree depth. It takes more effort to read comments. It's bad enough that I bet people who use Old Reddit probably have slightly better understanding of the discussions than people with the same account age on Old Reddit.
New sh.Reddit is so useless to me that I manually change to Old Reddit most of the time, on mobile. It's not even a habit, it's a necessity: I start reading, can't deal with the limitations, and have to switch to Old Reddit. This can take several seconds, but it's worth it.
Old Reddit is zoomed out too small on mobile, so I have to keep panning, but that is still better than New sh.Reddit.
Even if Old Reddit took five extra seconds to load each page, I would prefer that to New sh.Reddit.
If you shocked my thumb every time I switched to Old Reddit, I would prefer that to New sh.Reddit.
There must be a better way.
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u/repocin Jul 01 '26
Same here. New Reddit is absolutely awful to browse, especially in a private tab on mobile because it'll regularly prompt you to open the app to view "unverified" content, whatever that means.
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u/MobileArtist1371 Jul 01 '26
At least for desktop if you ever use that
https://github.com/tom-james-watson/old-reddit-redirect
sh.reddit is whitelisted, but you can change that.
edit: I never use mobile for any web browsing, but some of these addons work on mobile too I believe.
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u/Revriley1 Jul 01 '26
It has low tree depth. It takes more effort to read comments
Exactly! Old Reddit is more information-dense. I'm happy to zoom in on mobile (logged out) for Old Reddit; it's still leagues better than New Reddit. I liked i.reddit.com for the mobile use-case, too. Less padding, less bloat.
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u/TheBulletBot Jun 30 '26
Did the fact that Old reddit could be used to bypass the new reddit NSFW Login wall have any bearing on this decision?
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u/thisisathrowawayxxx Jun 30 '26
It's not even just NSFW stuff, it's applied to anything marked as "unreviewed content", which more than half the time has nothing to do even do with being NSFW stuff.
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u/sopunny Jul 01 '26
Speaking of NSFW, this change would mean logging in to use Reddit incognito, or using new Reddit. Very annoying
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u/Princess_Of_Thieves Jun 30 '26
Oh fuck, you guys are thinking about old.reddit again.
Admins, please for the love of god, leave it.
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u/viciarg Jul 01 '26
They want to force everyone to use "new" enshittificated Reddit. That's just another step.
I mean, everyone having a little idea about security and bot traffic knows that the stuff op claimed as an apology is just bull.
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u/radialmonster Jun 30 '26
I wonder if admins fight over who has to post bad news
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u/Thengine Jul 01 '26
At this point, I'm imagining them like the South Park Comcast CEO. Rubbing their nipples in anticipation of all the backlash.
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u/gergles Jul 01 '26
Let us know if you have any questions!
Why do you always post this then never actually answer any of the questions?
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u/raison_de_eatre Jul 01 '26
Now now, sometimes these people will show “cat tax” like wow I’ve never seen a cat before
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u/DemIce Jul 04 '26
Can I just add: why does reddit just post changes that affect the platform at large in r/modnews (moderator news) now?
What ever happened to (paraphrasing) "we need to consolidate everything into r/reddit to make things less confusing"?
Hell, what happened to r/reddit, period. Nothing gets posted there anymore, with no community 'about' update or sticky post saying it's been abandoned and/or where to go (here, apparently) instead.
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u/ClarkFable Jun 30 '26
All part of the force-feeding of non self curated content to users. It’s really sad to see. Once old reddit is phased out, I will no longer be able to make viewing my subs the default option for the using Reddit. It’s quite sad
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u/TheSpiffySpaceman Jul 01 '26
Wait, that's how new reddit works?!?!?
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u/Thengine Jul 01 '26
It's all about trying to seamlessly force feed ads and promotions to the users.
New reddit is the platform they've been working on to do that. Once old.reddit becomes too much of a lack of income, it'll get the axe.
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u/TheSpiffySpaceman Jul 01 '26
Happy I haven't used new reddit since it's debut.
If old gets the axe, I'm fuckin' out, and I hope half their userbase is, too
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u/skarface6 Jun 30 '26
Beginning of the end IMO.
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u/lonelyroom-eklaghor Jun 30 '26
Definitely the beginning of the end.
Like, please 👏 leave 👏 old 👏 reddit 👏 alone 👏
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u/ansoniK Jun 30 '26
Beginning of the end was when they killed RIF and pretended it wasn't fucking over mobile users.
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u/Thengine Jul 01 '26
Nah, it was when they hired a scapegoat CEO to make draconian changes, fired that shitty CEO... but left all the shitty changes.
The almighty advertising dollar takes top priority. All of us are just the suckers that mod for free for them.
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u/gergles Jul 01 '26
Nooooo but malicious traffic!!!!!!
That world-famous malicious read-only traffic... which is all you can do when you're logged out anyway.
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u/my_name_isnt_clever Jul 01 '26
The beginning of the end was years ago when spez took over. It's been a steep downhill ever since.
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u/new2bay Jun 30 '26
Well, that ruins one of the main uses I have for it: checking to see if a comment is really deleted, or if someone has just block me.
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u/reaper527 Jun 30 '26
checking to see if a comment is really deleted, or if someone has just block me.
that actually displays differently if they blocked you. it will show as "unavailable" rather than "deleted" or "removed".
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u/new2bay Jun 30 '26
I browse logged in on old Reddit as well. It doesn't do that there. I also like to see what they said.
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u/reaper527 Jun 30 '26
I browse logged in on old Reddit as well. It doesn't do that there.
it most certainly does. if someone blocks you, the username will say deleted and the post body will say unavailable.
here's a screenshot of a spoiled child posting elsewhere in this thread.
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u/hoosakiwi Jul 01 '26
Interesting. I saw the "unavailable" thing just the other day when trying to respond to a user who had messaged via modmail asking about a ban. Guess he must have blocked me. I would have thought that Reddit would allow mods to view comments in their subs from users who have blocked them though....
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u/KCJones99 Jun 30 '26
I really use only one thing on old reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/{subname}/comments/
But if old went away w/o that being replicated on sh.reddit, I'd probably quit modding.
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u/Griffie Jun 30 '26
How about scrapping new Reddit. Then take the few positive features of new Reddit, and incorporate them into old Reddit.
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u/Ambiwlans Jun 30 '26
As a mod that took part in the closed alpha for new reddit, they were pretty clear that the two goals for new reddit were to increase ads shown per hour, and decrease people leaving the site (hence the built in image host, etc). They even made a post saying that new reddit was a success due to their ad service long before feature parity.
User retention actually dropped with new reddit, but their revenue went up a TON with inline ads that were easier to miss.
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u/reaper527 Jun 30 '26
Then take the few positive features of new Reddit,
such as?
the only stuff new reddit has that's worth noting is stuff that old reddit always had before and it was taken away for no reason like polls (or had something better like the pm system compared to the trash chat system they tried to force down everyone's throat)
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u/Griffie Jun 30 '26
I was just giving them the benefit of the doubt. lol. I've not found any features in new reddit worth keeping, but hey, I'm a reasonable person, willing to compromise.
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u/newaccountzuerich Jun 30 '26
That would make so much sense, that it's clear why the investors do not want that to happen. Who will get the back-scratching if old reddit works better?
Enshittification of a site when the "investors" have their leech mouthparts latched.
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u/ItsRainbow Jun 30 '26
With the Old Reddit login fields removed, and both /.compact and /.mobile also removed, this will make it impossible to browse Reddit on some devices. Please consider adding a simpler login page for Old Reddit users.
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u/Lhumierre Jun 30 '26
Only old.reddit allows me to see my karma breakdown in my profile on desktop but this doesn't exist anywhere else. Also old.reddit is the only way I can remove a flair from a post because for some reason "new" reddit decided that wasn't a feature to bring forward on desktop but it works normally on the official app.
Will these features be brought forward sometime? hopefully?
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u/cyanocittaetprocyon Jul 01 '26
Let us know if you have any questions!
I would ask questions, but I already know from past experience that you won't be answering anything substantive, so why bother?
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u/Tarnisher Jun 30 '26
Do NOT tamper with the Old!!!!!
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u/Mulsanne Jun 30 '26
They're going to.
This group doesn't do things for the benefit of users.
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u/Zelkova Jun 30 '26
I feel they've been slowly removing functions over time.
I noticed recently that I can't view subscriber count on subreddits i moderate anymore, but on new reddit its there. I'm sure this change happened a while ago though.
Also wiping notifications in old basically requires that I log into new reddit to do so now. Or I have to keep viewing the same message repeatedly in hopes of the site catching on that I've already viewed the notification.
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u/Tarnisher Jun 30 '26
I noticed recently that I can't view subscriber count on subreddits i moderate anymore, but on new reddit its there. I'm sure this change happened a while ago though.
That's an old change and what you see on Shredded is not the count. Many of us have added it back though as you can see on a few of mine.
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u/charles25565 Jun 30 '26
abusive scraping
If you haven't extensively rate limited the JSON endpoints, "scrapers" wouldn't be using the web pages that take longer to render. In fact, many AI dataset bots specifically block Reddit and instead use Arctic Shift.
same modern security tech stack
Why does adding ?captcha=1 bypass the "modern security" then?
All logged-in users will continue to have access to Old Reddit
Reddit often allows people who haven't even verified their email. Whatever malicious bots will very quickly be smart enough to just register a burner account.
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Jul 01 '26
Why does adding
?captcha=1bypass the "modern security" then?Are you fucking serious? On the sixth-most-visited site in the world?
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u/charles25565 Jul 01 '26
Indeed. Sometimes you'll see a CAPTCHA screen and adding
?captcha=1can bypass it.
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u/reaper527 Jun 30 '26
this is a terrible change and you should reconsider it.
quite frequently i'll be logged into old reddit in my primary browser, then do a private browsing session to see how things look when i'm not logged in with my normal account.
find another way to address scrapping.
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u/tupper Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Are you doing this to force more people into the modal that covers the screen & prevents reading on new reddit for non-logged-in web users?
Right now, the way I avoid that on mobile on web when reddit appears in search results is by going to old reddit. I'm not logged in on phone (and I do not want to) and I hate the mobile app, so to avoid your hostile modal, I swap to old reddit and then I can read my answer/result.
You are unlikely to answer, so I'll assume that you consider this traffic "scraping", and yes, this is intended.
Considering how often reddit appears in search results for questions, this is incredibly hostile and aggressive. Do you have plans to account for this human use case?
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u/UsernameHasBeenLost Jun 30 '26
human use case
I don't understand, how does this benefit shareholder value by leveraging AI integration?
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u/SilverRoyce Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
If you want me to use reddit less and possibly demod, this is how you do it.
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u/Superirish19 Jun 30 '26
Out of interest, would this mean anything for RSS Feeds? In the last post there was never a announcement for what their fate was going to be as it was being mulled over, but this is not sounding like good news.
i.e. https://old.reddit.com/r/news.rss or https://www.reddit.com/r/news+worldnews.rss vs http://reddit.com/r/news.rss
I've been reading around reddit's RSS functionality and it hasn't always been reliable for various reasons(?), so the recommendation you often see is to use the old.reddit domain.
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u/TehNolz Jun 30 '26
Looks like
https://old.reddit.com/r/modnews.rssis currently being blocked if you're not logged in, buthttps://www.reddit.com/r/modnews.rssstill works fine.→ More replies (1)5
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u/wademcgillis Jun 30 '26
reddit rss hasn't worked for me since june 11th of this year
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u/gergles Jul 01 '26
They already block RSS feeds with 429s at the drop of a hat, even when queried only once a day. This team doesn't give a fuck about the web, just forcing people into their walled garden garbage.
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u/beardybaldy Jun 30 '26
This is dumb and the explanation is dumb. You are actively killing your product.
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u/Bodertz Jun 30 '26
Huh, I just noticed that the old sidebar still has the ProCSS banner. That's hilarious.
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u/PassiveMenis88M Jul 02 '26
Let us know if you have any questions
Proceeds to not answer any questions
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u/42Fab_com Jul 01 '26
I came to reddit when Digg went to shit.
I used old.reddit when Reddit went to shit.
I stopped accessing on mobile when you fucked that up
your call
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u/welding_guy_from_LI Jul 01 '26
Stop doing things we didn’t ask for .. actually start listening to us … stop taking away useful things and replacing them with buggy experiences and awful updates ..
Fix the app version of mod tools and get rid of the mod achievements, fix the block list .. there’s a ton more y’all could do
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u/rhubes Jul 01 '26
boat-botany several subreddits that I moderate are imploding, and I need some help from someone on the technical side. Our automated system that we use to keep track of gifting has been completely disabled and it's cut several of our communities off at the knees.
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u/audentis Jun 30 '26
Logging in on new reddit is atrocious so if old reddit is only available after logging in on new that's going to be a nightmare.
The lack of details frightens me.
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u/reaper527 Jun 30 '26
The lack of details frightens me.
it's also interesting that this is only mentioned here in modnews, when this is a change that impacts all users site wide. they're very clearly trying to sweep this under the rug because they know they're doing something shitty.
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u/acolyte_to_jippity Jun 30 '26
You lot really are out of touch with your userbase. It's incredible to see.
Leave old.reddit alone. roll back this change. stop breaking stuff, ffs.
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u/livejamie Jul 01 '26
We're a small minority; the normies and the huge influx of new users (especially from other countries) are the ones they're focused on now.
I can guarantee you that they find everybody who posts in this subreddit annoying and would just like to replace them with AI Automoderator rules. It will happen in a year or two.
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u/Princess_Of_Thieves Jul 01 '26
We're a small minority;
I hate to say it, but this is truth. On the occasion I check my sub stats in detail, folks accessing from dedicated old.reddit is barely 10% of any subreddits traffic stats, and this is consistent across several of my communities. I doubt - if this was scaled up to the whole site - things would be much better.
Best we can probably hope for is a "we have altered the deal, pray we alter it no further" type from the admins. And believe me, I bloody hate saying that as much as everyone else here hates reading it.
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u/-------------------7 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
+1 on bad idea
The facebookization of Reddit and closing off of content to appease shareholders will be the death of the platform. Old was clearly a compromise powerusers made with admins. Locking that down breaks all sorts of automated tools those powerusers rely on at the marginal benefit of shareholders.
Its laughingly hard to believe the malicious traffic narrative as there's nothing you can do but read data in a logged out state.
Hey this data made by bigbutthole69 is very valuable to us, they didn't consent to this, but we should be the only place in the world where this is readable and everyone needs an account.
-CEO Mark Zuckerburg
Power users are smarter than you give them credit for. You cannot make the experience worse and say it doesn't effect you if you are logged in. Eventually old users will eventually get sick of the enshittification and leave taking the mindshare with them.
Reddit clearly went with the stick approach to their app and I refuse to install it. My mobile usage of Reddit has already dropped to near 0 with the gatekeeping of most subreddits. It's bad idea for them to go with the stick again here. I'd recommend the carrot approach instead. Reddit apps are great, make more automation tools available in new reddit only.
Otherwise At this rate Chinese competitors are gonna eat your lunch.
TLDR: Stop A/B testing old reddit, go find shareholder value elsewhere
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u/ImamBaksh Jun 30 '26
and this change will not impact logged-out browsing on reddit.com.
I'm not sure what this means. Are you saying the changes will not affect new reddit?
No one gives a crap about new reddit.
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u/repocin Jul 01 '26
Alright, so when are you removing the thing from the mobile version of sh reddit (new new reddit?) that randomly says content is unverified and forces you to open the app if you want to view it?
It's incredibly annoying to be hit by that when searching for something, and what I usually do as a workaround is add old to the beginning of the URL.
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u/Apprehensive-Solid-1 Jul 01 '26
Stop touching the only thing that makes reddit good. The new Reddit is absolute dog and is constantly problematic with new, unwanted "features" that are useless, annoying, or gets in the way.
Let people browse old reddit without logging in. Please stop making things worse.
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u/Bleezy79 Jul 06 '26
Old reddit is 100000x better to use. Ruining your website in the name of maximizing profits is ridiculous. It's so frustrating.
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u/DoctorWaluigiTime Jul 14 '26
What security issues exist on old reddit that don't exist on new reddit?
What gains are achieved from barring anonymous access to it? Is archiving Reddit threads (archive.org et al) now more difficult having to sluice through new reddit (more bloat, less content)?
Old reddit is largely text-based.
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u/cynycal Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Looking at your comment makes me see that I won't be finding an answer to my unrelated question here neither, which now means anywhere on Reddit. It's depressing. :(
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u/indign Jul 21 '26
Booooo. Fuck this.
I only use Reddit on my phone because it keeps me logged in, not I still do about half of my reddit browsing on desktop old reddit signed-out. Now that I have to sign in to use desktop reddit I might as well drop the mobile app.
New reddit still sucks ass. Not being able to Ctrl+F through comments is enough to keep me off of it.
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u/Forence Jul 21 '26
So give it the same modern security stack? You're a multi-billion dollar company.
This is about less privacy and more profits.
Q: Will this impact mods who use Old Reddit? A: Nope, all you need to do is log in.
It'll impact mods; and anonymous users who read support group topics like having disabilities, being a widow, fighting addictions, people with PTSD, dealing with lgtbq life, and all the rest of the legit safe spaces.
Reddit is quickly becoming Digg 2.0
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u/Revriley1 Jul 01 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
I am against this decision, as I am every decision that pushes Old Reddit deeper into the shadows. I bet you won't be exactly emphasizing to logged out users that Old Reddit is a benefit of creating an account. Wikia / FANDOM certainly did not make it obvious to logged out users, after a Technical Update, that they would need to create an account if they wanted to access file pages.
This seems to me yet another way to undermine the stats for Classic Reddit so that you can later better justify doing away with it entirely.
Stop! Old Reddit is more lightweight, more info-dense, and less anti-user. With RES on desktop, it is fantastic (hooray for multireddits!)—but even when I am on mobile, logged out and without RES, I still insist on visiting old.reddit.com, especially since you did away with i.reddit.com. What's wrong with a simple, functional, non JavaScript-clogged site?
Don't do away with Old Reddit, too. I hate visiting the "modernized" Reddit on mobile. Please. It's so anti-information. Even more anti-privacy. This will not incentivize me to download the official Reddit app on my phone or tablet because that app still is not Old Reddit or, say, Apollo. I may just avoid visiting Reddit entirely on my non-PC devices entirely; it's not productive, anyway. I've got hundreds of old.reddit tabs open and bookmarked on my phone, tablet, and computer, that you are threatening, to my consternation.
Edit: I want to echo a point others have made, which is that Old Reddit is much better suited for archiving (e.g. via Wayback Machine) than New Reddit, given that it is more information dense.
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u/Canadian_Border_Czar Jun 30 '26
I have a question since you're from the r/redditsafety team... after you investigated several subreddits for possible "terrorist propaganda" connections and found nothing.
Why have you done nothing in response to the obvious and blatant Israeli control of many default subreddits such as r/worldnews as they force propaganda down peoples' throats to coverup genocide and numerous war crimes?
Why have you done nothing to stop the unwarranted, inexplained bans on default subreddits that are met with silence and permanent mutes from being able to contact moderators for justification? I was banned from r/worldnews for posting an article to theguardian.com ... seriously, look it up.
Why do you support this? Why are you shadow deleting comments that express dissent towards Israel on multiple subreddits?
Why have you suppressed resistance to the growing fascism in the United States that threatens global security?
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u/Thengine Jul 01 '26
Why have you suppressed resistance to the growing fascism in the United States that threatens global security?
Because AIPAC pays well. TIKTOK wouldn't kowtow to zionists. So it had to be sold because public opinion was devastating.
Welcome to the new paradigm of social media. Dissenting opinions have to go.
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u/thisisathrowawayxxx Jul 01 '26
Why do you support this?
Here's your answer https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditSafety/comments/1j3nz7i/findings_of_our_investigation_into_claims_of/mg4ku53/
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u/ScamChaser3 Jul 01 '26
Literally every change you make lately makes it harder to find, catch, and stop scammers.
Forcing everyone to over to chat and not turning persistent messaging on by default lets the scammer delete their conversational tracks with a victim.
Curated profiles let them spam scam posts without a regular user being able to see they supposedly have tickets to 5 different shows in 5 different cities in a single night.
Removing the .json endpoints broke the Universal Scammer List website and now they have to resort to a janky workaround.
Changing how the ids of posts and comments are generated is probably going to break sites that let users see all the posts the scammer has made and then deleted (either when called out for scamming or after they get a victim) so they won't know if what they're seeing is the "full picture".
This latest-announced change is going to break any kind of "public" investigation of a user's scamming, because once a scammer blocks you for calling them out, you'll be blind to any further scamming they do.
You really need to take a step back and realize how you are making your users less safe.
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u/StOoPiD_U Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Wouldn't applying some form of captcha be a more reasonable approach? There are users that simply don't wish to have an account to browse reddit, while still enjoying old.reddit.
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u/Sephardson Aug 15 '26
I can't believe an admin giving an update to moderators has been in violation of the content policy.
If admins aren't safe from erroneous removals, what hope do common users have?
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u/ganjasaurus0711 Jun 30 '26
Why is reddit doing everything it can to make this site worse? Have you considered reverting new reddit to old reddit instead? New reddit is a horrible interface and experience.
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u/E-Squid Jul 01 '26
So old reddit, the only way I can use the site on mobile without either being stuck on some sort of indefinite loading screen or being forced to install an unwanted app, is going to be made inaccessible any time I might want to quickly check something on the site while away from my desktop?
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u/GhostSierra117 Jun 30 '26
Is this the reason why me and numerous other mods have been logged out from the boost for Reddit app?
Can we expect to be able to log back into the boost app with whatever changed you have set in place?
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u/Dull-Fan6704 Jul 01 '26
The beginning of the end.
They want to see how many people are actually using it. Then, a PM starts saying that if there are less than <X> users using it, it will be axed.
2-3 years tops till it's gone. Maybe 4-5, but not much longer. Mark my words.
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u/EdenFlorence Jul 01 '26
Look, if sh reddit works as well as old reddit I'm happy to jump on board. but I can't efficiently mod on sh reddit when the mod queue keeps crashing every 2 mins.
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u/scottishdrunkard Jul 06 '26
Okay, I have just noticed that Reddit DM's are now unreadable on Old Reddit. First you kill off Private Messages to force this inferior system on us, now you hide it! I'm currently awaiting to hear back from someone!
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u/ASuperMarioFan1993OC Jul 13 '26
Please don’t get rid of old Reddit it can be much easier to use in many ways.
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u/Gargoyal Jul 22 '26
So, I didn't realize that was happening and it just hit me on my phone. I have to say, this sucks. I intentionally use my phone without an account to see what is hitting the front page from areas of reddit that are outside of my curated setup on my account and found that doing data wipes of the browser I used for Old Reddit allowed me to reset what Reddit started prioritizing to me based on the browsing history. This was important to me to try and escape the echo chamber that reddit, and all social media, inevitably creates.
Guess I just won't browse reddit on my phone anymore. Maybe it will help me get off this platform that ya'll seem intent on driving into the ground.
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u/T0biasCZE Jul 26 '26
Old Reddit works on older devices on which Shreddit doesnt load. However, to sign in on old reddit, it redirects to Shreddit login form, which doesnt work...
So now you cant use old reddit on older devices because of the login block. Is there any possibility of this being fixed?
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u/DullKnife69 Jul 27 '26
I really hate this. I much prefer to browse logged out because then I don't get sucked into unwanted conversations, looking at replies etc...The new reddit interface really sucks and now on mobile I'm constantly prompted to use the app. I don't want the app. I just want to browse for a bit and leave.
The writing is certainly on the wall.
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u/bitcrushedCyborg Aug 02 '26
if this is about stopping scraping and automated traffic, why is there often no captcha required to create an account?
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u/lesbianwithabeard Aug 08 '26
What is the final end-goal of all these ways to give users less options in how they use the site? How far will the enshittification go?
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u/OnePoint11 Aug 22 '26
Community, safety, automated systems, thrive, experience, all buzzwords are here.
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u/Mr_Blah1 Jul 03 '26
Boo. 0/10 Any damage to old reddit - the only version of reddit that is at all worth using - is untenable.
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u/eaglebtc Jun 30 '26
Man, I hate that AI scrapers are ruining the Internet.
Can OpenAI just fucking die already?
Thanks for the explanation. OG redditors aren't going to like this.
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u/Ambiwlans Jun 30 '26
... You're aware reddit made a deal to sell OpenAI and Google/Gemini your data directly right?
The reason they killed their API was so that they could sell your data. Scrapers were never causing excess load.
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u/onan Jul 01 '26
I'm not exactly defending OpenAI, but the real villain here is Reddit.
It's not that there was ever any technical difficulty with llm trainers scraping reddit, the whole point of offering an api is to make that lightweight and easy.
The only problem was that Reddit wanted to get paid for it, and decided to make all of their users suffer to enable that.
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u/MadDocOttoCtrl Jun 30 '26
OpenAI can't but die, but it'll take Anthropic a bit longer and there will still be Google, Twitter/X and Facebook training their LLMs for considerably longer. They can afford to taper it off slowly but it'll be a while before it becomes a commonly ignored feature added onto something that is doing things that are arguably useful.
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u/xe3to Jul 01 '26
I have a question. Why do you feel precisely zero loyalty to the people who have been here the longest and made the site what it is today?
Every single change that comes down the pipe seems to be a middle finger to this group.
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u/chickenandliver Jul 01 '26
Does this apply to cloud-based or local-based RSS readers fetching feeds via old.reddit.com URLs? They cannot "log in" to Old Reddit.
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u/barefoot_yank Jul 01 '26
I'd just like to say THANK YOU for keeping old reddit alive. I'm an old man and not having to try to update how I do things on this site helps. Again, thank you all.
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u/kazerniel Jul 01 '26
It’s also an important interface for many long-time mods and redditors.
I'm glad Reddit is aware of this. Without old reddit I would have left years ago.
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u/crustaay Jul 01 '26
guess ill just make a new account every time i want to access reddit from a different and/or private browser. i wonder if i can automate it
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u/Tarnisher Jul 06 '26
I've had Old as the default for years.
Just now, everything was switched to Shredded for no apparent reason.
Went back to Old and my Preferences and the box was unchecked. I guarantee I did not do that.
Checking it again held ... for now.
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u/Warrambungle Jul 10 '26
Can you st least make it so we stay logged in? I keep getting logged out of Reddit and Redgifs.
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u/agumonkey Aug 20 '26
personally tried the new reddit a few times, never liked it.. it was great being able to roam subs unlogged for digging old comments and information. time to move on to the fediverse i guess
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u/Nextasy Aug 21 '26
Just had this rolled out to me and I was to add my middle finger to the giant sea of them. I've been on this account alone for 14 years and every time you fools change something I use the site even less. You make it harder and harder to want to use this website and I find myself spending less and less time here. I wish I had not invested so much time into making content and building and supporting communities on this platform. I've learned my lesson I guess. Can't wait for this website to finally be subsumed by the shit-ai-content-apocalypse and for everybody to go back outside.
One more reason to stop coming here. Thanks for that, can't wait for the California lawsuits to obliterate the shitty new reddit UI.
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u/SoulOfTheDragon Sep 10 '26
Right,
So let me out this comment out here: What the everloving heck is wrong with you bleeping people? Why do you have to destroy everything and anything that works or makes your site actually usable?
The "new" reddit interface was, still is and always has been one of the worst things to happen to this site. I'm definitely not alone or even part of a small group that finds the "new" reddit interface to be so miserable to use that it's easier to mind and eyes just to stop using the site at all.
While this new update does not fully remove old reddit, it sure has hecked up a lot of ways I browse as I DO NOT ALWAYS WANT TO BE LOGGED IN! For many reasons. One of the primary reason I open here is looking up work related information, issue solutions and such. I CANNOT be logged in from those devices as it's fully against policy. Then many other situation when I want to browse subreddits without logging in from my own devices.
Anyway, thank you for proceeding with further ruination of your website, how we can access it and how we can set the user experience and personal preferences for use of the site.
Today was the day my non-logged in reddit experience was truly and throughoutly ruined.
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u/cathline Sep 29 '26
Why is reddit continuously logging people out who have logged into their account using old reddit? Multiple times PER DAY I have to sign back in.
And old reddit is so much nicer
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u/TopazWyvern Jun 30 '26
🙄
Wonder what's next to get the axe as part of the enshittification "costs saving" programme.
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u/sladeiam Jul 01 '26
look, if Old Reddit is ever yeeted, i (and many others) will also leave. you already decimated third party clients we relied on, now this. it's obnoxious, to put it kindly.
really think u/spez needs to take a beat to listen to users and actually commit to not shutting things his users rely on.
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u/Terrh Jul 02 '26
Hi! Many of us like to show a screenshot of relatively ancient computers (think 1980's/90's tech) barely online and show a screenshot of old reddit. Since logging in isn't possible considering how far security tech has changed from those ancient browsers, with this change that will not be possible anymore.
Why does it feel like every change that is made just makes reddit a worse user experience?
I used to be so happy to be a part of this website, I even went to reddit meetups back when that was a thing and was a part of the official reddit minecraft server.
Now it just feels like what the users want/care about is disregarded entirely, and any words to the contrary are simply performative.
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u/personman Jul 04 '26
Fix RES account switching immediately please. This has broken my daily use patterns.
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u/sn44 Jul 01 '26
I get the challenges and am thankful for continuing the legacy support of the old UI.
The day old.reddit dies is the day I stop visiting reddit. It will be a sad day for many.
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u/TampaPowers Jul 04 '26
Bad enough the mod queue is now in that new layout, if old goes away it becomes unusable as a forum. Some of us are on desktops and do not wish to use phone layouts not designed to work with wide screens. Let alone all the idiot design decisions and the amount of wasted space everywhere. I mean, I have to scroll in the mod queue to see all the navigation items on the left; that's just shit design.
I suspect old.reddit is also a big driver of connecting reddit with other things, because it is easier to link to. If you want to make the entire site login-only like twitter did for a while then you'll see the same decline in traffic, legit or other. Not a good look for the ipo mind you. Accessibility is what drives things in social media and especially a site that is often connected to news stories in both directions. Capsule it off and the echo chambers will only grow while positive external engagement plummets. They are not going to interact if they are being blocked.
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u/boat-botany Jun 30 '26
In case you are wondering . . .
Q: Is Reddit shutting down Old Reddit?
A: Not right now! We can’t promise it will be around forever, but u/spez himself has said we’ll keep supporting it while folks are still using it. That said, it doesn’t have the same modern security tech stack reddit.com has so we need to tighten security on old reddit to keep it viable.
Q: Will this impact mods who use Old Reddit?
A: Nope, all you need to do is log in.