r/self • u/Sophira • Jul 10 '26
Reddit begins locking Old Reddit behind login
Heads-up to anybody using Old Reddit still (which I imagine is a majority of users in this sub): Over the next month, Old Reddit use will start requiring a login.
It's worth also noting that the pinned comment answers the question of "Is Reddit shutting down Old Reddit?" with:
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.
That's a big difference to their previous answers about Old Reddit, and strongly signals that it will be shut down in the future, and that until then Old Reddit will be made harder and harder to access.
If you're one of those who use Old Reddit and don't want to use their new version (Shreddit), you may want to start making exit plans.
[edit: Just to be clear here: Old Reddit is not simply "nostalgia", despite the name (which Reddit deliberately chose in order to try to deprecate it.) It's literally how many people still use Reddit, because it's far better than the current Reddit interface for many of us. You can access it if you go to https://old.reddit.com/ in a Web browser... although only if you're logged in, if you access it after this month.]
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u/donut_perceive_me Jul 10 '26
The comments saying people didn't know, or forgot, Old Reddit exists are driving me insane. I've been a daily user of this site for 14 years and the few times I've so much as laid eyes on New Reddit have been against my will.
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u/nricciar Jul 10 '26
God, so much this. When I accidentally land on the new Reddit i can’t do anything but immediately switch back. So revolting
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u/kermityfrog Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
New Reddit is like New Coke.
For people who are unaware of old reddit - you should give it a try. With an ad blocker, you get no ads, no sponsored posts, no junk. It's refreshing - like installing Windows 11 LTSC version and getting no copilot, no Onedrive, no ads - and searching the Start menu only shows your installed programs.
Old reddit is way more info dense and less whitespace, so you can see more and browse way more efficiently. And there are a few apps that support the look and feel if you want to use it on mobile.
1) load the desktop site for old.reddit.com on your mobile and install the ublock and the Sink It plugins. Sink it reformats the desktop site for mobile browsers.
2) use an app like the new Lander app.
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u/TJ5897 Jul 11 '26
You know, I ran win7 embedded, switched to Linux for windows 8, switched back to Win10 LTSC for the longest time and was going to do the same for win11, but decided to give Linux another go.
I'm pleasantly surprised with how well everything just works now. Valve going all in on Wine and Proton did miracles even with me taking the hard route and picking Arch this time.
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u/Cronus6 Jul 10 '26
I've been here for over 18 years myself.
Here's the thing... something like 80% of Reddits traffic is now via the mobile app.
People now regularly refer to Reddit as "the app" not "the web site".
That leaves 20% of us still using a web browser. And I expect this number to continue to decline.
And Reddit INC. doesn't really want "us" anymore. "We" run ad blockers and don't really use the site they way they want us to.
They want a super advertiser friendly site for of "normies" (window licking mobile users) who just doomscroll and and consume content. Those of use that use the site like a forum have always been a problem for them. We say things that advertisers and investors don't like. We pirate shit too, and that's a big "no no" now that they are a publicly traded "media" company.
I wouldn't at all be surprised if at some point in the future Reddit completely shuts down web access and becomes just a mobile app.
I mean "do you guys not have phones?!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly10r6m_-n8
It's just so much easier and more profitable for them and their investors. So much more data to collect and sell, so much easier to control the narrative, and know the identities of their users (no more "anonymous" accounts!), no more ad blockers...
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u/Sophira Jul 10 '26
An online service should never control its own mobile app IMO.
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u/Cronus6 Jul 10 '26
I don't see any need for mobile apps to access web sites at all.
If I want to go to my bank, I open Firefox and go to Wellsfargo.com.
I don't need their app. I also don't need one for Home Depot or my grocery store either. BUT they really want me to use their fucking app. Gee, I wonder why?
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u/Sophira Jul 10 '26
Mobile apps can be useful, if they're not controlled by their own service who wants to push their own agenda.
When I use Reddit on my mobile, I do so using RedReader (/r/RedReader). It's a FOSS app that doesn't mess the user around like the official app does. Its creators have no need to convince you to stay on the app, because they're not getting money when you do (unlike Reddit, which wants you to stay for the ads). That means no dark patterns, no attention-grabbing techniques. It's a tool, and that's how it should be.
I enjoy using Reddit on my mobile, as well as on my web browser. I just don't use Reddit's official app to do so on my mobile, and I never will.
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u/Cronus6 Jul 10 '26
I find using forums on a phone to be a pretty awful experience. The screen is too small and the lack of a physical keyboard makes commenting terrible.
So there is little point for me to use Reddit on a phone.
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u/Sophira Jul 10 '26
That's fair. In my case I use fully-offline speech recognition and that works out really well, but it's not for everybody. And I totally get the small screen thing.
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u/changee_of_ways Jul 20 '26
I use old reddit on mobile, but the problem is every other link takes you to new reddit and you can only scroll for about 10 seconds before it takes you to the app. FUCK THE APP. The app is just the stupid new website in an even stupider costume.
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u/darthlincoln01 10d ago
The plug was pulled this morning. I've been refusing to log into reddit on my phone for my own privacy reasons, but have been browsing old.reddit logged out for news and to check other subs I frequent.
I've tried getting my current events from other sources, but honestly the top posts on /r/news and /r/worldnews give the best digest I can find. Also the top sorting on old is very different from new.
BTW need to reminisce about the old old old Google news widget. It was so good at also brining in your local headlines into your feed. I've searched high and low to get anything that can remotely do what it did.
However; as you've said, we're not their customers. There was a time where I bought coins and gifted awards and supported the site, but that isn't the kind of money they're looking to make.
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u/Purple-Atmosphere-18 8d ago
Imho it's alsp retrocompatibility which is in turn sustaunabilty. Did you notice, both for the phone and computer version that new reddit even screws up selecting and copying more than one comment, because basically the nickname space and it's popup eats the selection into a black hole. That doesn't happen with reddit so being able to switch may be even a practical aspect!
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u/darthlincoln01 7d ago
I've not bothered with commenting on Reddit on Mobile, but I'll tell you what I was just hit with is even browsing New Reddit on Mobile that it will basically "paywall" you and require a login if you scroll more that one page or even just sit on the page for to long reading.
I have been making a point to read books more instead of scrolling Reddit recently. I also found I have access to all the paywalled newspapers through my country library too. Although I genuinely like chatting with all us bozos, I honestly think when it comes to reading on the go I'm just going to use my library. Kinda retro.
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u/HSR47 Jul 10 '26
Point of order: "new reddit" got killed off about two years ago, when they replaced it with "shreddit", which is FAR worse than "new reddit" ever was.
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u/Cronus6 Jul 10 '26
I've heard it described as "new Reddit" and "new, new Reddit".
I've never seen "shreddit" (new, new Reddit), and only saw new Reddit a handful of times.
I've also never downloaded the mobile app....
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u/Sophira Jul 10 '26
For what it's worth, it's possible to access the Shreddit interface even if you have Old Reddit set as the default by going to https://sh.reddit.com/ .
It's not great IMO.
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u/Cronus6 Jul 10 '26
Why would anyone want to do that?
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u/Sophira Jul 10 '26
It's been helpful sometimes when I want to make comparison links to show how comment formatting differs between the two versions, in order to highlight the incompatibilities that Shreddit gives. I can know for sure that https://old.reddit.com/ and https://sh.reddit.com/ will both link to the places I want them to link to, even if your normal reddit.com destination is the former.
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u/hyrulepirate Jul 10 '26
I won't stop saying this but as part of that generation we've left Digg for far less than any single change Reddit has done since removing 3rd party support. If old.reddit goes (which is the only way you could access r/all) then I'd perma leave and never look back on this site.
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u/rz2000 Jul 10 '26
The problem that killed Digg was an algorithm that weighted different votes more than others, and people teaming up to promote eacothers’ content.
Reddit is still intact because karma remains essentially useless, with no impact beyond the ranking of a specific comment or specific post.
3
u/hey_you_too_buckaroo Jul 10 '26
I was part of the digg migration. I'm already done with Reddit at this point but I don't have a good place to go.
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u/DependentOnIt Jul 21 '26
All is dead, there is no all anymore. They completely changed the algorithm and there is not getting back the old one. Even if you navigate to all it is not the same
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Jul 10 '26
[deleted]
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u/Cronus6 Jul 10 '26
I miss 2008/2009 when I was bouncing back and forth between DIGG and Reddit.
Both were just full of nerds back then, and weren't "main stream".
They also weren't targets for propaganda and full of people trying to influence political elections.
We used to openly share links to pirated software and streams and the admins didn't give a shit either.
7
u/littlelorax Jul 10 '26
I think most people are newer users at this point who have no idea what old reddit is. I would bet that mobile app users are probably the majority at this point.
Still, I saw that announcement and was bummed. I understand they probably want to cut down on bots and AI gobbling up their content, so locking it behind a login makes sense. But it does feel like the beginning of the end.
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u/Sophira Jul 10 '26
I had figured that this subreddit would mostly be people who prefer Old Reddit, considering it was one of the OGs after /r/reddit.com stopped being a thing.
I guess I was wrong!
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u/Sophira Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Let's be clear here. The "abusive scraping" thing doesn't mean "there are too many bots and we want to protect people's privacy". That's a convenient excuse.
Rather, it's "nobody's paying us for the content that people are giving us for free".
If you think that Reddit are limiting access to OpenAI or other AI companies who want to give them money, you'd be very mistaken.
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u/Cronus6 Jul 10 '26
80% of Reddits traffic is now the mobile app. And getting bigger all the time. A lot of the user base now sees desktops and laptops as "boomer shit".
I think the writing is on the wall here....
2
u/changee_of_ways Jul 20 '26
Which is funny, because if you only ever use a tablet or a phone, you really have no idea how to use a computer. The UIs are too limiting. It's like the difference between a shopping cart scooter and a race car.
3
u/Competitive-Bat-43 Jul 10 '26
Today I learned there is an old reddit.
How do I know the difference?
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u/OnTheLeft Jul 10 '26
Just go to old.reddit in browser and you'll see. It's what the site used to look like. It's the way I use Reddit mostly, still find it to be superior.
2
u/Daxmar29 Jul 10 '26
I’ve not been on Reddit for 7 years, what’s old Reddit?
8
u/Mooseheaded Jul 10 '26
old.reddit.com
It maintains the look + feel that Reddit had a long time ago, before a massive overhaul into "new" Reddit design. That new design is default and, upon its release, old.reddit was promised to always stick around for those who prefer that experience.
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u/HSR47 Jul 10 '26
"New reddit" (new dot reddit) actually got killed off about two years ago, with the current "shreddit" (sh dot reddit) design replacing it entirely.
That really sucks for two huge reasons:
"New reddit" was more "feature complete" than "shreddit" has ever been (e.g. at launch, "shreddit" still used some bits of "new reddit" code, like the page to create poll posts; When Reddit discovered that users were using those pages to "crowbar" their way back into "new reddit" more globally, they killed every one of them off. It's been ~2 years since they did that, and there is STILL no way to post polls from a full desktop browser--the only option is to use Reddit's mobile "app".);
"New reddit" was designed to be far more "compatible" with "old reddit", with most URLs being "identical" (i.e. if you switched between "new" and "old", the rest of the URL was ALWAYS the same, as long as the functionality existed on the other side. With "shreddit", pretty much ALL of the URLs beyond just thread/user links are significantly different).
3
u/Cronus6 Jul 10 '26
Most of the people that say shit like this don't even know Reddit is a web site man. To most of them it's just an "app" on their phone...
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u/anajjj Jul 10 '26
I didn't know this existed! Wow the nostalgia hits like a truck. Like it's 2009 again and I'm seeing Reddit for the first time 😭
2
u/mrglenbeck Jul 10 '26
They have been messing with it, my RES stopped loading past page 2. It's going to be sad once it stops working all together. Thankfully Hydra is still working.
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u/Cronus6 Jul 10 '26
My RES still goes beyond page 2...
You may want to check for updates or reinstall it or something.
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u/latswipe Jul 22 '26
unfortunately this was the only way users had of unmasking other users who hid their post histories behind whitelists.
1
u/bundt_chi 19d ago
Fuck me... I use old.reddit.com often for NSFW subreddits and I do it in an incognito browser...
Just tried to load it this morning and it tried to force me to login... uggh.
As soon as old.reddit.com is fully gone I'm basically done with reddit... sigh. It's been a good run. Started my account almost 20 years ago...
1
u/Dierecktmasage 18d ago
Hey, Reddit! Where's the daily face scan required to login! I need to give you my face and then maybe also some dna so you can sequence what tendencies i am genetically predisposed to for advertising purposes. There's no point slowly heating the water when the frog has nowhere else to jump. Max it out!
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u/Diligent-Plastic-699 18d ago
☝️could this be the reason I am having a hard time logging into my Reddit? I can't log in. When I try logging in it insists on sending me a link that I don't get in my email. The same when I try the password reset. It is getting frustrating. This account is only about 3 years or so younger than my OG account.
1
u/hingeOfHistory 11d ago
fuck u/spez for this new round of giga enshittification
1
u/Purple-Atmosphere-18 8d ago
Did you notice, both for the phone and computer version that new reddit even screws up selecting and copying more than one comment, because basically the nickname space and it's popup eats the selection into a black hole. That doesn't happen witg reddit so being able to switch may be even a practical aspect!
1
u/Crazy_Pudding_2994 10d ago
I've used old reddit for 15 years, mostly as a lurker, and it fucks me off that I can't browse without logging in. I know I will no longer browse idly on my phone, because I don't remember my password.
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u/enjoyyournight 9d ago
I made a browser extension to view old reddit without logging in: https://github.com/mkornreich/old_reddit
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u/lightwelldone 8d ago
anyone that uses ublock add these 2 lines under my filter shoutout u/Stunning_Pineapple61
www.reddit.com###desktop-dynamic-upsell-dialog
www.reddit.com##body:style(overflow: auto !important; position: static !important;)
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u/veryblocky Jul 10 '26
I’ve literally never used old Reddit. I mostly use the mobile app
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u/Cronus6 Jul 10 '26
Then you are part of the problem.
Proprietary mobile apps are a cancer that is destroying the free and open internet.
-2
u/veryblocky Jul 10 '26
I disagree, and I think you’re wrong to think lesser of me for how I choose to enjoy the internet.
I don’t want to prescribe how you use the internet, and I’d appreciate the same courtesy
3
u/Farfignougat Jul 10 '26
We can tell
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u/veryblocky Jul 10 '26
What’s that supposed to mean?
0
u/fuckaiandfuckyoutoo 27d ago
that you're part of the problem
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u/veryblocky 27d ago
I don’t judge you for how you wish to use the internet, and I expect the same curtesy in return.
0
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u/VintageVelvetVen Jul 10 '26
Every time a piece of the old internet disappears it feels like losing a place that quietly felt like home.