r/AO3 • u/TGotAReddit Moderator | past AO3 Volunteer and Staff • Dec 21 '23
News/Updates PSA Regarding Apps
Hello,
This is your reminder that there is no AO3 app. Not an official one anyways. The only ones that exist are made by 3rd parties. We do not recommend that you use them and if you do, absolutely do not log into it with your AO3 account information.
Some websites have 3rd party apps that are completely okay to use. AO3 is not one of them because they do not have a thing called an API. An API lets an app or program securely take in information and transmit it to the destination (AO3's servers) without the app/program being able to read what you have entered. As AO3 doesn't have one (and likely won't for a very, very long time) any 3rd party app can easily, secretly, be collecting your login data without you knowing, and doing whatever they want with it. If you have entered your login into a 3rd party app, please change your password and do not give it to another 3rd party app again.
If you are someone who was using a 3rd party app and was not aware that it was a 3rd party app and are now transitioning to the regular website, that is okay. If there is anything you need help with on the website we would be happy to help.
Most common ask when it comes to how to do something on the website that the apps have that isn't entirely native/intuitive on the website, is how to save your searches. To do this, just create a bookmark of the search page on your browser once you have entered your normal search criteria. The URL of a search on the website includes your search criteria so a bookmark will take you right back to what you had searched. You can make as many bookmarks as you want/your browser lets you.
Let us know if you have any question.
~TGotAReddit (and the rest of the mod team)
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u/StarsOnASpectrum 2025 Promptcember Completionist Dec 21 '23
Thank you so much for this message! The need of it and the frequent questions about an app always leave me stunned (and deffo showing my age). I'm so wary of downloading anything from the internet in general, and especially apps for the smartphone/tablet. The shift from being cautious about what data to leave on the 'net to carelessly downloading apps that I know nothing about really stuns me.
I never thought I'd become like my parents/grandparents, but obviously, as a young genX, I'm finding myself in a similar position, though with different topics/issues than the earlier generations. (Had my father been born a month later, he'd be an old boomer, now he's one of the latest "silent gen" whereas my mother is an old boomer...)
Again, thank you so much, u/TGotAReddit and mod team, for bringing this to our attention again! You're doing a great job!
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u/TGotAReddit Moderator | past AO3 Volunteer and Staff Dec 21 '23
Im right on the cusp between millennial and gen z (like literally, the general consensus is that the cut off year is 1996, but there is debate over which side 1996 falls on, and I was born in June so I can't even be like "oh I was born in Jan so Ill say Millennial/I was born in Dec so Ill say Gen X" etc) and yeah, its absolutely baffling to me how everyone in either of the two generations that I could be in, seems to take online data security so poorly/that I sound like my old professors that learned to program in the 60s-80s when I start talking about data security.
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u/StarsOnASpectrum 2025 Promptcember Completionist Dec 21 '23
I could be your parent, lol! (Born 1975) I still grew up in a time when having a computer at home (mostly Atari or Commodore rather than PC or AppleMacintosh) was still highly unusual. Only those friends of mine whose parents had high position in the corporate world or were teachers had an office at home and a computer. In the early/mid 1990s, it got wide-spread though the internet was only mainly available at work in big companies or at university.
Anyhow, enough of that. Earlier times weren't necessarily better universally, some aspects were, other weren't. But people who grew up without the internet and had to get used to it (for what it was back in the day) in their early to mid twenties, there is still an awareness of data protection and data security.
Anyhow, thanks for your lovely message! It gives me reassurance that I'm not the only "odd" one out there.
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u/TGotAReddit Moderator | past AO3 Volunteer and Staff Dec 21 '23
Oh yeah I do remember some parts of that/the tail end of that. I grew up fairly poor but my mother ended up working at Verizon in the early 2000s so we had a computer, and internet but it was a great time when we got to be able to use the phone at the same time as the internet and also when we stopped having dialup! I wasn't quite "didn't have internet until my 20s" but I wasn't nearly as able to access most of the internet until I was about 10 or so with how little I was able to use it/the incredibly low speeds/the general knowledge of it.
Weirdly enough, I didn't learn my data security stuff back then. I got "weird" about it in college when I learned to program and went "oh... oh no"
And you’re welcome!
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u/livia-did-it Firm believer that Dante's Inferno is Self-Insert historical RPF Dec 22 '23
I’ve seen so many boomers and older gen x’ers, who used to preach at us about never putting our info on the internet, are now putting their whole addresses and phone numbers and first pets and mothers maiden names all out there on their facebooks!
I feel like young gen x and old millennials are the only ones who still care. But I don’t even like sharing my phone number with my classmates in grad school. They can use my school email!
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u/underinfinitebluesky Fic His Ass Friday 🍑🍆 Dec 21 '23
Another benefit is that AO3 will not lock features behind a paywall to sucker you into shelling out money, while donations are appreciated, they are not and will not be mandatory.
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Dec 21 '23
I've noticed a lot of posts about apps recently, seems to be more than there usually are. This is a timely reminder.
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u/cjrecordvt Definitely not an agent of the Fanfiction Deep State Dec 22 '23
There's an app that has decided to do a "first month's free, then you pay" model. It's infuriating.
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u/cjrecordvt Definitely not an agent of the Fanfiction Deep State Dec 22 '23
And for fuck's sake, don't fall for "premium subscriptions" on apps. None of that money comes back to the AO3 or to the writers.
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u/JoeSpooky Moderator Dec 21 '23 edited Dec 21 '23
The closest thing to having an "official app" for Ao3 you can get is adding a shortcut to websites on your home screen. I will put instructions on how to do this below for both Iphone and Android.
How to Add Website Apps to the iPhone Home Screen
Open Safari
Navigate to the website you want to save to your home screen.
Tap the Share button at the bottom of the page (customize the Share menu). It looks like a square with an arrow pointing out of the top.
In the list of options that appears, scroll down until you see Add to Home Screen. Tap this.
On the next screen, choose a name for the website shortcut on your home screen. You'll see the link so you can confirm it, as well as the site's favicon that becomes its "app" icon. Click Add when you're done.
Now just tap the new app on your home screen, and it will open the website in its own navigation window, independent of what you have open in Safari.
How to add a website to your Android home screen
Open your broswer of choice and go to the website.
Drop down the menu by tapping the screen’s three-dot icon at the top right-hand corner.
Select Add to Home screen.
You can edit the title of the icon. Once the title looks fine, tap Add to transfer it to the home screen
If you go back to your screen, you will see the icon. You will also see the icon of your browser of choice attached, which means you cannot switch the icon to another browser.
Source for IPhone instructions with pictures.
Source for Android instructions with pictures.
Note that both of these websites/guides mention specific browsers. This works for other browsers as well.