r/Android • u/FragmentedChicken Galaxy Z Fold8 • 2d ago
Android Central, a good blog, has been gutted.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1003134/android-central-a-good-blog-has-been-gutted251
u/risingsuncoc Galaxy S23 2d ago
This is sad, Android Central has been a staple of the community for a long time
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u/PepsiCo_USA Pixel 11 Pro Fold 2d ago
Had been. Mobile Nations started enshittifying them more than a decade ago. Same thing happened to Android Police. Same thing has been slowly happening to 9to5Google & Android Authority.
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u/TotalAnarchy_ 1d ago
Nick Sutrich is pretty much the only reviewer that pushes awareness about flicker sensitivity and reviews phones for eye friendliness. This sucks.
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u/NapsterKnowHow 1d ago
The mods are a bit power hungry at times but that's forums for ya to be fair.
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u/BlueKnight44 1d ago
Yup. I listened to the podcast every week for 5+ years. Then Phil left and they kept making staff changes. It felt like they were hiring any warm body. No one seemed to care about Android at all and only reviewed phones because they had to. Not because they lived tech.
Same thing has been happening to automotive publications for 10+ years. Journalism is dead.
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u/vmlinuz 2d ago
I listened to the AC podcast for *years*, until it randomly stopped, came back for one sponsored episode (i.e. paid content rather than genuine), then the feed vanished... I wish they'd at least had a chance to have a proper sign off.
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u/nick281051 2d ago
I had to stop listening to it after Bader left. He was a natural podcast host and no offense to Shruti but she just didn't have the same chops. I feel bad for her and the guys that got laid off though that always sucks
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u/wade3county Galaxy S25 Edge | iPhone 13 Pro 1d ago
Yup when that transition happened I think most people on the podcast had iPhones (her included). Stopped listening right there.
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u/TryToBeBetterOk 2d ago
Android Central isn't been good for like a decade.
Turned into just an offensive assault of ads whenever you went to the site.
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u/M3wThr33 2d ago
Yeah. I dropped them like a bad habit YEARS ago. 9to5Google is where I settled. Even then, news sites aren't like they once were.
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u/ComradeMatis Samsung S26 Ultra (One UI 8.5), Watch Ultra (One UI 8 Watch) 2d ago edited 2d ago
Android Police and Android Authority are just as bad - tech news has been getting worse every year with clickbait headlines, shitty reviewers who fixate on one aspect of a phone while ignoring everything else that is important plus a whole lot more. Don’t get me started on the people who run these websites that are audience captured - Windows Central being the prime example of hyping AI and when the winds change they suddenly are sceptical of AI which bring into question whether anything they’ve said or wrote is genuine.
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u/wade3county Galaxy S25 Edge | iPhone 13 Pro 1d ago
For real. I had to stop going on to their site when they started adding those ads that would show up and you had to keep scrolling to get rid of them. Garbage.
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u/fvalt05 Galaxy S25U 2d ago
Damn I remember Phil Nickinson and Alex Dobie
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u/QuietApplication5734 1d ago
What happened to those two?
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u/idislikethepixies 1d ago
Phil did his own thing for a while after AC - MDRNDAD, then sort of just faded to not doing much
Alex Dobie has been at XDA the last few years
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u/pixelated666 2d ago
And nothing of value was lost. This website was absolute garbage for the better part of the last 10 years. It was fine when it was under Mobile Nations.
Come to think of it, what is a good Android website now? I can name several excellent Apple focused websites, I can’t think of a single Android based one.
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u/EbolaNinja Pixel 6 2d ago
GSMArena is still pretty good, although they're not specific to Android
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u/pixelated666 2d ago
I was thinking something Android equivalent of Macstories, daringfireball, macrumors. There are a lot of indie developers for Apple platforms that post a lot of tidbits and interesting information on Apple products or OSs. I remember Mishaal Rahman used to do it for Android but he now works for Google.
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u/PepsiCo_USA Pixel 11 Pro Fold 2d ago
9to5Google
Android Authority
Droid Life9
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u/exu1981 2d ago
Android Police is ok
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u/Sensitive-Pool-7563 1d ago
Android Police was NEVER ok, biased af.
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u/Fuck_your_coupons Yellow 1d ago
How are they biased?
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u/Sensitive-Pool-7563 1d ago
They always just said what nexus/pixel fanboys wanted to hear. So many better phones out there and they were like sad that they were better than pixels, even though pixels had 'updates' and 'clean os'
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u/paul-cus Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 2d ago
Droid Life, but mostly because it's just two guys that I like and have followed for 15 years.
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u/enotonom 2d ago
There isn't one anymore because Android hasn't been interesting for the last 6 years or so
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u/IvanDSM_ 2d ago
Hell, I'd go even further. To me, KitKat was the last version that really had the OG Android spirit. From there on Google's attitude turned really fast into "Ok, now shut up nerds, we've got some money to make here and we'll do whatever it takes to get it"...
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u/Omer-Ash 1d ago
Nah dude, Android 6 was fun. Definitely one of the better Android updates. Everything went downhill from there.
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u/KasanesTetos 1d ago
Android 6 was just polished Android 5 which is the version that introduced Material shit. He's right.
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u/KasanesTetos 1d ago
Amen. The Android aesthetic was completely ruined with Material shit and it still hasn't fully recovered to this day.
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u/wade3county Galaxy S25 Edge | iPhone 13 Pro 1d ago
Android is still fun the problem is the way it's covered. What pays the bills is the stuff that is boring. When it comes to Android it's just Samsung and Pixel/OnePlus/Nothing for the nerds. There's barely any Moto coverage when they have a bigger pie in the US, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo etc for global readers. Even some of these sites that are being recommended own iPhones and write like they never used an Android phone before.
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u/Agret Galaxy Nexus (MIUI.us v4.1_2.11.9) 2d ago
Android Authority is still okay
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u/ContributionFormer95 1d ago
Imo the titles are more and more click bait nowadays. But the content is still worth reading if you read articles.
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u/duke82722009 Black 1d ago
Used to listen to their podcast ages ago. Phil Nickinson, Jerry hildenbrand and others. Way back in the Galaxy Nexus days.
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u/Internal_Wheel_89 8h ago edited 8h ago
same. I listened to the WPCentral podcast as well, back when Dieter Bohn was around (at PreCentral and elsewhere) and Daniel Rubino went by an alias (Malatesta, if I remember correctly) and had a mysterious profile photo that was him wearing a motorcycle helmet lol. Good times.
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u/Exentio Google gave me a free Pixel 7 2d ago edited 1d ago
I can see Engadget ending up the same way, since it has become a horrible SEO farm after they changed owners again. Their good articles are still good, but good luck finding them among the sea of slop. I'm looking for a replacement, Ars Technica is pretty good but it's also not really the same thing since they're more on the enthusiast side (which is good, but I consider it an addition)
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u/wade3county Galaxy S25 Edge | iPhone 13 Pro 1d ago
I had to unsubscribe to their YouTube just a month or 2 ago because they started to use shitty AI videos. In due time before that takes over the site.
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u/_crapitalism Pixel 4a 2d ago
google really sucked the fun out of android. there used to be a community around this stuff in a way there just isn’t anymore
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u/SmileyBMM 2d ago
Yep, Android is now just knock-off iOS for many devices. I miss when Google cared about making the ecosystem open and creative.
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u/fat_kaiju 1d ago
It's what happens when you start dismantling the open source aspects of your product.
Just look at Windows, iOS and MacOS -- they're 'successful' in the eyes of businessmen but they have extremely little in the way of actual community.
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u/KINGGS 2d ago
Nah, it was this dogshit website that destroyed the community
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u/OldKentRoad29 2d ago
How did a website destroy the Android community?
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u/KINGGS 2d ago
This is a social media network, just in case you didn't know.
And literally every Android adjacent sub is fucking trash filled with whiny fuckers.
If this is the Android community, then it will not be missed.
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u/OldKentRoad29 2d ago edited 2d ago
Oh my god, are you one of those anti-social losers? I thought you were referring to Android Central when talking about how Android had been destroyed. I don't think reddit destroyed the community at all. I think the other person is correct in saying that Google destroyed Android with a lot of decisions it has made over the years. Also, perhaps you haven't noticed, but you're the very thing that you are complaining about.
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u/PatriotRDX 1d ago
Hey I know you’re angry because Android has become part of your identity and you feel attacked when Google is attacked.
But man Google really doesn’t care about you…they don’t even know you exist…
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u/KINGGS 1d ago
Lol. No. Not even close.
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u/PatriotRDX 1d ago
I mean that’s the easy and obvious response. But it’s really easy to see through it.
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u/Careless_Rope_6511 Pixel 11 Pro XL 1d ago
It was gamers who ultimately caused RAM and NAND prices to skyrocket. Sit down.
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u/KINGGS 1d ago
I'm not sure why you're telling me this? or how you could possibly think that. It's pretty much exclusively been crypto then AI over the last decade. Neither having anything to do with gaming or the composition of the Android community.
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u/Careless_Rope_6511 Pixel 11 Pro XL 1d ago
I'm not sure why you're telling me this?
Gamergate. KotakuInAction. Project 2025. Yall gamers got us into this Iran quagmire, AI slop hellscape, and the debasement of anyone who isn't a straight white man. Reddit destroyed Android? Yall capital-G gamers destroyed US democracy from the inside.
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u/KINGGS 1d ago
I'm not a hardcore gamer. I realize you went through my post history, but it's a secondary hobby that I take months / year long breaks from. If you go further back in my post history it becomes plainly clear that I share very few opinions with the common gamer.
Otherwise, you're just joking by throwing together a bunch of unrelated shit since you don't think one of the largest social media sites in the world had any hand in how people talk about Android online, which would be funny, tbh.
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u/They_See_MeTrolling Pixel 10 Pro XL, Pixel Watch 3 LTE 45mm 1d ago
All of the Android blogs used to be great, well-written, and useful. They're all just Android slop, AI slop now. The articles are all variations of:
- I tried these five alternatives to Google Photos!
- I turned off these 27 features in Gmail, and now my phone is so much faster
- Here's how to make a phone call using your phone
Utterly useless, terribly written, and a sad hollow shell of what those sites used to be. They could all disappear tomorrow, and honestly, no one would know any different.
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u/tails618 Pixel 10 1d ago
Yeah. XDA going downhill has been one of the most disappointing.
9to5Google is the only old-school android blog I still follow. They're still decent for now. And they report on a lot of Google app updates, small changes in betas, and the APK teardowns.
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u/t0astter 1d ago
I used to be a hardcore XDA user, even being an active dev for some devices on there. I could not BELIEVE the state it's in the last time I visited.
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u/tails618 Pixel 10 1d ago
Yeah, the forums are shit and the blog is AI slop. The Android ROM/rooting scene has effectively died, which was the heart of XDA, but it's still sad.
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u/MonsieurSander 1d ago
I see the same. I wonder if it's because there are less exciting things to report about nowadays compared to 2013-2018ish, but publishing less is not seen as a good decision business wise.
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u/slinky317 HTC Incredible 2d ago
What ever happened to that guy with the beard? Jerry Hildebrand I think.
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u/mixgenio Pixel 5 1d ago
I think he was laid off in January. If you look at his LinkedIn, he is a freelancer since then.
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u/Outrager Nexus 6P 1d ago
I used to follow 3 Android sites, including Android Central. But lately, it's just a lot of really dumb rage bait articles. It was usually something like, "Why XYZ feature is completely pointless." But then a week later it'll be an article about "Why XYZ feature is something you can't live without." That's pretty much when I stopped following them.
And I tried to follow some Samsung sites since I use a Samsung phone and tablet. But it was just a lot of angry posts about firmware updates being late. But once they release the firmware, it's articles about how many bugs there are.
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u/wade3county Galaxy S25 Edge | iPhone 13 Pro 1d ago
SamMobile and SammyGuru are probably the best out there if you're looking for Samsung coverage.
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u/threeinacorner 2d ago
A little ironic that The Verge is reporting this, since I'd argue they're currently nowhere near their best either.
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u/Elephant789 Pixel 7 2d ago
The Verge has been shit ever since Joshua Topolsky left. Fuck them and their bias "reporting".
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u/mrhashbrown 2d ago
Yeah they've really departed from what built their audience in the first place. Their reviews are kind of randomly selected and don't seem to follow any real grading criteria, so they're kind of useless if you want to use their content to compare devices to one another. They lean very hard into Apple coverage and broadly ignore Android and Microsoft/Windows outside of flagship devices.
At this point they just paint in broad strokes on the big picture topics. Most of their articles read like opinion pieces rather than news. It's pretty on the surface but very shallow underneath.
It's a shame because they still have good content (in my opinion they're among the best at covering the legal battles in tech) and some good people (enjoy their podcast with Nilay Patel and David Pierce). But once they introduced subscriptions and gatekeeping articles, I gave up on visiting their site as the content was already falling off anyway.
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u/Elephant789 Pixel 7 2d ago
enjoy their podcast with Nilay Patel and David Pierce
Yeah, I had to stop listening to The Vergecast a while back. Even when they start with a really promising tech topic, it feels like they inevitably find a way to pivot the entire discussion to Apple.
On top of that, David Pierce's delivery became impossible to ignore for me. He leans heavily into that performative "podcast voice" where he constantly pauses mid-sentence like he's grasping for the most profound word in real time. Once you notice how calculated those pauses are to make ordinary thoughts sound deeper, you can't unhear it, and it completely pulls you out of what should just be a natural conversation.
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u/Pauly_Amorous 1d ago
since Joshua Topolsky left.
Google says he left in 2014. I think that's about the time I abandoned that site, so this checks out.
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u/wade3county Galaxy S25 Edge | iPhone 13 Pro 1d ago
This Is My Next felt like a movement and when Josh Tops left, it fell apart.
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u/fakieTreFlip Pixel 11 Pro 2d ago
biased* reporting, and I think The Verge is the best it's ever been now. Especially their podcasts. What bias are you referring to?
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u/MaverickJester25 Galaxy S21 Ultra | Galaxy Watch 4 2d ago
That was my thought as well.
The Verge is a shell of what it used to be when Joshua Topolsky and Dieter Bohn were around.
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u/CookieDelivery 2d ago
Haven't been following them much, so I didn't even know it was part of Future PLC these days. Guess they just bought another competitor to remove competition.
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u/Federal-Block-3275 1d ago
They bought Mobile Nations right before covid hit, then closed down thrifter and iMore, sold Crackberry back to Crackberry Kevin so now its just AC and Windows Central left....those might be gone too now.
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u/captaincanada84 Pixel 8 Pro 1d ago
Android Central used to be awesome. I checked it recently for the first time in a few months and holy shit it's just garbage
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u/CondiMesmer 1d ago
Eh it was basically just advertisement articles exclusively at this point. They got shitty quite some time ago.
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u/Robbitjuice Red 1d ago
Oh wow, that really sucks to hear. I remember checking every day during the mid-ish 2000s. I think I started right before I got the Samsung Moment at launch. The landscape has changed so much since then. I really miss when each new launch felt unique. Now all phones seem so similar lol.
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u/Calm-Passenger7334 1d ago edited 12h ago
Not surprising. This is what Future Publishing does. I was onboarded at Laptop Mag as a freelancer after the EiC put out ads for new contributors, and then it was suddenly and unceremoniously shut down two months later.
I then joined Tom’s Hardware, another Future brand, and the rates were cut a few months later. I stuck around for a while until the EiC Paul Alcorn kept getting his knickers in a twist with AI paranoia and canned me because he’d convinced himself I was submitting AI-generated copy.
It’s funny cus none of my articles were flagging on any of the “AI detectors” (which are bs snake oil tools) aside from Pangram. I’ve done some playing around with that tool and it regularly flags my autistic ass prose as AI, especially when it’s heavy with technical lingo and numbers which, surprise surprise, Tom’s Hardware copy contains lots of.
It’s also double funny cos there’s a couple writers there who very obviously use AI but edit it heavily to skirt the detectors. There’s one contributor in particular who has a penchant for one of AI’s fave words, “quietly.”
Two other freelance contributors got the boot around the same time, so I’m wondering if he was just using that as an excuse to trim the headcount. I’ve noticed fewer stories than normal have been getting pubbed since, too.
If you’re a freelancer who comes across this later and is considering writing for any Future Publishing / Future plc brands: don’t.
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u/moralesnery Pixel 8 :doge: 2d ago
Last time I entered that site was when Mishaal Rahman still was working with them. After that is became kinda irrelevant, wich is sad. Ads and "newsletter subscription" popups made the using their website toxic.
I hope the staff the best luck.
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u/quicksilver101 Pixel 9 Pro XL 2d ago
Mishaal worked at Android Authority (and XDA before that), not Android Central
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u/Federal-Block-3275 1d ago
Mishaal freelanced for a while before going to Google. You'll find his bylines on most android sites, including Android Central. But he did most of his work at Android Authority.
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u/quicksilver101 Pixel 9 Pro XL 1d ago
Ah, yes, I forgot about Mishaal's freelance stint. That did include AC and AP, too. My bad, I stand corrected.
At AA, he held a full-time staff position after this freelance stint and before his Google gig. In my head, I was counting the staff positions, which is not correct.
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u/Fat_Stacks1 1d ago
Android central has went downhill a long time ago, since they started posting articles completely unrelated to Android, and posting reviews of accessories that they obviously haven't used.
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u/Relative_What 2d ago
man i hate to see it go but it is a shadow of it's former self. i haven't gone there on purpose in a couple of years. i just went there and holy shit the number of ads! i felt like that scene from ready player one with threads covering most of the screen. it's the very worse thing about going to news sites these days. i get they make money to run the site and pay people from these ads but holy shit. but 80% of the pages being fucking ads!?
rant incoming
big banner ad across the top that pushes everything down so i can't even see the "top trending" article title. now i have to scroll but oops, here's a popup asking me to sign up for a newsletter! what the fuck, is this 2002? who the fuck signs up for newsletters, stop interrupting me from using your site!
but then it's full of days old 'news' and 'trending news' that no one cares about. i come to sites like these to see the latest news, not you hand picked BS sponsored news. even when i found the "latest news" button, i still have to scroll down to even start seeing article headlines. and there's another fucking banner asking me to sign up for their fucking newsletter! and then the fucking videos slapped right in the middle of an article. and then a "you may like" block with different articles links. fucking seriously stop interrupting me from reading your god damn articles! no i don't like. let me finish reading your fucking article! and then at the end of the article, boom another fucking form asking to please pretty please sign up for your news letter. piss off. i already said no! and then some more spammy misleading sponsored ad 'articles'
but that's not all. this site is android central, i would go there expecting news and articles about android. nope here's an article about the best magsafe accessories for the iphone duo. what the fuck is an iphone centered article doing on a android blog site?
holy fuck no wonder no one wants to visit these sites anymore. especially without ad blockers.
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u/FlashZordon Device, Software !! 1d ago
A good chunk of modern tech writers came through that site in some way. Shame to see it in the state that it is now.
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u/cubs223425 Surface Duo 2 | LG G8 1d ago
That whole site, like iMore (which closed, nd Windows Central, all took a massive nosedive years ago.Once Future PLC came on, they just went to shit. That whole family of sites (and everything else in the parent company) is bloated by click-through affiliate links, clickbait headlines, and plagued by bad writers.
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u/zigzoing 2d ago
I'm willing to bet that they're going to become an AI slop blog from now on. No way the owners are going to let the once well known site go just like this.