I do understand your point, however, the reality sucks and you’re sounding like not trying to do anything about it is the only possibly right thing to do. I certainly don’t feel like living in an infospace consisting of 90% of ads and possibly-maybe 10% of actually useful information

I don’t consider resorting to (any) ad trackers being an ethical way to earn revenue. First, because the site/app owner doesn’t really have much control over the relevancy or legitimacy of ads shown to users (ad network admins may be doing their best, but scams will still make their way through - hey there, Unity Ads). Second, no, I’m not letting you to fingerprint me across basically all websites I visit to enhance ad relevance, since most of it ends up being like intrusive thoughts anyway, with no real use for me. In the end, it’s just distracting, annoying garbage cluttering the view. I’m sorry I couldn’t explain my position better.

The internet was better when the only kind of ads out there was contextual, for money or just by friendship. “Hey, so you’re on my site reviewing various types of coffee? Check out my aunt’s coffee shop in Prague, they’re making excellent cappuccino! Click here to visit their site!”

Likewise, I would much rather prefer a service with limited functionality (e.g. ability to download only the latest version of an app in this case) in its free version to a service that throws a pile of shit at you, then asks if you want to clean yourself from it for a monthly (quarterly, yearly) fee.

Oh, pardon my ignorance! I’ve had no idea these are plain archives and ZArchiver could handle them - still, I don’t get why APKPure would provide XAPKs for apps under 100 MB in size with no OBBs inside (example: Textra), other than to promote their installer.

edit: I guess this may be to distribute additional config APKs (language, architecture) in one file with the main app, so perhaps APKPure isn’t that guilty here.

That FMHY link is also incredibly helpful, thank you!

APKPure is no good btw. Most of the packages you get from there are in their own proprietary XAPK format, requiring you to install their extremely sketchy, filled with ads package installer to make any use of them, not to mention you probably can’t guarantee the app itself is unaltered by that point. (yes, that is for stuff APKMirror often/always has in standard APK).

I guess I could still use APKMirror with a proper adblock if I really have to (I probably would pay for that damn subscription if a) it wasn’t that expensive for something I use maybe once in two months and b) they didn’t start forcing it LIKE THIS), but, you know, all this really makes for a feel of internet literally being a dying star.

The irony is, I don’t have any. I suspect this is because I’m located in Russia where Google has disabled their ads by their own initiative (though, I’m not sure if APKMirror in particular is using AdSense or something different).

I’ve actually tried Firefox on Android a couple times and it always felt like a slow, clunky and inconsistent experience. It also had trouble rendering fonts on some of my past devices, not sure if that’s been fixed, but I really don’t mind Chrome for now.

I just really don’t want to touch APKMirror anymore because in light of YouTube trying to push their own anti-adblock, this feels like a spit in the face.

Isn’t that for MMS only?

Nope, read the last sentence.

The instances sync data only as needed - for example, if a user on a specific instance is following someone on another instance, and that someone posts something. Fetching and storing data from the entire Fediverse would require an absolutely enormous amount of bandwidth and storage, much more than most people will ever be able to afford and maintain :) (This is also why instances often purge old cached data - to reclaim storage space that is unlikely to be taken by useful data, per the nature of minuteness of social networking, and if you ever need a deleted resource, it can just be requested and synced back up to your instance, as long as it’s still available on the original one.)

As the end user, you should be aware that this synced data may, and most likely will at some point (not many instances achieve absolute 100% uptime, after all), get incomplete - especially if you’re using a smaller instance. When browsing user profiles, it is generally a good idea to look up their profile on their own instance, as it is guaranteed to have all of their data.

Also note that my explanation regarding “frontends” is oversimplified and technically inaccurate: a “frontend” is the user interface part on top of the software that implements the protocol. This, basically, means that you don’t have to stick with whatever UI your instance offers - there are other web and native clients that will talk to your (Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey, whatever they come to support) instance, and your instance will still handle all things ActivityPub, such as fetching data from other instances to it and vice versa.

Mastodon is just one of the many frontends for ActivityPub, the protocol behind the whole thing. While Mastodon software indeed is written and maintained by an organization, it is nonprofit, and doesn’t have any control over the actual Mastodon instances since those are basically run by enthusiasts

Man I hate YouTube so much by this point, and had even before this anti adblock thing due to their mobile apps never working properly on any of my devices, mobile website basically made the clunkiest experience possible (to force people into using the app?) and desktop site being just so damn heavy. Would totally completely move to federated alternatives if not the 20 years of YT exclusive content that won’t ever be reuploaded elsewhere. It’s not even like a social network or a forum where you minutely talk to someone about something, get a response and then forget forever, it sadly grew a lot bigger than that