In 2021, it’s probably safe to say that Reddit’s golden age as a forum site is over. It’s now well known for power-hungry moderators, teams of bots, and most of the privacy violations practiced by Big Tech. Even though Reddit has a long history of allowing pseudonym accounts without verifying your identity, advanced tracking and oversharing often allows for de-anonymization even if you never share your real name.
“But Eliza, I still want to use Reddit. So how can I do so while maintaining my privacy?”
The most private way to use Reddit is to do so without logging in, preferably in an open-source wrapper application rather than in the browser. By using a wrapper application, you avoid all of the advertisements, tracking, and fingerprinting embedded on Reddit’s website because the content is gathered through Reddit’s API instead.
So, what is a wrapper application? I’m using it here to mean an Android app that pulls content from an online source (like reddit.com) and displays the content in it’s own user interface. I plan on covering the importance of wrapper applications for accessing social media accounts in a more general sense soon, so come back later if you’d like to learn more.
In this post, we’ll be covering the best free and open source Reddit apps available on F-Droid. The most popular wrapper application for Reddit that’s been around awhile is Slide. If you’re looking for a quick recommendation this is the one I’d go with. If you don’t like Slide and you’d like to hear about the other options, keep reading.
F-Droid is an amazing alternative to the Google Play Store for Android devices. It contains a repository of thousands of vetted, open source applications, many of which are specifically developed with privacy for users as a top priority. To learn more, check out my post where I cover everything you need to know about F-Droid here.
Feature Comparison Table
| Features | Slide | Dawn | Infinity | No Surf | RedReader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Follow Subreddits | X | X | X | X | X |
| Multi-Subreddits | X | X | |||
| Sort By Filtering | X | X | X | X | |
| Anonymous Account | X | X | |||
| Account Login | X | X | X | X | X |
| Multi-Accounts | X | X | X | X | |
| Data Limits | X | X | X | ||
| Caching | X | X | X | ||
| NSFW Filtering | X | X | X | X | X |
| Thumbnail View | X | X | X | X | X |
| Card View | X | X | X | X | |
| Dark Theme | X | X | X | X | X |
| Tier Comment Colors | X | X | X | ||
| Swipe/Gestures | X | X | X | X | |
| Auto-Mute Videos | X | X | X | ||
| Download | X | X | X | X | |
| Sidebar View | X | X | X | ||
| User Profile View | X | X | X | ||
| Commenting | X | X | X | ||
| Voting | X | X | X | X | |
| Inbox | X | X | X | X | |
| Post Submission | X | X | X |
1. Slide
I’ve been a user of Slide for my personal Reddit browsing for several years. It is a fully featured Reddit client, in fact, it had every feature in our comparison chart, including sidebar view, logins, submissions, and more. If you’d like to use Reddit completely anonymously but still subscribe to subreddits and make groups of “multi-subreddits”, this is probably your best choice. The only complaint I have is that the user interface makes you scroll across the top bar quite far if you are subscribed to a lot of subreddits.
PROS:
- Anonymous Accounts
- Fully-Featured
- Popular
CONS:
- A Minor User Interface Gripe
Multi-Subreddit — A feed where content from multiple subreddits is combined.
2. Dawn
Dawn is a very nice Reddit client. It has a modern, minimalist user interface, but is missing some of the features in our comparison chart such as multi-subreddits, commenting, and sidebar view. You can use it anonymously and subscribe to subreddits, so if the missing features are not important to you, this app would be a great choice. I’d love to see the development team add in some of those features, because it probably has the best look and feel out of the apps in this list.
Pros:
- Anonymous Accounts
- Best User Interface
Cons:
- No Multi-Subreddits
- No User & Sidebar Views
3. Infinity
Infinity is another fully-featured Reddit client. It has an extra feature called “Lazy Mode,” where the app automatically scrolls through the feed for you. I find this feature a bit gimmicky, and I don’t think I would ever use it, but you might like it. In my opinion, Infinity handles subreddits and multi-reddits better than Slide does, with the big caveat that you have to be logged in to your Reddit account in order to manage subscriptions. So, if you need a Reddit client so that you can browse Reddit anonymously without logging in, this isn’t it. But, if you do want to be logged in, Infinity is a nice choice.
Pros:
- Fully-Featured
- Nice User Interface
Cons:
- Must Sign-In To Reddit Account To Edit Subreddits
4. No Surf
No Surf is definitely the most unique Reddit application in this list. The idea behind No Surf is to stop the endless scrolling that Reddit often encourages. It only loads the first page of the front page and r/all, so you can’t scroll any further. If you’d like to edit the subreddits included in the front page, you’ll have to sign in to your Reddit account. Additionally, it only loads the best three comments when viewing a post. If you find yourself wasting too much of your time on Reddit, No Surf could be just what you need.
Pros:
- Intentionally Limited Experience of Reddit To Combat Endless Scrolling
Cons:
- Must Sign-In To Reddit Account To Edit Subreddits
- Only FrontPage and r/all
5. Red Reader
Red Reader is a nice, fully-featured Reddit client. The only features it’s lacking is the ability to edit the default subreddits without signing in to your Reddit account and colored comment tiers. If those things don’t matter to you, then Red Reader could be a good choice. Personally, I like the user interface of Slide, Dawn, and Infinity better and I wish the developers would allow more functionality for users who don’t want to login. If you’re strictly looking for an anonymous Reddit client, Slide and Dawn are going to be better options.
Pros:
- Fully-Featured
Cons:
- Must Sign-In To Reddit Account To Edit Subreddits
- User Interface Not As Polished
- No Multi-Subreddits
