I have been using PocketCasts for a long time, but it’s been enshitifying for a while now. The most annoying part is the huge amount of ads that are inserted in the podcasts, and I can’t even tell if that money goes to the creators or to PocketCasts.
So any good recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Another vote for AntennaPod, although Podcini doesn’t seem too different. They all lack a way to make multiple playlists.
Also, on my ancient tablet with Android 7, i use antenna pod except for playback, where i switch to Audio Anchor to avoid some crashing.
AntennaPod is better than it has any right to be – on a modern device, it’s super smooth.
Podverse, it still has some hiccups but it is solid and works well.
What ads? I haven’t noticed any and I use it every day, their faq says
Pocket Casts does not insert ads into episodes.
Pocket Casts is mozilla public license btw
Alright, I might be wrong then. The reason I speculated they did that, is that it plays ads at the beginning and end of every episode that are localized to my region and up to date, even though it’s an old, foreign podcast I’m listening to. But maybe it’s the podcast itself being able to do that dynamically instead? Then I don’t mind it as much as I do want to support the creators.
Yes, podcasts have had dynamic ads since 2013. The provider inserts them when you download
Yes, the ads are inserted dynamically. I have found, however, in the past that if you use a VPN to download them and set your region to Switzerland for some reason they don’t get inserted. You will have to listen to empty silence during the length of time an ad would usually play but that’s better than the ads.
Hopefully this trick still works, if not try a different region or I guess it doesn’t work any more.
My partner noticed a ton of ads in a similar situation (listening to older podcasts). She was also under the impression these older casts did not have ads, but she is getting more and more each listen. Maybe it is the creator inserting them in older episodes, but she is trying AntennaPod, so we shall see
If the pod was bought by Wondery or the like, they’d be responsible
I had to set up a few of my subscriptions to skip the first and last 30s because of this, it’s very annoying!
I’m partial to AntennaPod. Nice interface and on F-Droid.
I’m a fan of Podverse. It has a few limitations that annoy me a bit, but I still pay $18 annually for the Premium features.
Most podcasts do have rss feeds ( that’s how Google podcasts did subscribe them). So find your podcast and subscribe him in f e fresh rss. You can open it in either brave ( background playing ) or vlc
I’ve been using AntennaPod for over a year - moved over from PocketCasts back then - and am very happy with it. I have very simple requirements though, so it might be as full-featured as other options.
It’s a little convoluted to setup at first but once one understands the features you can have it do anything. I have specific podcasts skip the intro. I have ones I enjoy give me a reminder when a new one releases but other’s I love will auto download, go to my queue, and auto delete when I finish listening to them.
1000% support. AntennaPod is the best :)
This is pretty much the only one anybody ever recommends, and it is 100% justified.
Yep I’ve been a happy Antenna Pod user for years. A double tap of my headphones skips 30s forward, triple 10s back and makes skipping past the ads easy.
This is how I have it set up in pocketcasts as well, it’s a nice setup!
The deal breaker feature I’ve been waiting for is the ability to play daily podcasts first then serialised podcasts in order. I have this with Podcast Addict and it means I virtually never have to touch the app itself.
Interesting that a solution exists for that scenario. I used to use 2 podcast apps to keep my dailies and serials separate and had to manually go between them.
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll check it out, I don’t need super fancy features anyways.
