AL.com User Reviews

AL.com
AL.com
Alabama Live LLC

Reviews Summary

Top reviews

App Issues

App freezes up constantly. Scrolling stories is difficult due to freezing up issues.

News is great…app could use some work

News articles provided are great and timely. App could use some work…freezes up regularly after only a few minutes of use, assuming due to large number of ads. Not disputing the need for ads for a free app, just that the performance of the app could be improved.

Great overall, but ...

Old issue resurfaced. Today is June 5, 2022. With the most recent update—about two weeks ago—ads are again intruding into articles, making reading them difficult. Rarely, one can get through an article uninterrupted , which is wonderful. With the latest update, there is a Close button—which, at least now, usually works— next to the popup ad, but that button evades VoiceOver. Therefore, when an ad pops up, VoiceOver users must go through a rather clunky process to find the Close button and close the ad. Vut, as soon as _that ad is closed, _another one pops up, and one must repeat the process. This can happen numerous times during a given article. And, don’t even get me started on when that sort of thing happens if one is in Around The Web, assuming that one was able to read the entire article. Please fix this issue. There have been brief periods when the app worked like a charm, and received 5 stars from me. I do not want to have to delete the app, as I get much out of the material presented therein. There are still issues with the Search feature (see my previous reviews, which follow. Reinstalling the app, of course, didn’t alleviate these issues.

New update; bug fixed quickly; back to 5 stars for now. Previous reviews below. There have always been ups and downs with this app; but, for the last little while, it was working quite well. However, with the most recent update, as of around April 8, 2022, the app is again almost unusable. The most frustrating issue is that, when a notification arrives and one clicks it, the _article that initiated the notification generally doesn’t come up, but you are taken to the most recent top stories. If that notification is from several days ago—and you are just now getting to it—you will not find that article in the latest news. So, you bring up Search; but, if you don’t enter the exact wording of the article’s title, or the exact keyword, you won’t find it anywhere. Finally, if one is scrolling through “Around the Web” after reading an article, and choose to read something, the Back button no longer takes you back into Around the Web, but takes you back to the original article—and Around the Web disappears. Again, as of three days ago, ads again pop up, sometimes with no way to close them (because the Close button doesn’t work), thus preventing reading the rest of the article or making reading it difficult. I don’t want to have to delete the ad again—as I was forced to do at one point several years ago when it wasn’t working well—but it may come to that again. This would be a shame, because I like the app overall. An earlier review may still appear below. I have always liked the diversity of content which this app offers, and have used it for a long time; however, there have always been a few issues with it. For some time, adds have tended to pop up in the midst of articles, with no foolproof way to close them, thus making it difficult to finish reading the articles. Also, an article will occasionally disappear before I can finish reading it. I had hoped that the latest app update would alleviate these issues, but it did not; and, a new—and annoying bug has crept in. Now, when reading an article that was recommended as a notification, when there is a “Done” button for backing out of an article, that button no longer works, and the only recourse is to close down the app. A similar thing happens when I look up a word directly from an article, and must hit “Done” in order to get back to the article (which doesn’t happen now, because “Done” doesn’t work)! When an article takes me directly to the website, and a “Back” tab is used to back out of an article, that tab _does work. Please fix the “Done” button, even if this is an issue for VoiceOver users only.
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Ads cover content

The issue for me is that the ads often cover the content of the articles I’m trying to read.... extremely bothersome.

New Version a Step Back

This app has been my “Go-To” source for Alabama news for a long time. Unfortunately the new version has made it difficult to use for that purpose. Seems like too much emphasis has been placed on graphics which takes up much of the headline pages. It is also irritating that the screen constantly jumps back to the top making it almost impossible to read more than just the top few articles. Please resolve these issues and go back to providing easy access to the articles. I appreciate the content, just cannot get to it easily.
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A complete disaster

App upgrade is a complete and unmitigated disaster. The old one was much better. This one is totally worthless. It looks like an Instagram account with very little information. Rarely updates. Slow and completely dysfunctional. Truly one of the worst app upgrades I have ever seen. I have lost complete confidence in their ability to report news.
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Horrible Ap

You either can’t get in an article or most of it is covered with ads. If you think their newspapers are bad you haven’t seen anything until you try this ap!

Yuck

Not a fan of the new redesign. It’s hard to find the news stories for all the ads wedged in between them. Also, no option to force update news stories.

Worst collection of columnist (not journalist)

I only have the app to keep up with sports. I start to read the news in other sections and immediately realize the it is written with a total leftist reflection. The same articles will have a poll in it asking a question which will only have the response that the writer wants the results to show. You can’t disagree with them. The app did away with discussions because it’s “their way or the highway”. Reflection of the new America. So sad.
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A Fresh Breeze Across Alabama

It is exciting if not exhilarating to run across anything “Alabama” that is intelligent as well as non-extremist and of which I’m not embarrassed to refer to with friends and acquaintances outside our state and region. Great insightful site!

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