News24: Trusted News. First appears to be a legitimate app. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for News24 is 95 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

News24 User Reviews

Name: News24: Trusted News. First
Rating: 2.8 (265 reviews)

News24: Trusted News. First

24.com

📡 News

Customer Experience

Positive experience35.0% of reviews

Neutral10.8% of reviews

Negative experience54.2% of reviews

~ Based on 323 written reviews from the US App Store.

What users say

Summarized from real user reviews of News24. Based on 265 reviews and a 2.8/5 average, it highlights the 4 positives and 6 negatives reviewers mention most about this News app.

Positive things

🚀Great app
🔍Keeps me updated on news
🌍Useful for expats
📱Easy to use

Negative things

🐛Crashes and freezes
🔋Battery drain
💰Too many ads
🔒Subscription issues
📰Declining quality of news
🙈Biased reporting

Is News24 Safe?

News24: Trusted News. First has mixed safety signals based on user ratings. AppsHunter Safety Score for News24 is 57/100.

This assessment is based on 265 user ratings, with an App Store average of 2.8/5.

Safety Analysis

41.9% of ratings point to a safe experience

11.3% of ratings suggest some concerns

46.8% of ratings point to a risky experience

~ Based on 265 App Store ratings for News24.

Is News24 Legit?

News24: Trusted News. First appears to be a legitimate app. AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for News24 is 95/100.

Based on 95 of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Top reviews

Most Recent Highest Rated Lowest Rated

Inaccurate Reporting

Many of the articles are anti US.

Zxr234$

4 months ago

One flaw

Good in most respects, but really annoying that it flips back to the top of the list of headlines when you go back to the home page after reading an article. It should take you back to the headlines at the position you were when you clicked on the article so that you can continue browsing from where you were, like all other news apps that I use, instead of having to search all the way down from the top of the home page to find where you were in your browsing.
Would be nice to have a fix for that.

emankin

5 months ago

Response from developer

Hi emankin, So sorry to hear about your annoyance! Please use the “Report a Bug” feature under “Profile” in the app or email us at news24app@24.com with more details, so that we can investigate further. Thanks for reaching out – we really value your feedback. Best regards, The News24 Team

Dreadful

I renewed my subscription and paid but some reason every time I opened the App, it told me to subscribe. When I clicked subscribe it told me I was already subscribed. The support was completely useless. I have abandoned all attempts to try and resolve this.

Fairly dissatisfied

7 months ago

Great app but…

Love app, but please develop a dark mode for night time readers.

Budgiefluff

8 months ago

Response from developer

Hi Budgiefluff, This sounds like a great idea! We have this on our roadmap, so watch this space… Thanks for reaching out – we really value your feedback. Best regards, The News24 Team.

Font is too small. Lots of frustration

The new version is terrible. The font is too small. All the whitespace on the side in landscape and portrait is wasted and the article font is too small to read for older readers. Why change it? Secondly every time an article is read and closed the app jumps back to the top - surely we the user wants to remain at the same spot in the scrolling where the article was opened - this is a terrible experience. Lastly why do you repeat main articles as you scroll down the articles. This is very frustrating and feels like you have underestimated the intelligence of the users. I am close to cancelling my subscription - I don’t want to scroll down and see the same stuff over and over again.

francp@disappointed

9 months ago

Latest “feature” is irritating

Since the last update, closing a news article shoots the home page back up to the featured/newest article, requiring a reader to scroll back down to where they were last opening articles.

nugp0t

9 months ago

Response from developer

Hi nugp0t, So sorry to hear about your annoyance! Please update to our latest app version 7.88.2025111909. Should your issues persist then please use the “Report a Bug” feature under “Profile” in the app or email us at news24app@24.com with more details, so that we can investigate further. Thanks for reaching out – we really value your feedback. Best regards, The News24 Team

Website has less bugs

Would be a decent app except for two big issues. 1) Often certain tabs fail to load with a message saying “you are currently offline” when I am definitely not offline. 2) Many articles cannot be opened, as in when you tap them nothing happens. If I open an article above or below one of these and then swipe sideways I just get taken to the next article I can tap on and open. So there are some articles I simply cannot access on the app. These issues persist after an app restart and refresh.

Tom03210

a year ago

Annoying subscribe banner!!

I am a subscriber to News24 but still get the extremely annoying banner advert selling a subscription when I open up the app. It’s also not possible to remove the banner by pressing the X at the top right of the ad. I have to go out the app, reset it on my phone and go back in.
I can’t just open the app and read the news without this irritating advertisement.
I kindly request that as a subscriber, this feature is removed.

Gecko816

a year ago

Not as good as it should be

Why not make the interactive part a bit more user friendly? Why can’t I see all of the comments I posted in a simple, easy way? If I want to check whether a comment was actually posted and left up after moderation, or see what responses there were, I need to find the article, and then scroll through the comments till I find mine (or not). It is a glaringly obvious, simple fix and just makes your app seem a bit broken. Why don’t/won’t you simply sort this out?

Ferdinand the real Bull

a year ago

So slow …

“Live” articles take forever to open, even with the fastest internet connections.
The same with news videos. I assume it is the ads loading which slows things down.

I would have been great if there was a “read later” feature for offline reading of news articles, considering that I pay a subscription. I assume that the reason it does not exist is because you cannot load ads while offline.

nugp0t

a year ago

Response from developer

Hi nugp0t, So sorry to hear about your annoyance! Please update to our latest app version 7.74. 2025042115. Should your issues persist then please use the “Report a Bug” feature under “Profile” in the app or email us at news24app@24.com with more details, so that we can investigate further. Thanks for reaching out – we really value your feedback. Best regards, The News24 Team

On the decline

News24 seems to be on the decline—the quality of news and frequency of posts aren’t what they used to be. Additionally, I’ve been unable to view comments for months, constantly receiving the error: ‘There was an error contacting the comments server. Please try again…’ (I am based outside of SA). I’ve reported this issue, but nothing has been done.

As a paid service, it really needs to improve.

View365_

a year ago

Okay, but biased.

All my opinion: The app itself is fine. This is not aimed at the devs. You will get news regarding SA, but as with all things MSM, they have tons and tons of implicit bias. It's actually incredible the amount of misinformation being spread. They sow division and hate, even if they fully belive they are doing the right thing. Check the comments, most people paying for N24 vehemently disagree with them. The only reason they keep on paying is to have a platform to express their displeasure with our government and get some factual news every now and then. N24 does not even try to hide their bias due to how big of a player in the space they are. If you live in SA, get your news from multiple different sources.

JanPapPiel

2 years ago

Stick to the browser

Terrible app. External links only open in the in-app browser which is broken. Often I cannot exit an article once I’ve opened it. You cannot open YouTube links at all.

Tom03210

2 years ago

News24 - Cancelled

As a long time supporter of both the web and app, time has come to cancel my subscription. The app has become an add market, with the adds taking more screen space than the actual news. I understand the need for multiple revenues, but running add campaigns are better left for non-subscribers and not your paying base. Today was the last time for me to click on an annoying add while trying to scroll, sub cancelled and back to free news on the web for me.

ZdBeer

2 years ago

Too expensive

I’m deleting this app. There’s zero news unless you pay a subscription. The same news can be viewed for free on either the apps: IOl, EWN, SABC, etc.

zardozky55

2 years ago

Ads are Incredibly Frustrating

I was very happy to take out a subscription are support journalism and News24 which I’ve been reading for free for years. However, I completely understand that ads are needed to support view viewing. But I would have thought that paying subscribing would be freed from the relentless ads in articles. I find myself inadvertently touching ads which then take me to their website, that I end up just giving up and stopping reading. I’m at the point where I may just give up my subscription. The ads in articles are way over the top; there is a huge ad almost every paragraph. I would quite honestly rather pay slightly more each month to have all ads removed, although this shouldn’t be necessary with a paying subscription. The ads do absolutely nothing for me except to detract from the experience.

Incredibly buggy too - have to force close and reopen the app multiple times per day.

BenSheard

2 years ago

Terrible Commercial Strategy

This has become the most frustrating App to source news from. Over the past years the App has slowly migrated from free accessible news articles to almost most articles being for subscribers only.

As an international reader seeking to read about developments in South Africa, it has become increasingly difficult to find articles available to all, instead of a select few. I’m not willing to pay for a subscription as I have no need for regular access from abroad which is why I believe the commercial strategy taken to a subscription model applicable to all readers amusing. This has alienated me and I’m sure other international readers. I’m not to return but seek my news of Sub Saharan news elsewhere

liebenj

2 years ago

Response from developer

Hi liebenj, News24 will no longer indicate which of our journalism stands out above the rest, which is why you will notice the red 'for subscriber' tags are now gone. All of it will comply with our high standards of what constitutes quality journalism. Breaking news stories and rolling live updates on major events will remain free, while the bulk of our reportage will now be exclusively available to subscribers. To get a better sense of our elevated subscriber experience, you can try out our 14-day free trial. Best regards, The News24 Team

Most news now hidden behind a paywall.

UPDATE- Download the ***IOL News app*** So much better!

My second review of this app. Whilst the journalism has always been mediocre at best it was a site where I could catch up on news back home. Then they flooded the feed ads and now pretty much every article is behind a paywall. Why would anyone pay for shoddy journalism? Luckily other options are available so now deleted this app. The new updated app is absolutely shocking! You can only see 3 articles per screen page the rest is all ads! (And the majority of articles are littered with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes)

Telmewhy

2 years ago

Response from developer

Hi Telmewhy, News24 will no longer indicate which of our journalism stands out above the rest, which is why you will notice the red 'for subscriber' tags are now gone. All of it will comply with our high standards of what constitutes quality journalism. Breaking news stories and rolling live updates on major events will remain free, while the bulk of our reportage will now be exclusively available to subscribers. To get a better sense of our elevated subscriber experience, you can try out our 14-day free trial. For Editorial concerns, please use the “Editorial Complaints” feature under “Profile” in the app or email George.Claassen@media24.com with more details, so that we can investigate further. Best regards, The News24 Team.

Waste of time.

You now have to subscribe to read anything. Waste of time.

Darrendbn

2 years ago

Useless

I have always found the quality of the journalism in this app very questionable.
But in spite of the excessive amount of advertising I have kept it as there isn’t much else for SA news available.
But now everything is also behind a paywall, so I have deleted the app.
In addition it seems to track everything you do.
Summary: greedy and poor quality.

Htcpt

3 years ago

Response from developer

Hi Htcpt, Sorry to hear about your annoyance. However, we rely on advertising to be able to provide you with a great, news-reading experience. For Editorial issues, please use the “Editorial Complaints” feature under “Profile” in the app or email us at George.Claassen@media24.com with more details, so that we can investigate further. Thanks for reaching out – we really value your feedback. Best regards, The News24 Team