# The Archive Reader — user reviews > 68 indexed App Store user reviews of The Archive Reader by Jerome Dellamaria, rated 3.04/5 from 49 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-archive-reader/id6454961665/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-archive-reader/id6454961665.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 16 · 4★ 8 · 3★ 5 · 2★ 2 · 1★ 18 ## Is The Archive Reader safe? The Archive Reader has mixed safety signals based on user ratings. The AppsHunter Safety Score for The Archive Reader is 63 out of 100. This assessment is based on 49 user ratings, with an App Store average of 3.0 out of 5. Of 49 App Store ratings, 49.0% point to a safe experience, 10.2% suggest some concerns, and 40.8% point to a risky experience. ## Is The Archive Reader legit? The Archive Reader is no longer available in the App Store. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for The Archive Reader is 35 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data. ## What do users think of The Archive Reader? Reviews of The Archive Reader are mixed: the Books app is rated 3.0/5 from 49 App Store ratings. What users like most: customizable themes and dark mode, offline reading capability. Top complaints: mandatory paid subscription model, one-hour reading limit for free users. Summarized from real user reviews. **Pros** - 🎨 Customizable themes and dark mode - 📖 Offline reading capability - 🏷️ Advanced tag search and filtering - 📊 Reading progress tracking and statistics - ⚡ Smooth performance on older devices - 🔖 Saved searches and bookmarks - 👤 No sign-in required to browse - 🎯 Clean and intuitive user interface - 📱 Better mobile experience than website - 🔄 Regular updates and maintenance **Cons** - 💰 Mandatory paid subscription model - ⏱️ One-hour reading limit for free users - 📺 Excessive ads for non-premium users - ⚠️ Not official AO3 app or endorsed - 🚨 Copyright and ethical concerns about monetizing free content - 🐛 Frequent crashes and error messages - 🔐 Login authentication issues - 📡 Syncing problems with website account - 🚫 Comments feature not working properly - ❌ Content not loading or appearing in search - 🔗 Human verification popup blocking access - 💳 Ads still appearing despite paid subscription **Commonly reported bugs** - App crashes and fails to load content - Comments posting functionality broken - Login page loops without successful authentication - Error 403 preventing app usage - Human verification popup malfunctioning - Search results not displaying popular fics - Ads appearing despite active premium subscription - Syncing issues between app and website - Scrolling lag and stuttering during reading - Works not syncing across multiple devices **Most requested features** - Story update notifications tab - Ability to create and sync new works from website - Collection selection when bookmarking - UI organized similar to official website - Social media-style navigation buttons - Increased reading time limit for free users - Optional donation model instead of mandatory subscription - Sync drafts from website to app ## Newest reviews (10 of 68) ### 3/5 — Comments not working *2025-01-08* There’s something wrong with the comments I wanted to post a comment on the app, but it won’t let me and other people were able to post comment on the. story I was reading on and I hope you fix it. Because every was great on till now ### 3/5 — eh *2025-01-03* i want to love this app so bad but the adds are just unbearable when the website has none. the concept is amazing though! ### 4/5 — Some suggestions and experience feedback ^^ *2024-10-10* Just wished it was organised similar to the website, where I can easily create a new work and easily access bookmarks and inboxes. Possibly to the point of a social media app format of buttons like explore, post new, notifications, and profile—since that’s what most people are used to. Something that needs fixing would be the sync of works from the website. There’s only drafts so far, but the drafts haven’t synced. It has my history though, lmao. Would certainly want to see this become official though! Often using a private browser on my search engine makes me continually log in every time. So this app would be incredibly helpful ^^ ### 2/5 — Slight issues with a great app *2024-08-17* I’m paying for the monthly subscription so I don’t get ads and yet …. I still am. This is incredibly frustrating especially as I do enjoy the app otherwise ### 4/5 — I like it *2024-06-17* I see a lot of comments about the gray area about paying for free content. I want to remind everyone that the dev isn’t charging you to read, they’re charging you to use the app. The content is still free, you just have to use the web browser. This app saves my searches, gives me updates, etc. so I’m essentially paying for convenience and that’s worth it to me. If you don’t want to pay and you don’t like ads, this app is not for you. Missing one star because there’s A LOT of ads. The frequency definitely needs to be turned down because there should be some sort of balance between read time and ads. ### 1/5 — SCAM *2024-04-26* 🚨This is NOT Archive Of Our Own or approved by AO3 - you can read AO3 w/o an app - AO3 has no app 🚨This app is making money off of a FREE WEBSITE - AO3 is FREE as a member or guest 🚨This app does not get creators’ consent to access their works 🚨It is illegal to profit from fanfiction ### 5/5 — Great app *2024-04-02* Interface is great, and works well. Updated regularly too ### 5/5 — Good app *2024-03-08* Does what it says. ### 1/5 — Don't use this. *2024-02-21* The monetisation thing is a really bad move. Like, profiting off of work people did for free, without their consent, makes you a morally bankrupt person. Don't use this app, don't buy this app. Read on the website if you can. Otherwise, look for a different app that doesn't charge money. This one's not even very technically good anyway. ### 1/5 — Absolute nonsense *2024-01-23* Look, the biggest problem here is that the developer is charging for fanfiction, which is a complete no-no. Anyone who has been in the fandom world for longer than five minutes should know that charging for fanfiction is a bad idea, even and especially when a developer hiding that charge behind “developer costs.” On top of that, I can almost certainly guarantee that at least 80% of the works on this app were mirrored without the permission or knowledge of the original authors. I should know that because at 1.300 of them were my own. The only bit of credit I can give this person is that they took down my work immediately after I emailed them, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Archive of Veron is free, and will remain free, so please continue to use that website and do not support developers that are charging for fanfiction without the knowledge of the original authors and are putting fanfiction in a legal gray area that makes things a little more dangerous. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — At first was good but now.. *2025-01-03* Bro it was so good at first.. no interruptions, no ads , unlimited reading time, etc.. but now it randomly stopped working? Like I’ve been trying for like 6 hours but it just crashes and says it can’t pull anything up and that there’s an error. I’ve been downloading and redownloading, powering off my phone, exiting out of the app but it’s just not working 😭 this was the only app that actually worked for me so I don’t have to use my browser but now it’s not working and now I’m pretty sad :,) ### 1/5 — Thief *2025-01-02* I am a writer, and I most definitely didn’t give anyone permission to put my stories on this app. If I could, I’d give it 0 stars. Stop stealing from writers! This app should be removed! This app is fake. It’s not the real AO3. Stop using it. They’re profiting off of the writers! If anyone knows how, is there a way to get my stories removed from this app? ### 1/5 — Thief *2024-12-29* I am leaving 1 star comments to all of these unofficial ao3 apps as a fandom writer because they are THIEVES. These apps are abusing free fandom works on ao3 for commercial purposes without any authorization. If you love those fandom works, go to the official website, and you can leave kudos and subscribe. Downloading this app does not make your life any easier, instead it seriously violates fandom writers’ copyright. ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work very well *2024-12-05* I’ve tried all the ao3 apps and this one is not good ### 1/5 — 😓 *2024-09-03* Honestly just disappointed. ### 1/5 — . *2024-09-03* idk what everyone is talking about with the paywall bc i can’t find any fics. like literally i typed in the names of popular fics/authors from ao3 and nothing popped up. 0/5 stars if i could ### 1/5 — HUMAN VERIFICATION?!! *2024-09-02* I opened the app this morning to a pop up asking to verify I’m a human but it doesn’t actually do that. It says they can’t verify and refuses to load so I can do absolutely nothing! ### 1/5 — Disgustingly Bad, Not Accessible *2024-07-27* I have dyslexia and the mobile website for AO3 does not work well with the Settings I have in place to read and with the already 1 hour reading limit as a slow reader this is disgustingly bad. I don’t recommend. If I could give 0/5 stars I would. ### 1/5 — Do not recommend. Ya got to pay. *2024-06-11* As nice as some of the features are like offline reading without downloading a file, I really don’t like how you have to pay to be able to read more than an hour daily. First of all, a lot of people read for way more than an hour everyday. Second, even though it takes money to keep an app working and on apps like the app store, the people who keep Ao3 site working are volunteers. Third, the authors are merely posting for the enjoyment of everyone on Ao3 and they do all of it for free. Fourth, many people have already sent in complaints to the actual site about this app and sadly, they can’t do anything about it. Fifth, a lot of the features that they highlight are already on the site. For example, you can customize the theme, download works, etc. I originally downloaded this app to make reading offline and during road trips easier but the time limit has really gotten on my nerves. ### 1/5 — Lying app *2024-06-10* This app is NOT ao3 (archive of our own). As far as I know, ao3 doesn't make you pay for fan fiction because well who does that. Please someone either reach out to ao3 or report the app. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Really good!! *2024-12-28* Rlly good!! My mom has an app where she can see my search history so this helps! Now I can read what I want without it showing :p ### 5/5 — Great App *2024-12-15* Having used this app for over a year and 50+ hours, I can confirm that it is an absolute godsend. The app runs really smoothly even on my old 6s, despite the site proper chugging along at times. The app has a plethora of features with no sign-in required (although you can anyway) including custom themes, saved searches, saved works, tag blocking, reading time tracking and charts, everything else in the site itself, autoscroll, etc., but the ui is still super clean and easy to use. I don’t usually leave reviews, but this app needed one. About half of the reviews are about a mistake the dev made one time by adding a monetisation system. It was only up for like a week (I think?), but it got the app review bombed, and like, if it were some corporate entity, then sure, but this is one person. People make mistakes. Anyway yea vewy gud app 10/10 wud recommend ### 5/5 — Great!!! *2024-11-30* love it. Does exactly what it says: easy to load the work. No adverts seen the whole time using it. Able to view writings offline. Thanks for thiss LOVE the dark mode. 🥹🥹🥹♥️ ### 5/5 — Idk why this isn’t five stars *2024-11-20* Maybe I am just lucky, but I have not had any of the problems with paywalls anyone else is talking about. I find this app easy to use. The tags search is very easy for me and helpful in a way that the website doesn’t have. The other search is more general and can be used to find specific titles. :) ### 5/5 — Much of a surprise *2024-08-20* It has all the function as the web browser version, advanced search, commenting, sending kudos etc. Even better, it has a green “Read x/x” label (x being the number of chapters that story has) that marks the story that you’ve finished on the app and a yellow label “Read y/x” (e.g Read 3/5) if you’ve started but haven’t finished. This makes browsing through relevant fandoms and tags soooo much easier, especially for someone who have short memories like me. The only thing that I found may be a bit inconvenient, is that when putting a bookmark, you seem to be unable to select the collection you want to store it (or maybe it’s because I haven’t discovered how yet….( ? _ ? )). But that’s not too much of a problem, you can always tidy up your bookmarks into collections on the web browser version. To me, this app is really exceeding the expectations. ### 5/5 — I LOVE IT *2024-08-09* It is completly free for me and in plus we can read it offline I will probably read this for hour on the plane ☺️🤭 ### 5/5 — Better than before *2024-07-27* I approve that they removed the 1hr reading time paywall, ads ARE a little annoying but atleast we can read for as long as we want again, love this app tbh, so much easier to use than the site ### 5/5 — i <3 this app *2024-07-01* dude i use this to read fanfictions daily ### 5/5 — Necessity *2024-04-26* So far I love the app! A dollar per month to read isn't bad (considering the dev has made navigating the Archive so much better), and the fonts and colour opportunities are abundant. The only real problem Ive had is connecting my AO3 account to the app, but it doesn't make reading any less fun. ### 5/5 — Great reader *2024-04-14* I always wished there was a way I could get theme options for A03, so it’s nice that someone has made a app just for that 😂 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-11-01.*