Tapatalk Forum App for xenForo - iOS / Android / Windows Phone Mobile App [Deleted]

Thanks!

I am bad at wording stuff so (I won't copy it) using the points you have used and perhaps adding more of recent changes will help.
 
Feel free to copy any part you need. Its written in such a way that makes the user understand that the software is removed to protect their privacy and security. Everybody hates spam, unwanted ads, annoying popups, security problems, dishonesty, removal of their permissions, stolen content, their data being harvested, being diverted to other websites, etc.
 
Are all those points still perfectly valid and is there anything more nowadays? Although that is more than enough!
 
Do a search on TAZ for TT and review this thread to see what issues have arisen since then. I am pretty sure there have been regular issues. IIRC there were spammer issues. I dont know which (if any) issues have been addressed fully by TT. I know they have added some settings so that webmasters can opt out of some things.
 
I had a surge of registrations from India a month ago using Tapatalk to spam. They were adding links so it caught them for moderation and then once they realised this was happening tried doing it with spacing on the URL which also got blocked so gave up.
 
So what is the consensus here? Is Tapatalk more of a headache than a benefit for XF? I was considering adding it to my site but am worried it will just create more issues than those it solves...
 
The reason I am removing it is because of the registration thing, it will not allow me to force them to sign-up via my page so I am guessing they altered it and that they report they get spammed by emails even when its off in my settings.
 
How does Tapatalk get spammed by emails?

I understand the issue they had with redirecting users to your forum signup page was somehow violating some app rule with Apple or something, so they had to ditch that, but if anyone want to sign up for your forum all they have to do it google it.
 
I was getting a ton of spammers bypassing the spam system due to Tapatalk removing the forum sign-up on our forum page which is just not going to cut it for me.

As for the emails I have no clue, I personally do not use Tapatalk and use responsive on my mobile but there were a few reports about them receiving forum emails from Tapatalk even though it was disabled on their dashboard and a few posts I had seen about the same issue on their own forum.
 
majesty95 said:
So what is the consensus here? Is Tapatalk more of a headache than a benefit for XF? I was considering adding it to my site but am worried it will just create more issues than those it solves...
Click to expand...

As @Alfa1 stated it's hard to see the benefits if you're a forum owner:

Alfa1 said:
Tapatalk keeps getting worse. When I removed it last year due to privacy & security violations it was already clear that it was not getting much better. They repeatedly sacrifice the website / webmaster interest for their own gain and try to push your members to their platform.
At this point anyone who is still using tapatalk should seriously contemplate the risks and benefits of having your entire site copied to their servers, providing access to your database, while their policy is clearly hostile to your interests.
Click to expand...

I would never use it today nor would I recommend it for anyone else. We started "using" Tapatalk a long time ago together with vBulletin 3.x, as it was an easy way of making the forum mobile friendly at the time. I regret that decision to this very day :)

After switching from vB 3.x to XF 1.4 and disabling Tapatalk (what a relief that was!) we suddenly had some users complaining vigorously for days on end about it. As we had lots of bugs to resolve since we'd just migrated, we simply decided to enable it again and never got to disabling it afterwards, mostly because nobody's in the mood to manage the few but very angry avid Tapatalk users/fans....

It's a constant cause for concern for security reasons (I always keep tabs on their forum and this thread), and also because of the new intrusive "features" they tend to include with new versions. Different types of notifications such as "This forum is Tapatalk enabled" are on by default and so on. Also they're not super fast on delivering new and fully compatible bug free versions when XF is updated.

For us user tagging doesn't work both ways either. If a Tapatalk user tags another one the notification will only show for the tagged user if he's also using Tapatalk, and not on the website/desktop side. There's also been lots of problems/compatiblity issues with other add-ons.

Alfa1 also pointed out some more issues, which I 100% agree with:

Tapatalk is a mobile browsing app which allows people to browse parts of our site in a mobile friendly way. Since its competitor is no longer operating, Tapatalk has become the only App of its kind. It seems that they are taking advantage of this situation in a dangerous way.

Over the course of the last months, Tapatalk has become more and more intrusive and with disregard to member privacy.
Here are some of the changes:
  1. TT started to divert users to login through their own login function instead of our login.
  2. TT showed advertising even though we opted out.
  3. Tapatalk did not alert us about a security vulnerability for months. This vulnerability could have allowed attackers to gain access to your phone/ credentials.
  4. The TT search function is now diluted with results from other websites.
  5. By default TT uploads images to TT instead of our server. We turned this off.
  6. TT keeps removing our usergroup permissions.
  7. TT keeps adding annoying popups to the site, which we keep removing.
  8. We discovered that TT seems to be using a copy of our content on their servers. They have not asked permission for this.
These events have made clear that we would stop offering Tapatalk once the new site is online.
However, Tapatalk has now announced that they will start emailing our members regularly. There is no reason whatsoever for a mobile app to start emailing members. We did not give Tapatalk permission to make use of any of our member data and will take legal action against Tapatalk if they do anything of such kind.

In light of the above I am now removing Tapatalk from this site. I apologize to those who enjoy the functionality.

I strongly advise anyone to remove Tapatalk from their devices.
Click to expand...

My thoughts on the whole matter after running the darn thing for several years on a "medium sized board", both with vB and XF, is:

artworks-000047570484-rmbvj3-crop.jpg
 
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Seriously considering removing Tapatalk, but I'm worried about losing members. As much as 50-70% of our regular members are using TT. But then again, most of them doesn't know the forum is optimized for smartphones - they probably need a push in the right direction.
 
There is just generally weird stuff happening with Tapatalk. I find the emails which are generated just by being an end user of their app are starting to get more annoying, and being sent more frequently.

I received an email which highlighted items from my "feed". I only have one forum in my feed, which is my own forum. It contained links to subjects I'm not even remotely interested and could not have been generated from my feed, because they aren't from my forum... Reading some of the thread descriptions in the email, I couldn't have told you which forum they came from, or even what some of them were actually related to. I think that my feed is actually just randomly selected by a chimp.

Here is a sample of something from "my feed". No idea what it's about but it doesn't seem like the sort of thing I'd be interested in :cautious:
upload_2015-7-22_14-55-37.webp

Then this morning I get what feels like a begging email from the "founder". It starts off by thanking me for being part the community, and then asks me to give them another chance. I'm not sure why I got this, but it only appeared after I updated my mailing preferences to stop the idiotic emails they seem to be sending. I don't actually think at any time I suggested I wasn't using it anymore :cautious:
upload_2015-7-22_14-44-21.webp

Then there was this I got through my testing account email address a week ago. They have literally added thousands of forums, and have millions of enthusiasts online right now. They even ask me if I can say "very cool", which I can (but not about this).
upload_2015-7-22_14-51-21.webp

So not only are we getting messed around as forum owners, our poor members are getting bombarded with gibberish emails. Not long for me before I get totally fed up with it.
 
I'm getting these emails as well. How great it is to be reminded that I have "likes" and get "latest topic" threads that are worthless and just get deleted. How can you shut them off? Is it per user or per forum?
 
I clicked on the "Manage Your Email Settings" link and turned them off. Be interesting to see if you get the email from Winter if you do too...

upload_2015-7-22_15-11-40.webp

Interesting the description on the bottom doesn't really match with the title of the email...

upload_2015-7-22_15-13-46.webp
 
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