Tapatalk Sold and being dropped

[georgeib]

@georgeib my understanding is that it isn't vertical scope. I don't know for 100% who it is but again we (mods/staff) have been assured it isn't vertical scope.

Thank you for that response. I'm relieved to learn that.

[Diamondback]

@georgeib my understanding is that it isn't vertical scope. I don't know for 100% who it is but again we (mods/staff) have been assured it isn't vertical scope.

Voodoo, you just made my day with that news. I'm surprised you couldn't hear my sigh of relief in Seattle from wherever you are...

[B52U]

I'm torn. On the one hand, Tapatalk functionality has been unreliable (notifications clogging up and not working, servers going down, image upload not working at times etc etc.) Seems to be mediocre at best.

On the other hand, this vertical scope monopoly hostile takeover sucks too. I have been looking for a decent alternative to tapatalk to get off it for a long time but nobody until VS and their Fora app has offered similar functionality.

Come on you App developers, build us a tapatalk alternative that doesn't shill out our info to third parties. I'll pay for a copy.

[AKDoug]

I use TapaTalk to load photos onto forums, because 100% of my current photos are taken on my phone. It's a pain in the ass to download photos from the cloud to my laptop to then post here. It's way faster to use TapaTalk.

[Diamondback]

I use TapaTalk to load photos onto forums, because 100% of my current photos are taken on my phone. It's a pain in the ass to download photos from the cloud to my laptop to then post here. It's way faster to use TapaTalk.

I don't bother with cloud, I just do a direct Bluetooth file transfer.

[pinzgauer]

@georgeib my understanding is that it isn't vertical scope. I don't know for 100% who it is but again we (mods/staff) have been assured it isn't vertical scope.

Fantastic to hear and thanks for weighing in. It would have been a sad day!

[ubet]

There is a wave of forums removing tapatalk support.

Very large majority of those doing so have been bought by Canadian company vertical scope who owns the xenfora cloud-based forum software. And also owns Fora, the primary direct competitor to Tapatalk.

The above is only relevant to TaT because one of the first changes they make is disable TaT, with a bunch of innuendo and a recommendation to use Foro. Which most people do not like, and also has a long history of exactly the things they were accusing TaT of to justify removal.

VS initially targeted automotive forums but now is sweeping up nearly all the firearms forums.

These forums immediately changed drastically in format, nature, and vibe with much heavier advertising, sponsored forum sections, and pay walls.

Quite a bit of history on this with many, many very large and well-known forums targeted. Most of which are now a shell of what they used to be. Nearly all the 4x4 forearms, adventure Rider forum, my turbo diesel forum, Toyota nation, etc. And now a large number of shooting related forums. HKpro, 1911forum, sigtalk, etc.

Vertical scope is not only a Canadian company, it's majority owned by the Toronto Star who is extremely anti-gun.

We do not know who bought m4c, and hope for many reasons it's not vertical scope. But the silence about potential VS acquisition is very conspicuous.

It would be very easy to clarify that VS is not the new owner without violating non-disclosure agreements regarding who the new owner is.

Again, I hope I'm wrong. If it heads that way you guys need to look at the terms of service and the privacy agreement links I posted above that all vertical scope forums use.

Ok thanks for clarification. I saw 1911 and a cummins form dropped tat. I rarely go to 1911 anymore.

Why buy forums to ruin them? I never get that why businesses buy am running entities then completely **** them up out of stupidity and arrogance.


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[pinzgauer]

Pirate4x4 went from a dozen post an hour to barely a dozen post per day. Roughly the same numbers for the amount of people online in an hour versus day.

Sub-Forums get sold to sponsors. As an example the electrical forum the 4x4 and car boards is typically sponsored by optima batteries. Which is a good company, but of course no one can say anything the least bit negative about optima in the forum because they are the primary sponsor.

HKpro, sigtalk, Waltherforum, 68forums, and a bunch of regional forums have all been acquired by vertical scope with pretty sad outcomes. Just to name a few notable ones.

Known firearms related forearms now owned by vertical scope/Toronto Star:

1911Forum.com
1911Talk.com
68Forums.com
700Rifle.com
ACRForum.com
AirSoftSniperForum.com
AR15Forums.com
ArmsLocker.com
BersapistolForum.com
BlowgunForum.com
ColtForum.com
DefensiveCarry.com
FloridaConcealedCarry.com
FNForum.net
GearHog.com
Glock.pro
GlockForum.net
GrayBeardOutdoors.com
GunBlog.com
GunBoards.com
Gunco.net
GunForums.net
GunHub.com
GunnerForum.com
GunListings.org
HandgunForum.net
HandgunsandAmmunition.com
HKPro.com
KahrForum.com
KeltecForum.com
KimberTalk.com
M14Forum.com
MarlinOwners.com
MassCops.com
MP-Pistol.com
NationalGunForum.com
PistolSmith.com
RimFireCentral.com
RugerForum.net
RugerPistolForums.com
ShootersForum.com
ShootersRealm.com
ShotgunForums.com
Sigarms556.com
SigTalk.com
SlingshotForum.com
SmithandWessonForums.com
SniperForums.com
TaurusArmed.net
TheAKForum.net
TheFirearmBlog.com
UtahConcealedCarry.com
WaltherForums.com
XCRForum.com
XDTalk.com

This should rattle all of us and is not a good thing.

Every one of those now governed under the laws of Ontario and moderated/censored by people under the Toronto Star umbrella. Remember how Toronto Star & Canada in general treated their protesters?

Falfiles, castbollets, 65grendel, & arfcom have not been bought. (Or at least have not converted yet)

If the majority of interesting forums are bought and moderated/censored by the Toronto Star it makes tapatalk a completely moot point

As a side note from someone who's had to deal with forum code and databases before, there apparently is not an easy magic import from some of the forums based on Vbulletin like there is for the ones that had moved to XenForo.

So it looks like the initial focus has been on one's that were already running XenForo or other easy to import sw. XF/VS charges for and actively sells conversion services for folks moving to XF. From reading on the XF forum itself it's not an easy process.

[b_saan]

Remember when a bunch of gun forums were bought by Vertical Scope? Their decision to pull the plug. Notice how all the emails are identical… just date and forum name different?

I know some say it is terrible. I personally like the ability to view multiple forums with one app.

VerticalScope is a cancer, every site they've bought is worse after they take over and their XenForo forum backend is eye-bleeding garbage.

VS banning TT is cutting off their nose to spite their face. I've pretty much stopped visiting most of the sites I used to browse on TT that have dropped the TT plugin. Despite what forum mods try to say on those sites, mobile view is very much a worse experience than the TT app. It's just so much easier to casually browse participated and new posts on TT than it is on vBulletin mobile or whatever.

[Diamondback]

VS is the malignant rectal carcinoma of all Internet communities. Guns, fishing, cars, camping, they spread to everything they can.