Hartford Courant Reviews

This is a disappointing app from a newspaper chain that should be able to do better. The only way to see a broad spectrum of news coverage is to look at the daily “E-newspaper“ because the stories highlighted on the website are so poorly organized and have almost no relationship to the stories covered in the day’s newspaper. Quite often stories highlighted in the main page of Hart are out of date. Ads and videos clutter the interface even though I am a paid subscriber.

Despite my selections in the alerts preferences, all I am served are sports headlines and crime. It is rare that I can easily access state and government news without prolonging, despite the fact that those are my preferred stories.

The Hartford Courant news content has already suffered through cost-cutting corporate buyouts, but Hart takes a bad situation and makes it far worse by making the news hard to find.

Hart often fails to scroll when reading stories and when you contact support all they can say is to reinstall it. Reinstalling never fixes the problem. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I’m adding to this review because Hart has continued to be very unreliable. For the last few days, it has kept refusing to present stories saying I need to subscribe, even though I am a subscriber and the web site works.

The presentation of stories on the iPad is all skewed. It’s very difficult to read the first few lines if there are any pictures or graphics because the test is all squished on the right side of the picture, only 2 characters wide.

Hart is released with almost no testing and fails frequently.

We have been on HC home delivery for over 25 years. The past six months we’ve been lucky if we get 3 papers a week. When we call we get extremely nice people in India who admit there is no way they can escalate problems.

I’ve tried the online version. Why on EARTH would you print the first paragraph of every article and the I have to press READ MORE? Do you think I’d rather look at the 80 ads underneath the first paragraph? STUPID!!!
So I thought I’d get the HC app. Another huge disappointment. EVERY click on Hart brings a pop up I do not want.

I love the writers at HC (although you terminated a lot of my favorite writers who now work for CT Mirror) but whoever runs this show does not care about their readers.

We will continue to subscribe but I just want your hedge fund owners to know that they are doing a HORRENDOUS job at managing newspapers at the same time they drain millions of dollars out of news gathering to pay for their multiple mansions and even huger egos. I repeat. HORRENDOUS.

PS my wife has written emails to the President of the HC about delivery (there is no other way to complain.) No response and no change.

Rating:
HC up to ten years ago: 9/10.
HC in the last ten years: 1/10.

Thank you for running a crap show, hedge fund owners.

... unless what you’re looking for happens to be right in front of you. I get better results searching their Facebook page. They used to have a clickable front page which was great, but the only way to access the rest of the paper now is a category bar at the top of the page. So there’s literally no way to just read the paper from front to back.

The search function is unusable. Results come up with a photo (!) and a short headline but no date which is completely worthless. For example, there was an update on an accident in Cheshire two days ago that killed a child. When I tried to find the original article in the search bar even the article I was reading didn’t come up when I typed in “Cheshire”. It’s like trying to find a book in the library with no lights on. Frustrating and awful.

I am not sure why the Courant would decide to limit how the paper was oriented in their app. We used to be able to view the news in landscape or portrait. Now, since the last app update, one can only view it in portrait mode and the print is much smaller. It is very difficult to read it on a tablet. I no longer use Hart . The Courant needs to revert back to the having the articles orient with your device. This change was not user friendly or an improvement at all in my opinion.

Hart was never very good, but I’ve been forced to use it as the actual paper delivery is so unreliable. Now Hart is completely worthless - I can’t read anything. It just displays the error that there is no connection and to retry. Whenever I don’t get my paper, they always say to get the electronic edition. Well-their app doesn’t allow that anymore. It is a shame what has become of this once great paper.

I am a paying subscriber to the Hartford Courant. Yesterday I upgraded my Hartford Courant App. This morning I was greeted by the following message

TAP ALLOW TRACKING ON THE NEXT SCREEN TO CONTINUE

There was no opt out feature.

I pay for my Courant Subscription. The Hartford Courant DOES NOT ALLOW the user to reject tracking. Again, I PAY for my subscription. I was stunned by the position taken by the Courant.

Perhaps it was somewhere in the fine print, but to my eye the Courant NEVER disclosed the REQUIREMENT to accept add tacking as a condition of its latest upgrade. Their stance is APPALLING.

Apple has done a terrific job helping consumers manage their add tracking choice. For those folks that chose to share their data, that is a personal choice that meets their needs. For those of us that don’t chose to share their data and PAY for the subscription, the Courant has taken a very poor stance on the issue. For the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper, it is a big disappointment.

The New Hartford Courant App forced add tracking for PAID subscribers is 100% at odds with Apple’s policy of consumer choice.

I implore the Courant to remove this feature. If not I must request that Hart be removed from the Apple App Store as its stance is inconsistent with Apples values and policy.

The ads have become much more invasive recently, even when I am already paying to access the articles. I could live with the ads injected between and in the stories, but the auto-playing video ads, which are very startling, especially when you are trying to read in a quiet place, and the full screen ads that I have to sit through when I first open Hart , are really obnoxious. Please choose a business model and stop alienating your paying customers.

I have a yearly subscription which is no where close to expiring but once again when I go to get onto news a pop up informs me that it is for subscribers only and once again I have to call courant help line and spend 20 minutes trying to explain my problem and hear them say at least 10 times that they apologize for this problem but it never is solved. I have to switch newspapers !!!!!!

Does the IT department that supports the Hartford Courant have no pride.
Hart is clumsy, loaded with ads, even though you are paying a subscription. It is slow and clumsy and the design comes from a different planet.
My current issue? It won’t let me use it because it wants me to subscribe. I have a subscription and have had one for 30+ years. Does not have a login option though it once did.
I am in IT. This is a classic example of ineptitude and is an embarrassment and it never improves.

This is a good newspaper burdened by an opaque and deceptive subscription policy. The deal is you sign up at a highly discounted rate and then some months later (not stipulated) your credit card is suddenly charged a significantly higher amount. You call customer service (Phillipines, I think) and they knock down your rate for a few months and the same process is repeated. Nowhere is it possible to find a clear list of rates or any indication of the duration of the rate agreement. So, you are completely at their mercy regarding rate increases and they do not notify you when they increase. The editorial staff would be horrified that this is going on. Seems highly unethical, I think.

In general, Hart works well. However, the latest updates do not allow you to read the newspaper in landscape format on a tablet. Those of us who like the advantages of reading electronically so that we can resize things and make them readable now have a harder time. Things like the comics in particular are almost too small to read in portrait view. there is no way to enlarge them.
I was told by Customer Service that they did that to improve the layout of advertisements. It is sad that subscribers’ needs take second place to advertisers.

Even after several years, I’m still so disappointed in the Courant’s apps for iPhone & iPad. No where near the content of the physical paper. Lots of old news continues to appear on top of screens. Lots of repeat stories as I scroll. Too heavy with photos stories. Too many good paper apps - get your IT guys to do a real update.

Endless liberal bias on all articles. No objective reporting, still think hunter biden laptop was russian disinformation and is fine with the 51 dems who swore that it was. Don’t care at this point, only read it for sports section and info on UConn basketball. Otherwise it’s good to use for starting the wood stove.

The Courant is our source for local and National news that I may have missed through other sources. The sports section is also a very good source for local and national sports information. I believe it is important to support journalism as the Net for me is less trustworthy.

This is the second time I signed up for the courant , which I consider to be a decent newspaper. The first time I was unable to access much of anything so I cancelled.
This morning it said one price then I was billed another.

I moved out of CT but still like to keep up on the local news.
Sometimes my account dosen’t always work properly and it acts like I don’t have a paid account.
As much as I enjoy reading the Courant online the system is a bit quirky at times.

Why is all this old news right up front each day? I want what’s in theCourant for that day not stuff from January or even December that’s no longer ever relevant!

I’m reading both the paper version and the digital version, side-by-side each day, to see whether I want to switch from paper to digital. So far the digital doesn’t measure up. Why?

Phyllis Satter

Revising my previous review: I have learned to accept the ads, everyone needs a source of income.

My last eat suggestions are just some tweaks for a smoother User Interface:
1. there is no function to close videos once they are viewed, forcing me to close Hart and open it again;
2. If Hart is suspended, the previous article will not load again, forcing me to close Hart and open it again; and
3. I cannot always find the latest articles when searching for their specific titles.

If you have a dedicated app development team, these would be great bug fixes to implement if you have no plans to redesign Hart .

Why do I have to purchase as app to read courant(that I paid for already)? An ‘activate’ option keeps popping up. It’s annoying.