AL.com Reviews

ALcom has been my “Go-To” source for Alabama news for a long time. Unfortunately the new version has made it difficult to use for that purpose. Seems like too much emphasis has been placed on graphics which takes up much of the headline pages. It is also irritating that the screen constantly jumps back to the top making it almost impossible to read more than just the top few articles. Please resolve these issues and go back to providing easy access to the articles. I appreciate the content, just cannot get to it easily.

This is a great app and news source for keeping up with the state. It’s nice to see something for Alabama not be vehemently conservative biased. There are always timely topics and deep thought put into much of their stories and it’s a great place to keep up with events in the state, since our state isn’t exactly very noteworthy among other apps. All in all, I can’t really find anything to gripe about.

I only have ALcom to keep up with sports. I start to read the news in other sections and immediately realize the it is written with a total leftist reflection. The same articles will have a poll in it asking a question which will only have the response that the writer wants the results to show. You can’t disagree with them. ALcom did away with discussions because it’s “their way or the highway”. Reflection of the new America. So sad.

If you enjoy biased News reporting, and an App full of intrusive Ads, then this is ALcom for you!
You would be better off to sell your soul to the prince of darkness, and spend each morning watching CNN, while reading the physical print version of the Newspaper.
Oh, wait, you CAN’T, because we don’t have one any more.
Really a shame that this Media company hasn’t figured out that they are destroying themselves by their Bias... I guess shutting down the print version wasn’t a big enough warning sign.

I think you forget that a great many of your readers are conservative. You need to move editorial’s to a separate section where they are not in the middle of news articles. After all, these are only opinions, not news. Please do not criticize President Trump so very much. I feel he has done a lot for our country and could make great progress in getting the illegal immigrants out of our country with some cooperation.

I’m an avid news reader, regularly reading six different sources per day. I am distracted by poorly written leads and stories that even my high school teachers would have ranted about. I often see errors here that could easily be proofread and corrected. In addition, wish the writers could present facts without personal bias, like real journalists used to do.

I’ve had ALcom for years and depend on it for local news and sports. When it works, which is very rare these days, is good.
Here recently, this has been one of the worst apps I’ve ever downloaded!! After opening, when it does, it closes/glitches immediately. Very, very annoying!!!

Please hire a real app IT developer/company to re-develop and/or over see ALcom. I would be utterly embarrassed to put a product out like this!!!

App upgrade is a complete and unmitigated disaster. The old one was much better. This one is totally worthless. It looks like an Instagram account with very little information. Rarely updates. Slow and completely dysfunctional. Truly one of the worst app upgrades I have ever seen. I have lost complete confidence in their ability to report news.

It is exciting if not exhilarating to run across anything “Alabama” that is intelligent as well as non-extremist and of which I’m not embarrassed to refer to with friends and acquaintances outside our state and region. Great insightful site!

Thank you for keeping me up on the latest of all the news. The news shows up in my notifications, so I know what is going on in the state. Jessica McCrary

Your news is not up to date. Not sure what your news cycle is but I find it inadequate. Also, the majority of your news is Birmingham north. I live in the Mobile area. The weekly newspaper Lagniappe is my best news source down here for real stories .

News coverage is timely; but, sports coverage, other than football slow to nonexistent.

New update; bug fixed quickly; back to 5 stars for now. Previous reviews below.

There have always been ups and downs with ALcom; but, for the last little while, it was working quite well. However, with the most recent update, as of around April 8, 2022, ALcom is again almost unusable. The most frustrating issue is that, when a notification arrives and one clicks it, the _article that initiated the notification generally doesn’t come up, but you are taken to the most recent top stories. If that notification is from several days ago—and you are just now getting to it—you will not find that article in the latest news. So, you bring up Search; but, if you don’t enter the exact wording of the article’s title, or the exact keyword, you won’t find it anywhere. Finally, if one is scrolling through “Around the Web” after reading an article, and choose to read something, the Back button no longer takes you back into Around the Web, but takes you back to the original article—and Around the Web disappears. Again, as of three days ago, ads again pop up, sometimes with no way to close them (because the Close button doesn’t work), thus preventing reading the rest of the article or making reading it difficult. I don’t want to have to delete the ad again—as I was forced to do at one point several years ago when it wasn’t working well—but it may come to that again. This would be a shame, because I like ALcom overall. An earlier review may still appear below. I have always liked the diversity of content which ALcom offers, and have used it for a long time; however, there have always been a few issues with it. For some time, adds have tended to pop up in the midst of articles, with no foolproof way to close them, thus making it difficult to finish reading the articles. Also, an article will occasionally disappear before I can finish reading it. I had hoped that the latest app update would alleviate these issues, but it did not; and, a new—and annoying bug has crept in. Now, when reading an article that was recommended as a notification, when there is a “Done” button for backing out of an article, that button no longer works, and the only recourse is to close down ALcom . A similar thing happens when I look up a word directly from an article, and must hit “Done” in order to get back to the article (which doesn’t happen now, because “Done” doesn’t work)! When an article takes me directly to the website, and a “Back” tab is used to back out of an article, that tab _does work. Please fix the “Done” button, even if this is an issue for VoiceOver users only.

In a city with staggering and growing illiteracy now more than ever a daily paper is needed. A newspaper has shelf life. It can be passed around in the barbershop or beauty parlor. It is impossible to gather information on the activities of neighborhoods via social media. A daily paper can be a tool to help keep government officials accountable and citizens informed.
Name one great city that does not have a daily paper.

The issue for me is that the ads often cover the content of the articles I’m trying to read.... extremely bothersome.

Articles are up to date, written well and keeps me informed about my home state.

My news feed never loads completely

This was once a great app... It went from five stars to one star, really zero stars, for some reason. I sure wish I knew why.

You need to clean up well past news like weather reports for February. And when a news item is lost by mistake it can’t be found.

Sometimes it’s slow to load but other than that enjoy the news and sports here

The end of almost every single article is covered by an ad with no way to make the end visible. Love the site but I would actually like to finish an article one day.

Your articles are always presented with a left leaning slant. You tend to not care that a lot of us in Alabama are conservative and would prefer you not be so biased. President Trump has done a very good job—-just look at all of the economic indicators, him fulfilling the promises he made to make our country better, him standing up to our adversaries and earning their respect, and his efforts to combat illegal immigration. He has accomplished so much for the good of our country, yet those who dislike him do everything they can to criticize him and obstruct his efforts. Please be objective and fair with your coverage. You have many readers who
feel the way I do about your coverage. Please
take this as constructive criticism. Thank you.