Democrat & Chronicle Reviews

The Democrat and Chronicle is the best source of local news in the Rochester area. I enjoy reading stories by Leo Roth, Sal Maiorana, and David Andreatta. However there are a few things that can be improved. For some reason stories about the Buffalo Bills more than a year old are still appearing at the top of the Bills news feed. This forces me to scroll to the bottom to see the most recent news. I submitted a request to fix this and I never heard back.

The D and C is is using more video. Unfortunately this forces the reader to watch a 15 second ad every time you click on a short video. Some of the “videos” contain only text, almost like watching a Power Point slide show. I can tolerate the 15 second ad before a real video (I know ads support the business). But don’t make me watch an ad just to see me a slide show containing only text.

DemocratChronicle itself is generally fine altho the only notification I have set is “Breaking News” no other notifications are enabled like “Sports” but I’m always getting alerts on how the Bills are doing, player updates or other sports info. Yesterday during the afternoon I received 4 notifications on the Buffalo Bills. This is not “Breaking News” please only push these notifications to subscribers who have the “Sports” notification enabled as it’s truly annoying to be alerted to something that is absolutely not applicable to the notification that has been enabled. Not everyone in Rochester is either a Bills fan or a sports fan in general & it’s a waste of time to be notified for nothing.

The lack of a search feature let the Democrat & Chronicle app bury unpopular news stories via content filtering and a rating feedback loop. This update FINALLY enables readers to find news that doesn’t make the front page. Much thanks to the developers for listening and responding to criticism!

This newspaper is a Rochester institution. The coverage of local politics, sports, art, food, events, entertainment, etc are outstanding and an invaluable resource to our community. DemocratChronicle is easy to use and the banners are an unobtrusive way to stay informed of major stories throughout the day. Please sign up and support this organization so they don’t have to sell themselves to some national conglomerate that will dilute and - potentially direct - the thoughtful, intelligent, local content.

I used DemocratChronicle on a daily basis for a long time. There were always things I wish would be different but overall pretty satisfied with it. That is until I upgraded to iOS 14 and realized that every time I opened DemocratChronicle it copies my clipboard.

I still have it on my phone but only open it when a new version comes out. I copy a choice expletive into the clipboard and then see if they are still copying my clipboard.

So far they are still copying my clipboard every time I open it. If that does not change soon I will delete it and never look back.

Great to have a decent app for our local paper. Great news coverage, including investigative team. But for DemocratChronicle : I like to be able to customize notifications for breaking news. I have mine set to notify for NEWS ONLY, no sports, nothing else. But still get several "breaking news" alerts every week for players questionable to play for the Bills due to such things as wonky ankles. This is not news, people, this is sports.

The news content is terrible. Half of the articles are permanent fixtures, and remain on your front page for months. Yes, months. For filler, the D&C leaves articles on their app for a long time. Some that are up today were first posted 2.5 Months ago!

As of the past month, DemocratChronicle will only allow us to read the headlines, and a few lines of the article "teaser". The content will not appear without paying a fee. Garbage app, do not even bother. If you want the D&C content, just google their headlines and read it on the web.

I really don’t understand the need to sign into my account all the time to access certain content. You should know I am a paid subscriber. This is stupid and a waste of my time. I have to manage multiple passwords for things that actually require secure access. I would expect someone I pay regularly and has no issue billing me and accepting payment can figure out a way to grant me unrestricted access to content. Pathetic.

I dropped my subscription because the previous app was frustrating. The new version is much better and I’ll be a subscriber again.

Paper has reasonable local content. On line version is clunky and has too many pop ups. Very difficult to maneuver around some sections like the obituaries.

I like being able to catch up on current events on the go. I love the Top Stories and having the updates that pop up in notification form are helpful as well. They keep me up to date.

I am most appreciative of access to local news and sports. Most articles are informative and well written. Although I still like "feeling" a newspaper, this is a great complement to other online national apps. Thank you!

I enjoy DemocratChronicle , but it’s crashing when loading articles with iOS 14.

Just trying to get support. Don’t want to cancel subscription.

Not being able to access entire digital app.
I’ve been a subscriber to the D&C for approximately 50 years receiving the hard copy every day. I have been unsuccessful to access the digital. Called a number of times requesting they fix the problem. Constantly being asked to subscribe again or verify my subscriptions which cannot be completed.

I want to read the whole paper- page by page. I scan everything - then read in detail the articles I am interested in. I don’t want articles selected for me. I want to browse!! DemocratChronicle doesn’t let me do this.

I cannot ever figure out how to get the comics - tv schedule and puzzles.

The set up is too much like Yahoo news- snippets of odd artiicles all thrown together. You can’t tell what is news and what is rubbish.

The main reason I have DemocratChronicle is to keep track of Rochester area obits.
I find that whenever I call for the obits by location the screen goes white, the loading icon spins and the screen never returns.
John Radley

As much as I like the actual paper, DemocratChronicle has been much more convenient. I find myself reading more articles than I did than before the paper.

DemocratChronicle for the iPhone is a terrible app. It crashes frequently and constantly has to reload. There are pop-ups on every page. Very difficult to read any articles without getting some sort of pop-up response. Needs to be completely redesigned. Frustrating!

Apparently paying the subscriber fee does allow you to read all of the “For Subscribers Only” articles. Haven’t been able to resolve the issue by calling them. I want to support our local journalists, but I’d also like to have access to ALL of the content that I’m paying for. It’s been on and off like this for months. I’m done. Canceling subscription.

No search function, so when I am looking for an article, I have to search on Google. Who needs DemocratChronicle ? Also, My Account is usually “not available.” That is ridiculous. And when I call, the hold time is so long I usually hang up, or today, my call was dropped.

If all you’re interested are the “top stories” (as selected by the publisher) or the most popular, it’s okay. There is no section for local news, for example, which I find irritating. There’s also no section for regional news. 5 of the top stories recently were about the Buffalo Bills and other pro sports teams (I have no interest in these) and I couldn’t find local (HS) sports stories.

Our region's TV stations just skim the surface of local news. I'm glad the D&C takes the time to thoroughly research and report local news stories.