Tech brief Breaking

Reddit Is Moving Behind a Login. Here's What Changes if You Just Read It From Google

By , Tech Cheat Codes Team

Published 5 min read

Illustration of a web page of forum threads partly covered by a sign-in box with a padlock.
Image: Illustration: Tech Cheat Codes
On this page · 4 sections
  1. What stays open, and what probably won't
  2. You don't have to give Reddit your name
  3. What to do now
  4. References

Plenty of people end a Google search with the word "reddit" so they get answers from real people instead of a page of ads. That habit is about to get harder. On Thursday, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said the site will become "a primarily logged-in experience," which means most of Reddit will soon ask you to sign in before you can keep reading.

Nothing changes for you today. Reddit will test the login wall first in some countries outside the US "in the coming months," and it hasn't named those countries or set a date for anyone else. But the direction is set, and it's a big one. For about 20 years almost all of Reddit has been readable by anyone, account or not.

Huffman posted the news on his own Reddit profile under the title "About that login screen," a few hours before the company's quarterly earnings call. He gave four reasons. Logged-in users get a feed built around their interests. They let Reddit show "more relevant ads." Accounts make it easier to keep up with safety rules around the world. And most unauthorized scraping of Reddit's posts happens through the pages people can see without logging in, which matters more now that AI companies want that text.

What stays open, and what probably won't

Reddit hasn't drawn the line yet, and Huffman said so plainly: "There are still plenty of questions that are unanswered, particularly around where the boundaries should be between logged-in and logged-out experiences."

He did name three things Reddit wants to keep open to everyone. The front page stays visible without an account. Shared posts should still open for whoever gets the link. And if you click a Reddit result in Google or another site, you should still see the thread that link points to.

That last one matters most for the "add reddit to my search" crowd. Your first click from Google should keep working. What happens after that first page is the open question. Reddit hasn't said whether you'll be able to expand long comment chains, open a second thread, browse a whole community or use Reddit's own search box without signing in. Commenting, voting and joining communities already need an account, and that won't change.

The site has been closing doors for a while. Old Reddit, the plain classic layout a lot of longtime users prefer, already asks you to log in. Reddit also said in September that its RSS feeds end on November 13, so anyone who follows subreddits through a feed reader has about two weeks before those stop.

You don't have to give Reddit your name

This is the part worth knowing if the idea of an account puts you off. A Reddit account doesn't ask for your real name, and Huffman said the login change won't add that. "We don't need your name. We don't need to know who you are. We don't need to know your identity. Honestly, we don't want to know," he wrote.

You still leave a trail once you're signed in. An account builds up a history of what you read, join, vote on and search for, and that history is what Reddit uses to pick posts and ads for you. Logged-in users will be able to turn off personalization, though Huffman warned that "Reddit just won't work as well" that way. Reddit didn't say whether that switch covers ads or only your feed.

Reddit is also rebuilding incognito mode in its phone app. With it on, you can browse and search without anything landing in your account's history. It's read-only, so you can't post or vote while it's on. Reddit described it as an app feature and said nothing about the website, and it isn't clear yet whether incognito works without an account at all.

What to do now

If you only ever land on Reddit from a search, you don't need to do anything yet. Your next search should work the same way it does today, and US users aren't part of the first tests.

If you read Reddit often, it's worth setting up an account before the wall shows up. Pick a username that isn't your real name or your email handle, since usernames are public. Use a strong password you don't use anywhere else, or a password manager, and turn on two-factor authentication in the account settings so a leaked password alone can't get someone in. Then check the privacy settings to decide how much personalization you want.

If you follow subreddits through RSS, export or save your list of feeds now and move them over to the Reddit app or account before November 13.

Reddit is making this move while its audience shrinks. Its US daily users fell from 53.2 million last quarter to 50.7 million this quarter, and the company said visits sent by search engines dropped by more than 1 million a week on average in October. The first tests outside the US are the next thing to watch.

References