Podcast Player - Castbox

I'd rate it 5 stars if the ads didn't literally stop me from using the app. I'll click a podcast, boom! Minute-long inskippable ad for AI chatbots. Try to select an episode, bam! Sometimes it doesn't even play an ad, it just goes black. It's so bad, I'm considering returning to Spotify. Which is a shame because Castbox is the best podcatcher I've found. Y'all please wrangle the ads, they're driving me nuts.

I used this app for years longer than I should have just because I already had all my favorite podcasts saved on it and didn't feel like switching. You can literally not listen to one episode without having the episode suddenly either skip ahead or skip backwards at some point. This isn't an issue with the UI, it's literally that something happens when the episode is being uploaded to the platform so content gets skipped over or repeated. Every. Single. Episode. I'm so happy I switched.

I really like this as a podcast app, but if I listen for a while, it stops working with the Android media controls (and by extension, Bluetooth controls) until I fully close and restart it, and sometimes stops playing altogether. It says it wants special battery permissions, but not a single other media app I use needs those to function. Edit: It also keeps failing to sync my playlist between devices, and I can't find a manual refresh/resync button anywhere—I have to resort to hacky workarounds.

Nov 2024 edit: I have to close this app & clear the cache at least once a week to get episodes to play. I've also reported missing episodes on the Lore podcast several times but there's no resolution yet. Original: This app has improved a lot over the years and I appreciate that they actively work toward better user experience. I've switched to other apps a few times but always come back to Castbox

the ads for this app are just insane. probably 90% of them freeze, and you can't ever close them so you have to force close the app. It's extremely frustrating while trying to browse episodes, or look for new podcasts. *edit* now every time I open the app, I get an ad, which if I'm listening to a podcast at that moment it pauses the podcast. really great feature when you're changing podcasts.