What This App Is Trying To Do
Breaking News: Local & Alerts is a news aggregator from Beloud.com that pulls together local, national, world, weather, business, tech and sports stories from hundreds of sources into a single customizable feed. The pitch is simple: pick your topics, get your city’s local news alongside national headlines, and join comment threads on hot stories. It’s aimed at people who want one app instead of juggling several local news sites and national outlets, with an emphasis on speed and breadth of coverage rather than original reporting.
Where It Actually Delivers
When it works, users do appreciate the breadth of the feed and the idea of a comprehensive one-stop news hub, with one reviewer calling it ‘thoroughly comprehensive’ in covering topics. The topic subscription model is genuinely useful in concept, letting you follow specific interests like weather or tech instead of a generic firehose. For readers who just want a wide net cast across many publishers without hunting through separate apps, the core aggregation idea is sound, and some users rate it highly and encourage others to try it themselves before judging.
The Ads And Bugs That Wear You Down
The most consistent complaint is intrusive advertising. Multiple reviewers describe ads taking over the entire screen every time they tap on an article, with one calling the experience ‘so disruptive’ that they uninstalled entirely. Another long-time user said a dozen friends were all talking about deleting the app because of the ‘torturous amount of ads’ interrupting reading. These aren’t occasional banner ads — they’re described as full-screen takeovers that break the reading flow repeatedly.
Lock Screen And Notification Problems
More alarming are reports of the app interfering with the phone’s lock screen. One reviewer said alerts appeared on the lock screen and rendered the device ‘nonfunctional’ until the alert was dismissed, which became a serious problem with poor connectivity. Another user reported the app replacing their existing lock screen entirely, forcing them to re-enter biometrics and a PIN, calling it a security compromise. Separately, a ‘Sleeping time’ setting in notifications was reported as stuck on and unable to be disabled even after reinstalling and clearing cache, muting alerts the user wanted to receive.
Local News Detection Falls Short
For an app built around the word ‘Local’ in its name, several users found the localization weak. One reviewer noted there’s no option to manually enter a location, and since the app relies on internet-based location detection, it simply doesn’t work in rural areas — leaving no local content for those users at all. Sharing to Facebook was also flagged as broken, posting only the ad-to-install-the-app and article title rather than the actual story body.
Who Should Actually Download This
If you live in a well-covered urban area, don’t mind aggressive ads, and mainly want a broad topic-based news feed, this app can work as advertised. But given the recurring reports of lock screen takeovers, stuck notification settings, and full-screen ad interruptions, cautious users — especially anyone concerned about device security or living somewhere with spotty internet for location detection — should think twice or at least keep expectations low and be ready to uninstall if the bugs described here show up on their device too.
