> The phone browser works just great.

No, it is not. I can not access any subreddit without installing an app (which I am not going to do).

Sorry... I literally do this every day of my life, across several devices. I'm just on Firefox on Android, it's not like it's a weird setup or anything. What are you running that reddit won't let you into a subreddit?

I have the same experience as OP which is that many subreddits or individual posts are inaccessible without creating an account. If you're looking at cat gifs you will probably get by with the occasional nag screen but some will outright force you out of the page.

Really? I still occasionally visit a handful of subs, almost exclusively through android chrome. I'll certainly never download an app to do it though.