One word: F-Droid! I'm literally only searching there for Apps first, often I find it. Send them some love, if you can afford it! Wouldn't know how to watch YouTube anymore without New Pipe and stuff, listening to music via ViMusic, all ad-free. https://f-droid.org/en/
it got worse and worse over the last 1-2 years. this days you can't even open an app description page on desktop anymore. you search for the name...and you can't click on the app listing. it just gives you the option to install on your phone but not to read the store page. you only get to it by searching on Google for it. and the mobile app is like you said shit too. often you can't even find an app and get random ads for other shitty apps.
I mean, it’s Google. What did you expect? Android is free because having it on a ton of cheap phones helps Google collect data and sell ads.
Side-rant:
Apple’s got plenty of problems and anti-consumer behavior, too, don’t get me wrong… but it’s incredible how far they’re able to enforce privacy, down to the hardware level, while still giving devs almost the same level of control over OS features as Android.
Like, look at how ARKit does point cloud sharing vs ARCore. iOS limits sharing scanned AR environments to peer-to-peer local connections, and it’s a totally opaque object. Android meanwhile uploads your scanned room to a Google server, and the privacy terms for that data are the same as the ones for Youtube, search, maps, etc.
It drives me crazy how many FOSS nerds will rail against Facebook’s data collection and chokepoint capitalism, but then go on to praise Android for standing up to that no-good Apple. They hear “I can sideload apps” and they drop all of their recent cynicism about why they’re getting nifty stuff at a hefty discount.
I've lost all of my faith in mobile gaming ecosystem ever since I saw that talk of the two guys that created a bot for generating and uploading as many slot machine games to the playstore as possible, just generic pull a lever, see an ad and that's it, based on a random keyword like "owl slot machine" or "bathtub sloth machine" with pictures pulled from google images, that let the bot run for a few months and then found out that they made literally thousands of dollars of ad money.
I'm not exactly sure when it started, but Play Store now has "Limited time events" that further block what I'm actually looking for. I don't give a damn about some gacha/loot box promotion some soulless pay2win app is advertising, I just want to browse for apps I might like.
I like how like 10 years ago everyone went crazy about the apps. It seemed like you could have an app for everything, and everyone was enthusiastic about it. Nowadays I only open Play Store when I am in the need of specific utility, or to buy some classic RPG/other game ported to Android.
Most of the stuff in the store is just unusable shit.
And we need a store with actual quality apps (with no micro transactions, and being reviewed by people who care about usability), because certainly Google Play is not a good source for them.
Try out Aurora Store. Just started testing it. Looks and works similar to play store but without adds. You can login with should not use your main google account.
Google is just a colorful façade. The insides of this bloated monstrosity is filled with ads and sellable user data. It needs to be put out of its misery.
Mine is worse: oftentimes it's just filled with ads for an online loan servicesand I feel like most of those are just scams. It's disgusting how they allow this.
Europeans will be able to take advantage of the DMA early next year. Google will have to allow us to install competing app stores without extra steps. No special security warnings or restrictions. I expect some solid competition soon.
Since mobile gaming has died for me anyway, i have no reason to browse the store.
For what I use it for, it's fine. It has the apps i need and updates them.
When I search for two dots in the App Store, I get an ad for two dots and then dots, both top hits. It’s a weird way to deliver the ad, but I’m much happier with that than this bullshit.
I've got like $15 credit in the play store from Google Rewards surveys. I went into the play store today to browse for somethung and I felt like I was bombarded with crap, so I just closed it.
It's even worse for developers.. sometimes you push out an app for internal or extenal test and it just.. sits there.. the users continue to see the old one. Or half of them get the new one and half get the old one, which makes no sense. This has been an issue for years with nothing but shrugs from google when you ask them about it.
OTOH with testflight you push out a build and 20 minutes later all testers get it, automatically, every time (I hate iOS development generally but that bit they got right).
@svotay I feel as if Google has lost there touch on how to make the playstore good, Glad I only use it to download apps I already know I want to download instead of browsing to find new apps to try out.
The entire app store idea is based around making money. You need look no further than the two sorting options: top free and top paid which translate to with ads and without ads.
On the App Store, if I search for "Two Dots", the first 2/3 of my screen is filled with "Two Dots" and when I scroll down, I get related apps. And when I scroll down FURTHER, I see ads for other apps.
Android the open-source OS is cool and all. As soon as you involve Google in your Android experience, you're better off getting an iPhone instead. They at least have the common courtesy of giving you a reach-around while they... y'know.
Also, the frame drops. Oh the frame drops. Searching and app and scrolling down always drops frames since Google switched away from Android Market. I can't imagine how does it still happen to this day lmao.
Without exception, whenever I search for a specific app I need to Google it because the App Store search function is so utterly shit.
It never just shows me what I'm searching for, it's always shitty predatory apps with a million ads that show up first.
I use a shortcut for "My ads apps" so that I don't go through the home screen when I want to get updates; sadly, it wouldn't help when searching for new apps.
Psst listen up losers. There's this godly app that you could download off the web called Blockada. It can block add inside of games and apps. If you're not a masochist, you should get it.