There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

zucky ,

this is why you use aurora store

Sabin10 ,

When I search two dots, it’s the first thing at the top of the results with ads underneath it. Possibly a regional difference?

svotay OP ,

Copying a response I made to a similar comment:

I, too was not able to reproduce the same result again.

When I tried to do the same search again, I had one column more dedicated to non ad space, namely, showing the description of the game. Dont know how I got that particular spread of ads galore at that particular moment.

Screenshot taken later with the same query:

postimg.cc/JtjHLG9Z

My version of android is, indeed, an older one, and my region is India, I suppose all these factor into what I see when I search for stuff.

Legge ,

For me, the first search result started being an ad a few months ago. I accidentally clicked them a couple times before realizing and then paying more attention. Android 13 and Android 11 (2 different devices) both in US

Lordgeoffery ,
@Lordgeoffery@lemmy.world avatar

Double your pleasure double your fun 😉

user224 ,
@user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

That’s… good. Installing an app on more devices is a nice feature.

baronvonj ,
@baronvonj@lemmy.world avatar

I mean silver lining and all, sure. But did you notice that like 55-60% of the screen is ad-driven “suggestions?”

user224 ,
@user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Wait,…, it’s all ads! I kinda missed it says “Ads”.

yumcake , (edited )

It looks bad, but try replicating it.

When I search two dots, I find exactly the matching app, with screenshot previews and details about it. I get only 1/4 of the screen as ad suggestions. The rest of the screen is related suggestions (non-ad suggestions). So about 3/4 is non-ads for me vs. 1/8th from the OP screenshot.

If I search something more generic like “card battle games”, I get a listing of about 7 games, with tags, and zero ads.

I think what’s shown in the OP is what remains after the user has already read the details and approved installing the app. Considering that this is the end of the user story, what else should be on that page?

Or maybe he’s got a different version of play store than me from A/B testing? Anyway, try it out yourself. I don’t have a problem with too many ads on playstore, my main issue is more that the good apps go to apple store first and only sometimes port to android because apple users are more lucrative.

neblem ,

The good apps go to IzzyOnDroid first, then to F-Droid once builds can be verified, and then possibly to the Play Store for the masses.

svotay OP ,

I, too was not able to reproduce the same result again.

When I tried to do the same search again, I had one column more dedicated to non ad space, namely, showing the description of the game. Dont know how I got that particular spread of ads galore at that particular moment.

Screenshot taken later with the same query:

postimg.cc/JtjHLG9Z

My version of android is, indeed, an older one, and my region is India, I suppose all these factor into what I see when I search for stuff.

yumcake ,

Hmm, may also possible that vendor/carrier versions of the app carry more ads. This would nevertheless still be an android problem because I don’t think Apple allows other companies to do that with their apps.

redcalcium ,

This is Google we’re talking about. If their algorithm identifies you as a high value user in a high value location, they’ll absolutely shove you more ads than usual.

gon ,
@gon@lemmy.world avatar

LMFAO I didn’t even see that in the midst of all the clutter!

Anders429 ,

Literally 80% of the screen is just useless garbage ads. It takes some effort to actually locate where the real search result is on the screen.

Mrmcmisterson ,

I am really lately hating my android phone and the targeted ads disguised as “Article I might be interested in” in the google now section of my phone.

I’m tempted to switch to an iphone but I realize the same problems exist over there too. We need a new mobileOS…with blackjack

AttackBunny , (edited )
@AttackBunny@kbin.social avatar

@Mrmcmisterson i have had iPhones for forever now. The only place i see ads (that Apple has control over) are the one bar in the App Store now, which didn’t happen until what 2 weeks ago. Every other ad is within an app itself or online.

Even Apple News doesn’t have ads. Nor do any of their exercise or music apps (at least not that I’ve seen)

@svotay

mashi ,

Apple News has ads but only in the articles

AttackBunny ,
@AttackBunny@kbin.social avatar

@mashi right, but those aren't apple's ads, they are the news sources', since it's redirecting to their page (afaik).

@svotay @Mrmcmisterson

plumbercraic ,
@plumbercraic@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Firefox with ublock and duckduckgo seems to help my android experience. This is my first non apple smart phone.

Saneless ,

They also pester you with notifications and they’re always some candy crush trash shit

donut4ever ,
@donut4ever@lemmy.world avatar

The Samsung Galaxy Store is even fucking worse. I’ve noticed that tiktok is literally shoved in my face on every single platform. It’s always the very first one when I open the store. Be it windows, android or the Galaxy store. Not sure about Apple’s apps store, but it is ridiculous. On the windows store, they put it under the “essentials” category. Lmao Glad I have Linux on my main computer, though. No ads or bullshit, your computer is truly yours.

Streetdog ,
@Streetdog@lemmy.world avatar

Linux is great! It’s such a zen environment.

Apple’s App Store has some ads. In my experience the first search result is always an ad, and every now and then the Today list features an ad. Not sure how much the normal data/results are skewed. It’s a store so you have to expect some kinda marketing tricks to sell you more. They tend to feature popular stuff.

It’s nowhere near as abhorrent as the post here.

I haven’t run into TikTok unless it has been featured or if it is the top result in the popular (free) apps chart. I wouldn’t dare searching for it 😆

bloodtide ,

On the App Store, it’s also under the “essentials” section. The “Must-have iPhone apps”. Lmfao. I hate that state of technology in 2023. Burn it all down.

Wrench ,

What would you expect the algorithm to be if not to recommend the apps installed and used the most on their platform?

I don’t use TikTok or FB, but it’s hard to blame them for suggesting apps that they have concrete usage data on saying they are the most used.

chicken ,
@chicken@lemmy.world avatar

i dont even touch the galaxy store unless i absolutely have to, something about it just feels so… off?

donut4ever ,
@donut4ever@lemmy.world avatar

It has that spammy feeling to it. That’s what’s off about it. I have never downloaded a single thing from it

ComradeBunnie ,
@ComradeBunnie@aussie.zone avatar

There are a handful of customisation apps that are only available through the Galaxy store. The ones I use are all Samsung official apps, but the poorly written descriptions on the install pages definitely make me uncomfortable.

It’s like they only intended the apps for their Korean users, and ran the text through Google translate for the English versions.

Gorilladrums ,

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.

andthenthreemore ,
@andthenthreemore@startrek.website avatar

Or just set your DNS to nextdns.io or similar. No need for any app.

Gorilladrums ,

That’s also true, but I find the ability to decide what gets blocked and what doesn’t to be useful sometimes

nottheengineer ,

But always use blokada 5, because blokada 6 sends all your traffic to a cloud service to be filtered there instead of filtering locally like 5 does.

qwertychomp ,

Everytime I open google play, I play a little game where I try to find a gacha anime game in the ads as fast as I can

Hextic ,

Mine is that damn screaming face that all mobile games have.

Anders429 ,

Just be glad you’re on Android and have alternatives to this. Poor Apple users are stuck with whatever Apple decided to do with the app store.

svotay OP ,

Whats the ad situation on app store, do they aggressively push stuff into your throats there as well?

FireWire400 ,
@FireWire400@lemmy.world avatar

Not at all from my experience. The App Store generally looks cleaner and more organised.

svotay OP ,

I hope for your sake that they at least stick to that. The google approach seems to be that they are too big to fail and that they can keep doing what they want, and what they want, apparently is more space for ads!

FireWire400 ,
@FireWire400@lemmy.world avatar

Unfortunately that seems to be the case with Google products (see YouTube on mobile). Most users might not even care about the excessive ads and Google knows that.

Luckily, there seem to be many alternatives on Android. If Apple was to ad-ify the App Store, you wouldn’t have that many options (outside of jailbreaking and maybe the Altstore).

brihuang95 ,
@brihuang95@sopuli.xyz avatar

Google made 80% of its revenue from ads last year. No wonder they’re trying to force ads everywhere they can

Sheltac ,

That’s soon to change when regulations come in to force apple to allow sideloading.

TurboDiesel ,
@TurboDiesel@lemmy.world avatar

I’d take the in-store ads if they enforced consistent behavior for in-app ads. It’s infuriating to have an ad that plays for 30sec or whatever, only to then force you to wait ANOTHER 5-15sec on the title card for the close button to appear. Or, worse yet, have an ad that automatically opens the Play Store unless you can hit the 2px close button.

SpeedLimit55 ,

Google is an advertising company.

Jarmer ,

They just recently (like in the past few weeks) added an ad slot in the ios app store that I actively hate, but it’s the first one that’s just there (and not in search). Just wait though. Soon the app store will look exactly like this shot of the play store.

Anders429 ,

Afaik it’s not nearly at all like this. Doesn’t change the fact that you have absolutely no alternatives, though. If apple did decide to do this, you couldn’t just sideload the apps yourself.

fearout , (edited )
@fearout@kbin.social avatar

Poor Apple users kinda don’t have to deal with this shit

maegul ,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

Can confirm on my own device. Only ad in sight is for two dots itself at the top … I kept scrolling looking for one and didn’t see any.

001100010010 ,
@001100010010@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Lol the ad is also the very same thing you’re searching for

AndrewZabar ,

Yeah Apple doesn’t do this to the users whatsoever.

thorbot ,

Yes, Poor Apple Users are stuck with no ads at all! What a Shame

001100010010 ,
@001100010010@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Just wait till they block sideloading and lock the bootloaders. The technological dystopia is coming.

Onionizer ,

EU is enforcing sideloading, even for Apple

001100010010 ,
@001100010010@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Doesn’t apply outside of EU. It’s very easy to make different versions of phones. iPhone 14 in some countries have no sim card slot while in other countries it does. If they can do that for hardware, they can do it for software. They can make the requirement of sideloading be requiring turning on the GPS and you will be on the right side of the law, while blocking non-EU users from sideloading. Maybe they wont, but the point is that if they wanted to be evil for some reason, they can.

StealthToad ,

They’re everywhere

PipedLinkBot ,

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): piped.video/XPGgTy5YJ-g

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.

stackPeek ,
@stackPeek@lemmy.world avatar

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.

sol ,

don’t use that shit

Bishma ,
@Bishma@social.fossware.space avatar

I didn’t appreciated the FDroid UX until Google app designers lost their damn minds. Now it makes me feel relief.

svotay OP ,

Theres a fork of f-droid with a slightly friendlier UI, called foxy droid, if you want to give it a shot!

Bishma ,
@Bishma@social.fossware.space avatar

I did not know that. I’ll give it a look for sure.

redditReallySucks ,
@redditReallySucks@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I recommend droidfy

burgersc12 ,

I also prefer the UI of Droid-ify and it seems to work better than F-Droid

zxo ,

Can reccomend Droid-ify, it’s my favorite F-Droid client.

spaceduck ,
@spaceduck@lemmy.world avatar

I use droidify plus Shizuku to install apps in the background. It’s great.

Mininux ,
@Mininux@sh.itjust.works avatar

Try neo store, it’s pretty cool

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