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.

nottheengineer ,

Enshittification spares no one.

JohnDClay ,

Happens when you don’t have competition. (Except to steam seemingly)

ultrasquid ,
@ultrasquid@kbin.social avatar

Steam has some competition, its just that said competition never took off because Steam is so much better.

niels ,

The difference is that Valve is privately owned. They don’t have to please a board of shareholders who want to see the platform milked for the slightest increase in profit margins.

dismalnow ,
@dismalnow@kbin.social avatar

Bingo. Enshittification is mostly confined to companies that have gone public or whose sole aspiration is to do so quickly.

It shifts responsibility from satisfying customers/users to satisfying shareholders (who are never satisfied).

You can build the perfect product and ride a gravy train as a private company in relative perpetuity. As a corporation, you're just going to strive for perpetually increasing profits on a quarterly basis with no real care or focus past that

ArchmageAzor ,
@ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world avatar

We need more companies like that, then.

TwilightVulpine ,

For that you need passionate people who are wealthy and not primarily driven to acquire more wealth. That seems to be very rare in large scale businesses.

gjghkk ,

It isn’t wealth that breaks or makes it. The system, and in this case the shareholding system makes it or breaks it. Valve owner Gabe is insanely rich (in the billions I assume) yet, because the system he put up, it is consumer friendly.

The system is the one, not the people.

TwilightVulpine ,

Yes, the problem is when shareholders only want profit at any cost. These are the wealthy people I was talking about.

jmp242 ,

I mean, the other thing that’s kind of stupid is - lets say a companies stock once issued goes to 0 and is delisted. So what? That’s not the company going bankrupt. The stock market valuation has no direct application to a company once the shares are issued and bought the first time. But ignoring shareholder demands that would destroy the company wouldn’t likely tank the stock of a otherwise good company - because there’s someone out there who just wants value to hold and preferably dividends vs infinite growth (that doesn’t exist). Now, you could buy enough stock to throw out the CEO and whatever, but that’s likely to be expensive and a PITA. So while there’s going to be some high profile examples, A) that gets close to taking a company private anyway, and doing a shitty job and B) generally limited numbers of companies will have people going to these lengths.

I think the bigger issue isn’t wanting companies to be profitable - that’s kind of the point of companies. The issue is shareholders trying to make capital gains on everything. This isn’t possible long term because infinite growth isn’t possible. I would argue what people and decent investors should want is the steady dividends and not worry about if the stock is up or down.

cottonmon ,
@cottonmon@lemmy.world avatar

This isn’t possible long term because infinite growth isn’t possible.

I could never grasp why the growth needs to be constantly growing instead of the business just consistently being able to generate profits. It’s not sustainable.

jscummy ,

I’d have to think Newell has a lot more skin in the game or passion for his platform. He actually believes in the business and what they do, instead of just viewing it as a way to make money

pomodoro_longbreak ,
@pomodoro_longbreak@sh.itjust.works avatar

So you’re telling me that I can generate stable revenue if I work on my product and try to satisfy customers? Sounds kinda radical… who do we even screw over to get the money??

gamer ,

This isn’t entirely accurate. If Valve were a public company, the enshittification factor would increase significantly. The reason they’re great now is because the current board is the original founders who are passionate about their business, and actually care.

Private or not, once Gabe and the other old farts die, Valve will enshittificate. That’s almost guaranteed.

Spike ,

Private or not, once Gabe and the other old farts die, Valve will enshittificate. That’s almost guaranteed.

I think they will just live on as ghosts in steam itself. GabeAI here we come!

Dasnap ,
@Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

(Except to steam seemingly)

For now. I’m curious what’ll happen when Gabe eventually retires.

We also can’t ignore the fact that the Steam Marketplace is a hellhole and the origin of a lot of today’s microtransaction hell.

If you buy all your games on one platform then you’re thoroughly fucked if it turns heel.

gjghkk ,

The point still stands though, you can easily filter out anything you don’t want to see.

But I doubt the same would apply if it was owned by shareholders.

Dasnap ,
@Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

A future change in leadership could very easily lead to it going public and then all the regular bullshit follows. Don’t just assume it’ll always be great; always be ready to jump ship.

I get worried with the amount of gamers who want Steam to be a monopoly. The existence of competition seems to upset some people and it’s really odd.

gjghkk ,

A future change in leadership could very easily lead to it going public and then all the regular bullshit follows. Don’t just assume it’ll always be great; always be ready to jump ship.

Ok, but what has that anything to do with what I said?

Dasnap ,
@Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

Only really the first part of my comment. I ended up on a rambling tangent for most of it.

Lem453 , (edited )

We all know the answer to this. There will be a hundred threads with thousands of comments with people saying it’s not bad, the company promised x and y and we should be cautiously optimistic, but in the end it always ends the same way.

Exactly the same thing happens with IBM buying Red Hat. No shortage of articles talking about how this will be good for Red Hat and the entire open source community but of course last month they started the enshitification process that will now March on relentlessly. Even now there are defenders of red hat, talking about how it’s not that bad and there are workarounds, but in the end they fail to see this is just the first step.

Once started on this path, the rule is always enshitification, any exceptions are exceedingly rare. If steam ever gets bought/sold it will follow the same path and it’s defenders will stay by its side until it looks like the screen shot above.

festus ,

I agree. As much as I like what Valve is doing and currently trust them, I prioritize buying games on GOG and keeping archives of the installers.

grue ,

Sure it does, but only those who have a zero-tolerance policy against using proprietary software. In the long run, Free Software is the only kind that can be relied upon not to betray you.

nottheengineer ,

I agree, free software is the only thing that’s sure to not get worse over time. I took way too long to realize, now I have a shitload of stuff to migrate. I already ditched microsoft, but that google account is a real bitch to replace.

SJ0 ,

“the play store is shit now!”

The play store was always shit.

Alivrah ,

A single row of ads would be ok, but having this many plus an ad showing up first, where the search results should be… Oof

Sheltac ,

No it wouldn’t. Phones aren’t cheap.

DauntingFlamingo ,

They can be. I bought a Galaxy s22 with a broken screen for $150, and my carrier just gave me an $1100 credit for it on a new iphone. I don’t need an iPhone, and I will be selling it to get yet another cheap phone and pocketing the money, but it goes to show just how much phones do not cost to the people producing them

Anomalous_Llama ,

Dam that’s a hilarious life hack lol.

I’m on a 12 Pro with no intentions of upgrading but when I go to I’m gonna try and find a new broken flagship to turn in too lmao.

Fontasia ,

The Android licence is free and the Play Store infrastructure has to support tens of millions of devices.

I’m not saying this is an acceptable level, but Samsung ain’t putting a dollar toward Google running the store, in fact, they’d much prefer to run and maintain their own.

Sheltac ,

I guess hoovering up all your data ain’t enough.

redcalcium ,

That’s not true. Phone manufacturers need to pay if they want to include Google Play in their devices, it’s not free. It can cost as much as $40 per device.

Fontasia ,

Thanks for the correction, I was unaware

SkyeStarfall ,

I don’t even get why having the store on more devices is supposed to “cost” google anything.

It’s a store. They get a cut from every transaction. Why wouldn’t they want it to be on everything?

sunglocto ,

They shouldn’t rely on ads to make money back on a phone IMHO.

Kraven_the_Hunter ,

I don’t think ads showing something related to what I’m looking for are bad in and if themselves. I want to find related content, the problem is that these are often not in any way related to what I’m looking for. It’s just a list of who paid to be listed there.

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.

shrugal ,
@shrugal@lemmy.world avatar

Just leaving this here: Aurora Store

kennyboy55 ,

What is the difference with F-Droid?

SomethingBurger ,

It’s an alternative client to the Play Store. It does not access F-Droid repos.

samsy ,

F-Droid has special FOSS Apps only. Aurora Store delivers the same Apps like Play Store.

fushuan ,

Others answered you, but aurora also has an F-Droid replacement called Aurora Droid.

squozenode ,

Aurora store is basically anonymous access to the official Google Play store.

You can download any app because unlike the Google Play store Aurora doesn’t send your phones hardware ID, so if for example your phone is rooted you can get the Disney Plus app anyway.

Fdroid is an alternate app store. They have different things than the Google Play store. They respect your privacy and will let you download any app that is ever been uploaded to them, Even old versions of an app.

majestictechie , (edited )

Ok this is actually pretty cool. So I gave this a try and what I found in the first few mins of using it:

  • you can login anonymously or with your own Google account (anonymous logs you into one of their shared Gmail accounts which personally I don’t like the idea of)
  • it manages all existing apps too, so you can use it as a drop in replacement for the play store.
  • Updates aren’t as well, there doesn’t appear to be a background update option as android requires you to confirm if you wish to install the update for each app.

Overall solid app. I don’t spend a lot of time in the PlayStore so the ads themselves don’t bother me. The moment though I begin getting pop up ads / notifications I’ll be jumping to this full time though

redcalcium ,

Just be careful when using your own google account on Aurora Store. There are reports of people getting their account banned by google. Do not use an important google account there.

Sir_Kevin ,
@Sir_Kevin@discuss.online avatar

Another cool feature is you can spoof your device’s name. This can allow you to install apps that daddy Google does not approve of for your device.

XEAL ,

Aside of the lack of ads, I now depend on Aurora Store for batch app updates because the cocksuckers at Google Play have allowed devs to force app version updates even when you have disabled automatic updates for that specific app.

Boinketh ,

How do you deal with waiting for and then pressing “Install” for every app? It’s so tedious. Is there no way without root?

XEAL ,

IDK… I root all of my devices ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Boinketh ,

That’s pretty gigachad, but I’m scared to because it voids the warranty :(

XEAL ,

Agree, there’s a risk even if you don’t break anything.

Lev_Astov ,
@Lev_Astov@lemmy.world avatar

Isn’t that one of the things the FTC says can’t void warranties? They’ve been going after companies for those lousy warranty void stickers lately.

Boinketh ,

Oh you’re right, TIL. I guess I’ve fallen victim to the corporate propaganda.

TwinTusks , (edited )

Um … can I sign in with my google account?

It appears that I can, wonderful.

puddlexplorer ,
@puddlexplorer@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks to Lemmy, my phone went full FOSS. Always go full FOSS.

Xylight ,
@Xylight@lemmy.xylight.dev avatar

It’s great that you can’t unlock the bootloader to install graphene on carrier bought devices 👍

HurlingDurling ,

Or samsung devices

Xylight ,
@Xylight@lemmy.xylight.dev avatar

Can’t on a pixel because this phone is carrier locked.

HurlingDurling ,

Right but Samsung devices once you unlock the bootloader you loose Knox (which is pretty awesome IMO) and the only way to get it back is to replace the motherboard on the device… at least on my S23 ultra. As for the carrier lock, we’ll once you finish paying for the phone you can unlock the phone right? Also, if you buy the phone from Google it’s not carrier locked and you get the same finance options as the carriers

CoderKat ,

In Canada, carriers are required to only sell unlocked phones for the past several years.

Xylight ,
@Xylight@lemmy.xylight.dev avatar

Luckily, in 'murica, corporations can freak you over however they like 😎

SoleInvictus ,
@SoleInvictus@lemmy.world avatar

That’s the freedom!

n_emoo , (edited )

If I understand correctly, carrier locking is different from Bootloader locking. One implies freedom to use the device on any provider network, while the other is for installing a custom ROM. A Samsung flagship can be bought unlocked by paying full price, but you cannot unlock the bootloader and install Graphene, for instance.

Tb0n3 ,

Samsung has been good about that in the past. Motorola on the other hand I remember there being a bounty for the keys so they could run alternate roms.

Zed ,

The Exynos variants of Samsung devices can have their bootloader unlocked, it’s the snapdragon ones that can’t and even then there are some instances where it was possible to do it, but it’s still a hassle and the Exynos variants tend not to have good development support.

zeekzag ,
@zeekzag@lemmy.world avatar

Can unlock it on my machine 😎

illectrility ,
@illectrility@lemmy.world avatar

laughs in F-Droid

albert ,

I am so glad F-Droid exists. For the apps I need that aren’t there (Steam and Blizzard authenticator for 2FA) Aurora has been a godsend

miss_brainfart ,
@miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml avatar

What’s up with Steam not untying 2FA from their own app though? That is the one thing I genuinely hate about Steam

CherenkovBlue ,
@CherenkovBlue@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

Alright, help me out. I had fdroid before but changed phones. What do I need to do to get fdroid nowadays?

damnYouSun ,

You need to install it?

It won’t carry over because it’s not a local play app but you should be able to install it the same way you did on your old phone.

CherenkovBlue ,
@CherenkovBlue@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

I’m trying to document this for others who have no idea where to start when installing things not in the play store.

null ,

To be fair, I’d wager the overlap between people that are on Lemmy, know what F-droid is, but wouldn’t think to just Google it is pretty low. Those people probably shouldn’t be messing around with sideloading and alternative app-stores anyways.

xthexder ,
@xthexder@l.sw0.com avatar

I dislike the “Why not just Google it?” argument because I’ve arrived at too many forum/reddit/stackoverflow posts that are the top Google result with comments on them saying: “This information is already on Google”

I would love it if Lemmy could start to curate information so that instances start showing up in search results more.

null ,

I agree up to a point. In an instance like this, what is there to document? The steps to install F-droid are to go to the website and get it.

For things where there’s actual discussion to be had, or answers that require some degree of critical thinking that can have value in the future, sure.

gunpachi ,

You can go to their official website and download it - f-droid.org

Personally I prefer to use fdroid through Droid-ify.

CherenkovBlue ,
@CherenkovBlue@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

Thanks, I will give that a whirl. I remember about having to change some kind of setting - third party apps?

(I could probably figure this out through some searching but I also want this for people who have no idea where to start.)

miss_brainfart ,
@miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml avatar

The system will prompt you to allow Fdroid to install apps as soon as you download something the first time. Can’t miss it

Otherwise, you’ll find it under

Settings > Apps > Fdroid > installation of unkown apps

(or something like that, my system isn’t in english)

CherenkovBlue ,
@CherenkovBlue@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

Thanks!

sagrotan ,
@sagrotan@lemmy.world avatar

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. f-droid.org/en/

lucho ,
@lucho@lemmy.world avatar

i just discover ViMusic thanks to your comment, i love it!! thank you for mentioning it!!!

SwallowsDick ,

Saved this comment, thank you!

Gamey ,

I discovered ViMusic a while ago but Youtube music keeps cencoring the songs I like so I will probably seitch back to mp3’s soon, cool app tho!

RandomLegend ,
@RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

If you do, check out plexamp.

You can self host a small Plex server on a raspberry pi and store all the music there. Play via plexamp and Plex does all the metadata for you

Gamey ,

That sounds awesome!

Cosmocrat ,

Use jellyfin instead, its FOSS and amazing.

RandomLegend ,
@RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

The eternal debate, Jellyfin vs. Plex 😀

I tried both, i prefer Plex (also because my TV doesn’t have a Jellyfin App and i don’t want to have another mini-PC just to play Jellyfin on my TV)

Cosmocrat ,

To each their own of course, I just want other people to be aware of an alternative to Plex if they haven’t heard about it.

SpooneyOdin ,

I hear great things about Jellyfin, but I’m in the Plex camp too. The availability of the Plex app is a big factor. I’m a bit biased in that I bought a lifetime membership years ago so I get all the premium features as well. I believe they still offer deals on plex lifetime membership from time to time. It is really worth it!

RandomLegend ,
@RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Yup, got the 20% off of lifetime a couple months ago.

Didn’t regret it.

illectrility ,
@illectrility@lemmy.world avatar

I run /e/OS with a custom app store, App Lounge. It combines F-Droid and the Play Store via Aurora. It even embeds Exodus Privacy Ratings and is simply awesome. You can even log in with your Google account and download paid apps that way. Pretty neat.

CommunityLinkFixer Bot ,

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !e_os

ramplay ,

Hmm, seems your regex isn’t perfect mister bot. That’s ok

rikudou ,

I’m probably not seeing the error…? Can you point it out to me so I can fix it?

stochasticity ,

Is there an easy way to see which of my installed apps are available through f-droid? Or do I need to search for each one manually.

UnknownQuantity ,

I’d also like to know that.

nudnyekscentryk ,
@nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info avatar

yes; I use Foxy Droid to access f-droid and it detects Play Store-installed apps and displays them under Installed as long as the package name matches. This also works vice-versa

kibiz0r ,

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.

marmo7ade , (edited )

deleted_by_author

    •
    nottheengineer ,

    Google has much better software and they charge for it in data/ads instead of money, but there’s a much better reason to choose android over IOS: It’s open-source, so people have created free software variants of it that retain compatibility with existing apps while respecting your privacy and freedom.

    In case you care about that, give grapheneOS or calyxOS a shot on your pixel.

    TheCraiggers ,
    @TheCraiggers@lemmy.world avatar

    If you install a custom build, doesn’t that break OS verification (or whatever the name of it was)? Meaning things like Google wallet, but more importantly some banking apps, will fail to work?

    snor10 ,

    I mean, FOSS nerds run android de-googled (or more specifically never install google services on a custom ROM).

    Sir_Kevin ,
    @Sir_Kevin@discuss.online avatar

    That’s not an Android problem, that’s a Google Play Services problem. You can run Android without all the Google bullshit.

    filister ,

    Not to mention that you can at least install third party app stores like f-droid. For me Apple is the epitome of evil giant corporation that is consistently abusing it’s market power and getting a pass from regulatory bodies.

    Don’t get me wrong, Google aren’t great either, but if I have to choose between them I would pick Google any day.

    squozenode ,

    I’ll give apple this one thing.

    They are really, really good at backup.

    I recently had to wipe my dad’s iPhone, I manually backed up his pictures just to make absolutely certain they were all saved but everything else I didn’t even bother.

    I logged him back into his apple account and everything immediately started downloading again.

    With Google, you’ll get your text messages. Your contacts, your pictures, your videos. Maybe your YouTube history and subscriptions but any random app probably uses Google backup services but it might not.

    Anomalous_Llama ,

    I’ll give Apple another thing

    I was on Android for years. Galaxies and Pixels. Around the 2 year mark they were always barely working and with a battery that needed to be topped off several times a day. Slow, hot, poor battery, glitchy. Always

    I got a 12 pro at release and it’s rock solid as the day I got it and I have no intentions of upgrading it. I’ve used it since launch with no case and yeah it’s for a few scratches here and there but despite all the drops etc it has no cracks either. It’s a tank. A tank that just keeps fucking working as it should.

    magic_lobster_party ,

    Apple makes money by selling expensive devices.

    Google makes money by selling ads.

    You can figure out the rest of the equation.

    deweydecibel , (edited )

    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.

    I don’t give a shit about devs. I want that control for users. Until they allow users to do what they want, they can get fucked.

    Privacy through the use of user restrictions is not acceptable either. It’s my god damn phone, don’t you dare tell me what I can’t do on it “for my protection”.

    It’s like saying a security firm is the best in the world at keeping clients safe, because they lock those clients in a vault and don’t let them leave.

    Privacy for freedom is not a good trade for those enthusiasts your frustrated with. They will accept Google’s shit because the alternative is getting in a fucking cage.

    Snapz ,

    Apple does objectively suck for many reasons though.

    Also, important to note that what you’re describing as their privacy focus is a deliberate rebranding exercise after a huge ,global failure with icloud and things like police access to their systems/data and public backlash.

    They are only here now, in this brief moment, because of necessity and like any of this, it’s typically a pendulum. As soon as they don’t have to do this (which probably sounds a lot like users like you defending their security bonafides publicly on their behalf), they will start to creep away and de-prioritize privacy and security.

    gila , (edited )
    @gila@lemmy.world avatar

    I can’t scrobble my music to last.fm on iOS without some janky workaround. The “almost same level of control” part of what you said relies on an assumption that only the set of use cases explicitly determined by Apple as ones that “matter” are worth supporting. That it’s more important to prevent the user from explicitly allowing a scrobbling app permission to read the music player app’s now playing notification than for the device to be able to perform this simple function.

    This point of difference doesnt have any meaningful impact on collection of my data. It just stops the device from being able to do the function I want. So that what, I can sleep easier knowing that Apple designed a slick interface to point out data vectors which were already implied to be collected? It used to feel like a smartphone with training wheels, now they’ve just locked up the handlebars so that it’s easier to go straight.

    Acid ,
    @Acid@startrek.website avatar

    I’m with you on this, I used to avoid using apple products at all costs due to the way they are so anti consumer and lock you in heavily to their ecosystem.

    But in terms of security and privacy they aren’t even playing on the same level. Android will never be as privacy or security focused as apple due to the way google runs its business so long term a Linux mobile operating system would be the dream.

    Until then I stick with what I can use which is the apple products for now.

    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

    eleitl ,

    Luckily I only have F-Droid on mine.

    Alivrah ,

    What, no love for the Ad Store?

    ratz ,

    This ad has features you may not like

    TWeaK ,

    F-Droid for the main stuff, Aurora Store when I’m feeling dirty.

    ultimate_question ,

    "Thanks for the F-Droid"

    • Dirty Mike and the Boys
    Cyyy ,

    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.

    oldfart ,

    It sounds like you’re browsing the web signed in to your Google account. Sign out and clear cookies, or go Incognito.

    Cyyy ,

    what has this to do with signed in our not? google does the same if you’re not logged in

    oldfart ,

    Works well here. I just checked on desktop to be sure they have not broken it now - nope, I can browse apps normally.

    Cyyy ,

    maybe it depends on the region then. I’m in germany.

    Cyyy ,

    what has this to do with signed in our not? google does the same if you’re not logged in

    rageagainstmachines ,

    Wait, what? A shitty Google product? Plagued by ads and spyware? No way!

    As others have pointed out here, use Aurora Store or F-Droid.

    Mikina ,

    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.

    ArcticCircleSystem ,

    I see Google’s review process for apps on the Play Store is as bad as their review process for extensions on the Chrome Web Store. Every couple of months ago, a new batch of malware is found on CWS, and you almost never see that with Firefox’s add-on marketplace, even when accounting for Firefox-based browsers having a much smaller userbase. And I’ve noticed that when it does happen, Mozilla is much quicker in laying down the banhammer than Google. Hell, Mozilla banned a browser hijacker named FVD Speed Dial, whilw Google has it featured on CWS to this day. ~Cherri

    Mikina ,

    When I was looking for a good ad-blocker a few years back, I remember stumbling upon something like… Nano Defender? I’m not sure what was the name, but it was one of the few succesful anti-adblocks that managed to get past most of adblock killers, and was generally recommended on Reddit.

    After a few years, the guy sold the extension to some Indian company that promptly infected it with credential stealing malware, which compromised most of my and my GFs accounts. Ever since that, I just don’t use any extensions apart from ublock and Bitwarden, since it’s just a huge security risk.

    But I’m slowly building up the willpower to finally switch to Mulvad Browser + VPN, I really like the approach they took to fingerprinting - just use Tor Browser, don’t need any extensions, and it’s bundled with a VPN - so every other user has exactly the same fingerprint and IP as you, thus making you untrackable even by the most soffisticated methods. (Well, apart from the ones that uses ML to fingerprint you based on your typing and mouse habits…). But I have already gotten used to Librewolf, and it would mean getting rid of Bitwarden extension, and that’s -effort- :(

    Pietrasagh , (edited )

    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.

    f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/

    /edit/

    blastofffox ,

    Pro tip - Avoid using your main account because it might get blocked permanently by Google.

    tias ,

    Why?

    cheesemonk ,

    TOS violation

    tias ,

    Do you know what part of the TOS that is violated? I looked through it and didn’t see anything that seemed to apply.

    cheesemonk ,

    I don’t but have heard of folks using it getting banned so Google seems to be interpreting it that way.

    necrxfagivs ,

    When I’m installing F-Droid I get a security alert about it being developed for a previous android version and that it doesn’t include latest privacy updates. How legit is that? I’m downloading the apk throught their official website f-droid.org

    33KK ,

    It’s so the app still runs on ancient android versions. Use the Droid-ify client instead if you don’t want that

    necrxfagivs ,

    Does it have security vulnerabilities?

    chimbori ,

    Not exactly. It’s possible to make an app run on older versions (select lower minSdk) and yet take advantage of newer features (select higher targetSdk). This one can be easily be fixed by the F-Droid developers like almost all other developers have already.

    Droidify is amazing, I’d totally recommend that over the official F-Droid client any time. 👍

    Myrbolg ,

    Thanks for that, looks pretty nice. Though I’m concerned now trading Google might block your account for using it.

    Matriks404 ,

    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.

    99nights ,

    Agreed. Mostly everything in the store can also be easily done in a browser too.

    boonhet ,

    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.

    Fdroid apps CAN have microtransactions I believe, and they’re not curated either, but overall, the quality is much better than Play Store and most apps are free and open source.

    Alternatively, for games in particular, Apple Arcade is great, but it’s a subscription (cheap if combined with Music, TV and iCloud storage, otherwise several euros per month). The games aren’t allowed to have MTX or ads if they want to be on Arcade. But of course that requires moving to iOS (where the app store is much better than Play Store, BUT you don’t get alternatives like Fdroid on Android.)

    KpntAutismus ,

    I use a huge amount of open source f-droid apps, like my keyboard, my mail app, the one i’m typing on right now, SD maid 2, (Revanced). in my opinion these apps are just better. not only because i can trust them, also because they simply do what i downloaded them for, in the most efficient way possible.

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