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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

The play store is getting worse and worse. It will eventually end up being just a bad.

Meanwhile every iteration of Android is getting more locked down because of "security". No more external cameras etc..

The future look bleak until we get a true open source alternative running on open hardware.

The best part about the play store is that you aren't in any way required to use it. Also, all pixels come with unlockable bootloaders so you could as well root your phone or use a custom ROM if that's your thing.

Absolutely. Unfortunately at the moment it's a case of choose the best of a terrible bunch. I have really high hopes some good will come out of Purism's Librem 5 and the PinePhone.

I would be willing to buy these to attempt to kickstart this market. But maybe I'm confused, these seem only to be ROMs that are installed on existing hardware? This can't be right.

Where can I go to buy these? I typed "buy PinePhone" and got a wikipedia page with supported hardware made by other companies.

1st Result - https://store.pine64.org/product-category/pinephone/ [Out of Stock]

Librem5 - https://shop.puri.sm/

Thank you, I really appreciate that!

> The future look bleak until we get a true open source alternative running on open hardware.

Maybe a fork like LineageOS will take over eventually. An open hardware device is really needed though.

> No more external cameras etc..

Woah; this would affect me, but I can't find any reference for it... can I convince you to expand a bit?

The camera picker is going to be removed from Android 11. When an intent for image/video capture is launched from another app, the pre-installed camera app will be opened regardless of what the default camera app is. The default camera app is still used for gestures (e.g. double-clicking the power button), and apps with built-in camera functionality are unaffected.

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/08/20/android-11-camera-a...

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/20/21376391/google-android-1...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24205479

While this is a regression for user choice, it is still better than iOS/iPadOS, which always defaults to Apple's Camera app and never had a camera picker in the first place.

Ok, thanks; I thought you were saying that external-to-the-device USB cameras would no longer be supported (which I am now thinking is not the case).

God. I just stopped opening the play store. Everything is ads and autoplaying videos.

I added the update shortcut to homescreen to go straight to updates

Sadly the App Store also has ads and no way to deep link to updates.

It’s possible, just not obvious. Create a Shortcut with the “Open URL” action and point it to “itms-apps://apps.apple.com/updates”

You can then add the shortcut to your home screen, run it from the shortcuts widget, via search, etc.

Where does one find more of these secret URLs?

Federico Viticci at MacStories is the author to search for on all things Shortcuts. I found that one here: https://www.macstories.net/ios/shortcuts-corner-apple-frames...

He also has a list of links for the Settings app here: https://www.macstories.net/ios/a-comprehensive-guide-to-all-...

Thank you :)

I was underselling it a bit with “not obvious.” It’s more like “requires secret magics.“

I have never seen an add or a video on Google Play except a line of "Suggested for you" apps which I guess are paid for? The only videos are after clicking an app and then they have never ever started playing automatically. Must be either a regional thing, a custom per phone brand or something like it. Neither my OnePlus or Google phones have it.

> I have never seen an add or a video on Google Play except a line of "Suggested for you" apps which I guess are paid for?

Yes, those are absolutely ads, they're explicitly labelled as such. And they're not very subtle, there's another double-tall row of them every other page when scrolling through the Play Store. There are also ads for other apps on every app page, and ads for search results. The search result ads are egregious - e.g. if I search for a major bank app, the first several results are for competing banks, they're barely differentiated from the legitimate results, and they're explicitly not what I'm looking for. I feel like I'm at an awful bazaar where I know what I want but slimy merchants keep yelling at me and getting in my way to shove their junk in my face.

I'd pay $10/m just to get rid of ads on the Play Store and Google Maps.

> The only videos are after clicking an app and then they have never ever started playing automatically.

There's a Play Store setting for controlling autoplay of videos.

> Neither my OnePlus or Google phones have it.

Play Store is a Google App, phone manufacturer has no impact.

When you open the GPlay Store, 50% of the screen is ads. When you open an app listing, the bottom is filled with ads for competitors.

This is not my experience but

1. I use the store only for free apps

2. I use Blockada which blocks ads even inside apps https://blokada.org/ Download it from F-Droid, not from the Play Store. Google doesn't allow the full functionality version on its store.

I already use adaway. Have a rooted android

Use Aurora store. Use an adblock.

I use both. Adblock doesnt stop play store ads. HTTPS.

Play store is needed for buying apps. Can't do that from aurora store without a risk of your Googz Account getting banned.

What kind of play store ads? I have AdAway and don't get any ads. It needs root though.

You could buy apps from a desktop browser and just configure the account details in Aurora for the paid apps? I haven't heard of anyone getting banned.

I too use Adaway with custom lists. However you can't block playstore ads via DNS blocking/Hosts method. Because you need to install your own certificates to read HTTPS traffic on android (which is what AdGuard does, very risky)

The aurora dev's account gets frequently banned. Look into is telegram group.

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