The freedom, such as it is, comes from alternative app stores. I trust F-Droid (https://f-droid.org/) somewhat more than I trust apps on the Play Store so that's my first stop when I'm looking for something.
Google Play has started to hijack apps installed from Fdroid. As the keys don't match the upade fails and is stuck in the updates available notification. In essence breaking manual check for updates, because the button to check for update is the same as show updates.