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Comment by Freak_NL | Hacker News Reader

Whenever I open Google's Play Store on Android I get this feeling of walking into some dystopic shopping mall. I hardly ever come there (F-Droid covers all utilities for me, so Google's own app store is really only for official apps from banks, public transport, etc.), so its user hostile design always hits me like a wall of visual noise and clutter.

At these moments that feeling that for most people getting bombarded by ads is normal hits hard. I'm always wondering when the ride will end and uBlock Origin can't protect us any longer.

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Unless you have a specific reason to use Google Play Store (as in the app, not the distribution medium), I would highly recommend using Aurora Store (which you can handily get via F-droid). I use it on my Sailfish OS phone (C2) to similarly get apps not available via F-Droid.

https://f-droid.org/packages/com.aurora.store/

That's probably better for the sanity of all concerned. I'll have a look.

The problem with this approach is that many "secure" apps nowadays (bank, authenticators, etc.), at least here in the Nordics, are checking (among other things) if the app has been installed from the Play Store. If you install the very same signed APK from Aurora, or another source, it will refuse to work.

What always surprises me is the sheer amount of fake, scammy, apps trying to appear as if they're something else. Trying to steal clicks from users looking for Adblock, VLC or other legitimate apps... it's a mess!

If it serves any purpose just today I've published docscandroid.app just because the document scanners out there are really scary and do not really fit my purpose. My app is not perfect but its mine and that is enough.

If you built your own app that does exactly what you want for your own use, kudos and more power to you. But otherwise...

You're competing with Google. The built-in Drive app does document scanning.

The parent poster decries fake and scammy apps, and you post a link to an app that contains absolutely zero information on who controls it, how my data is used, where my data is stored, etc.

Yes, this is exactly why Google's claims of locking down apps on Android for security are such hot bullshit. Its such an obvious lie.

I don't need alternative app stores to download malware and scams, that play store is full of that. And it's advertised front and center.

Nevermind the fake stuff, the real stuff is scammy enough.

When you select an app to install on Google Play, it takes you to another screen confirming the install. But that install button on top is not for the app you selected, it's for a different, advertised app. You have to scroll down to find the confirmation button for the app you already instructed the store to install.

This isn't going to ruin any lives, but it's gross.

At what point does a small bad thing, but one that impacts billions of lives, rise to the level of not acceptable? Google is stealing how many human years of peoples lives with these little things? Are we losing millions of years of people time a year to Googles slimy practices? That is unacceptable. I can't see how Google employees are OK with that.

It's always been acceptable to steal, as long as you're already rich.

I love that google removed the search bar from the front page. If you tap where it should be, you get a popup informing you that search has moved to the bottom. So you tap that and it takes you to a new screen with the search bar at the top.

I have never seen such absolute design and engineering genius.

It's as if they are not Android users at all. Maybe someone told an intern to move the button to the bottom, he showed that he did it, and that was it. Nobody actually performed a search with this new layout.

I've been using NextDNS since I've seen it mentioned here a month ago or so and it's working amazingly well. Like Pihole but no hassle setting it up.

I get the same feeling, but from my new Google TV.

I chose it because I liked the previous iterations of Google TV. It integrated with everything else, had a nice app ecosystem, and you could put the stuff you watched within a couple of remote key presses. In this new version you are forced to click over icon after icon of paid content before are allowed to see the icons you are allowed to arrange.

Replacing the TV is out, unfortunately. Finding a different UI is on my to-do list. Google TV used to a checkbox feature for me. They've turned it into "check if a device has it, and run away screaming if it does" feature.

Chrome on Android was their first move in that direction, with it's inability to host ad blockers. It must have been a wild success for them because now many Google products have the same "ads shoved down your throat" feel to them, and yes the Play store is another stand out example.

I assume once the Chinese TV manufacturers figure out Google TV is an anti-feature, they will come up with their own replacement. That day can't come fast enough. That's an odd, because I never thought I'd be cheering Chinese software on, given their repeated attacks on the infrastructure of my country. And the the bastards are still doing it. But Trump has lowered the bar so dramatically on so many things. It's a strange new world.

They made such a retarded change where you now have the search button at the bottom, instead of at the top, but the actual search box is at the top, so you reposition the grab in order to reach to the bottom, only to then be forced to reposition again in order to reach the top.

I mean, absolutely retarded.

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