Aside from the ads, you also have to sift through all of the crappy clones and shovelware to actually find something useful.
This was my exact experience a couple of days ago when I was trying to find a CSV viewer.
36You know things are bad when your search for a CSV viewer looks like the back of a CVS receipt.
9
You're still using it, so they're gonna keep doing it.
36https://f-droid.org/packages/com.aurora.store/
F-droid for open source apps, Aurora Store for all the Play Store apps. You're welcome :)
33isn't aurora store broken though
10Not here, i use it regularly for updates and install some apps. Just checked and updated some apps.
PS: I'm using a created account.
1In my experince, kind of. You can log in with your Google account and it works fine, but that negates most of the privacy benefits. Alternatively, only the search is broken with anonymous login, so you can set Aurora as the app to open play.google.com links and open them from your browser and it downloads and updates like normal.
1
Yikes. That is horrible. How can an upper level exec look at that and say: Yes! That's exactly what I was looking for!
2390% of that page is revenue generation, they'd be happy to increase that number! You only need a few pixels to see what you actually want to do.
14Money
11They look at their fat paychecks + golden parachutes and say: Yes! That’s exactly what I was looking for!
10You don't... You don't think any exec cares about user experience, do you? Well, they do, but only to the extent that everything they do is just below our threshold for leaving in outrage.
10They use an iPhone
8they don't care, as long as the users are captured and unable to switch to something else. and unlike with iOS, they have the figleaf of side-loading to protect themselves, even though 90% of users won't pursue it. so pressure from the EU will be minimal even as the user experience continues to degrade
1
I try to avoid using the official app as much as possible, usually manage with Aurora store, thats why it stood out to me how bad it has become of late when I just went to update my game. Not shocking, but disheartening.
20Like others have said I too gave up on Play Store a long time ago. If I need an app it comes from Github, XDA, F-Droid etc. Obtainium for updates
12For the past two weeks or so, I've also been seeing an ad in the search interface without actually typing anithing.
11Me too. The exact same app. I rarely open the play store with other app stores existing but good lord this is bad.
3Yeah, F-droid is my default.
3
And I thought the iOS App Store was bad … This is on another level.
9iOS is bad when it comes to trying to find apps that aren't trying to shove subscription plans. They seem to push it like youtubers begging you to like and subscribe. No 'Contains ads' notice either, so it was the first time I discovered that talking video ads exist.
2
Wow it looks like I haven't used the playstore for a long time now... I guess I install app from a link in a web browser or github page or something, but searching and browsing the playstore I have not done in years.
7Yeah precisely what I went through also, I have f-droid, Aurora store, even obtainium for those apps you usually get updates directly on their GitHub pages, going back to the Playstore has been a eye opener.
6
7It's awful. I would never go there to discover an app. I download most apps these days by searching for them from my launcher and then clicking the link to search the playstore for that keyword.
5Doesn't appear to happen to me, probably some kind of glitch https://postimg.cc/CdqZRDt1
1Might be, I have reduced the number of ad columns by one, with this latest screenshot. Not getting the same result as you. Then again, that could be because my android version is older and such.
1Yeah but you got the large video body from the game you searched for. Seems like this is much better.
1
