The playstore is really poorly laid out. I dont know how to leave a review anymore. Every description has the same nonsense first instead of a description. Sometimes you can select the app developer to load their page with all their apps and sometimes you can’t. When did it get so bad?
I just wanted to flag an issue with an app and the review function isnt there.
OSM does have speed trap warnings but someone would have had to add the speed trap for it to work. Organic Maps (or rather CoMaps, which I now use) shows me when there’s a spred trap.
I avoid the play store as much as reasonably possible. F-Droid, Github/lab/etc, and FOSS alternatives are my first choices before venturing into that cesspit.
I’m not usually in the habit of defending the google play store, but I just opened it to see if I could figure out how to leave a review and it’s right on the app’s page, with five huge stars waiting to be clicked and a button underneath that which says write a review. I honestly did not think that difficult to find, and I didn’t need to click into anything once on the app’s page, so I’d hardly call it hidden.
I get “sign in to prove you’re not a bot”. Nah bud. It’s bad when this is key information that should be publicly accessible. Like just now the video of Leavitt announcing Trump’s decision on whether to get US directly involved in Iran/Israel war. This was a link from PBS.
Another route one can go that takes a bit of work is Obtainium. Hand-pick the apps you want to show up and feed their GitHub, F-Droid, etc. links to manage them. Since F-Droid has some issues with how they build packages, it can be used sparingly but not avoided then.
Go app by app until your dependence on the Play Store goes away. Then disable or uninstall (probably can only disable on most phones, I’ve seen anyway) the Play Store completely. Slow way to gain independence from crapware. You can then export your Obtainium config to a JSON file to import on future phones/other phones so you don’t have to duplicate the work.
Some bonus points, the non-Play version of one app I use shrinks from 120MB to 30MB when all the Google dependencies are stripped. You also gain back functionality like full filesystem access and other things Google forces apps to remove from the Play Store flavor.
More freedom. Faster apps. Less overhead. Less Google crap. Not a big scary transition.
Thanks
I just installed obtainium from fdroid. I’ve been using it and Izzy for a while. Can you list a few apps that you use obtainium to manage as examples of apps that you prefer to manage that way?
I really hate it when I search for an app the search result is on the right and the sponsored result is on the left. It makes zero sense and they only do it so people misclick and Google can charge the sponsored app for that. It’s the kind of shit that just makes the world a worse place, in the name of earning a few more bucks. Google could have made billions forever and be the good guys, instead they choose to be assholes because number must go up.
It takes a search term, turns it into a list of completely random apps sorted by whatever makes Google the most money in in app payments and adverts, and then shows it to you.
What more did you want from a store run by the world’s biggest advertising company?
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They are hiding it deliberately if people are more likely to leave critical or negative reviews.
I can’t leave reviews through the Google maps app either, the function is gone. If I open the mobile website, it’s there again.
Fucking hypocrites.
The maps is annoying, look up hotels, they hide the website behind a drop down in the hopes you book through google…will I fuck.
If OSM had speed trap warnings I would be gone.
Waze has speed trap warnings. They don’t have anything else (and were also bought out by Google), but for navigation, it rocks.
Waze has been owned by Google longer than it’s existed on its own, for several years now.
But then… It’s just Google.
OSM does have speed trap warnings but someone would have had to add the speed trap for it to work. Organic Maps (or rather CoMaps, which I now use) shows me when there’s a spred trap.
What about herewego? I find it WAY better than comaps. But im in bumfuck US maybe thats why
I avoid the play store as much as reasonably possible. F-Droid, Github/lab/etc, and FOSS alternatives are my first choices before venturing into that cesspit.
Yeah I have droidify on my phone but I had not installed a new app in a bit and my work profile blocked it. I deleted the work profile.
It was the mastodon app I wanted to review
I’m not usually in the habit of defending the google play store, but I just opened it to see if I could figure out how to leave a review and it’s right on the app’s page, with five huge stars waiting to be clicked and a button underneath that which says write a review. I honestly did not think that difficult to find, and I didn’t need to click into anything once on the app’s page, so I’d hardly call it hidden.
It happened slowly over time. 🥲
Ditto for YouTube. I always struggle to find my watch history and saved videos. And the fact search defaults to those stupid shorts.
I like to think it’s because YouTube are trying to force new content on me, but it’s probably partly just that I’m old.
I get “sign in to prove you’re not a bot”. Nah bud. It’s bad when this is key information that should be publicly accessible. Like just now the video of Leavitt announcing Trump’s decision on whether to get US directly involved in Iran/Israel war. This was a link from PBS.
I can’t post reviews on apps. I get a network error message. I assume this is from my DNS level tracker and ad block lists.
Another route one can go that takes a bit of work is Obtainium. Hand-pick the apps you want to show up and feed their GitHub, F-Droid, etc. links to manage them. Since F-Droid has some issues with how they build packages, it can be used sparingly but not avoided then.
Go app by app until your dependence on the Play Store goes away. Then disable or uninstall (probably can only disable on most phones, I’ve seen anyway) the Play Store completely. Slow way to gain independence from crapware. You can then export your Obtainium config to a JSON file to import on future phones/other phones so you don’t have to duplicate the work.
Some bonus points, the non-Play version of one app I use shrinks from 120MB to 30MB when all the Google dependencies are stripped. You also gain back functionality like full filesystem access and other things Google forces apps to remove from the Play Store flavor.
More freedom. Faster apps. Less overhead. Less Google crap. Not a big scary transition.
Thanks I just installed obtainium from fdroid. I’ve been using it and Izzy for a while. Can you list a few apps that you use obtainium to manage as examples of apps that you prefer to manage that way?
I really hate it when I search for an app the search result is on the right and the sponsored result is on the left. It makes zero sense and they only do it so people misclick and Google can charge the sponsored app for that. It’s the kind of shit that just makes the world a worse place, in the name of earning a few more bucks. Google could have made billions forever and be the good guys, instead they choose to be assholes because number must go up.
I do agree. Also the change log for all app updates now are: stability and performance improvements
That’s been like 10 years by now or more
The Play Store works exactly as designed.
It takes a search term, turns it into a list of completely random apps sorted by whatever makes Google the most money in in app payments and adverts, and then shows it to you.
What more did you want from a store run by the world’s biggest advertising company?
Dunno when, but been using Android since around Android 2, and I remember it only worsening over the years.