An article on why you should stop using the Google Play Store and find a privacy focused efficient alternative
DeGoogle intensity level: 6-7+
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit (SDK) and published through Google. Google Play has also served as a digital media store, offering games, music, books, movies, and television programs. Content that has been purchased on Google Play Movies & TV and Google Play Books can be accessed on a web browser and through the Android and iOS apps.
The Google Play store has lots of problems, but is hard to alternate from (due to vendor lock-in) below are a list of problems with the Google Play store.
Google Play is a prominent example of vendor lock-in. Like the iOS/iPadOS App Store, there aren't any other good systems that support most programs written for Google Play. Someone switching from Apple would have to start all over with their applications, and in most cases, lose access to apps. The same happens with Google Play.
The Google Play store is proprietary (closed source) so you cannot see what is going on in the background. Proprietary software is most often a form of malware.
As Android is a continuously updating operating system, apps designed for older versions stop working if they aren't updated to fit the newest versions. To make things even more problematic, if you own an older device, you may be blocked from using the Google Play store at all, and apps that don't work under certain versions of Android are completely removed, even if the app was once a notable one (such as Angry Birds or iBlast Moki) you may still be able to redownload some of these if you had previously downloaded them under a Google account, but they may not work at all.
Using the Google Play Store requires a Google Account, and also a device running Android or ChromeOS/ChromiumOS, both of which violates user privacy and security.
Google Play does not regulate apps very well. If you want to see an example of how poorly regulated the market is, simply look up almost any advertisement produced for Android programs.
Possible rant, may need cleanup
Some apps are overregulated, and most apps aren't regulated at all. Google claims that it is impossible to get malware from Android, but some of the top 10000 apps are actually malware ("current" is a money scam app that asks you to turn off developer settings. If you do so (or if they weren't already on) this application will begin to modify your device and popup ads. Luckily, it is easy to uninstall. This scam is still going years later (since 2019 at least) and has been advertisement immensely, with no-one at Google batting an eye)
Several Android programs have anti-VM code, meaning that they won't work under a virtual machine.
Additionally, small developers who want to distribute Android distributions or install a virtual machine will either have to go through a massive hassle, or be completely forbidden from putting Google Play into their setup.
See above.
F-Droid is an open source alternative to the Google Play Store. It only allows the distribution of GPL licensed Android programs (APK files) so this way, you can know you aren't getting proprietary malware. You also (most of the time) support smaller software developers this way.
List another alternative here
Why you should have avoided the Android Market - Information on the Google Play Stores predecessor: the Android Market
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File version: 1 (2023, Friday, April 14th at 5:01 pm PST)
