[HN Gopher] Tell HN: You can't add "no ads" in your Play Store a...
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Tell HN: You can't add "no ads" in your Play Store app's title
Due to the recent Play Store changes you can no longer "add text or
images that indicate store performance or ranking, or suggest
relations to existing Google Play programs in the app title" [1].
You can't, for example, add "#1", "best" or "free". However, you
can't also add "no ads". To be precise: appending "[small, no
ads]", "[no ads]" or "[without ads]" to the play store app title
causes a rejection. I didn't want to test more in fear of banning,
and in the end removed it. I know you can see if an app contains
ads in the app page, but not in the search results... or at least
not yet, but I doubt Google will add that indication. [1]
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
Author : TrianguloY
Score : 322 points
Date : 2021-12-09 14:28 UTC (8 hours ago)
| undersuit wrote:
| >Regular Expressions: Now You Have Two Problem
|
| When do they crack down more like how
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian will autoremove your
| comments if your username has the string 'ad' in it?
|
| I'm serious, this isn't going to be enough. Liars and scammers
| will find out how to get around the filter and create badly named
| apps regardless, just like how my spam is barely readable
| English. I can read it but a filter can't.
| Aulig wrote:
| Yea same here, recently got my app rejected because of "no ads".
| Not a fan of this change either, makes me prefer f-droid even
| more.
| coolgoose wrote:
| I always wondered why all these stores are so fucking awful to
| filter. Is it calculated ?
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| I imagine it would be easy to add a search filter for ads or no
| ads, but they don't.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Are there any third party search interfaces? Seems like it
| would be pretty easy to add automatic checking for ads.
| voussoir wrote:
| Yes, Aurora Store provides a filter for this.
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/
|
| And someone else mentioned https://playsearch.kaki87.net/
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Both Google and Apple monetize app discovery by selling
| advertising spots and such, and both collect revenues from
| inside apps (be it the mandatory-through-them in-app purchasing
| systems or advertising). As they are monopolies on their
| respective platforms, they have no reason to improve your
| experience, and so they do not care if you find the best app.
|
| They care that you find the app that generates them the most
| revenue, and that's exactly what they're going to do.
| fer wrote:
| Yes. I often find Play "hides" deep in the results apps that I
| had previously bought, even typing their exact name, in hopes I
| choose another (always paid or with ads) above them.
| webmaven wrote:
| _> Yes. I often find Play "hides" deep in the results apps
| that I had previously bought, even typing their exact name,
| in hopes I choose another (always paid or with ads) above
| them._
|
| Previously installed apps and games used to be listed under
| the 'Library' portion of your user profile, now you can find
| them under 'Manage Apps and Device > Manage > Not Installed'.
|
| Of those path segments, the first is a menu option, the
| second is a tab, and the third is a drop-down. It is almost
| as if Google doesn't want the user to find it, while making
| it technically available.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye probably they want to manipulate the "feed" like Facebook.
| Google Play have no way to filter on permissions, ads or price
| ... has to be on purposely, as it is so user hostile.
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| Along with what other people are saying, the app stores have
| little competition and already rake in massive quantities of
| money. They don't have much reason to improve anything.
| PennRobotics wrote:
| Google's curation of the Play Store, while protecting their own
| economic interests, feels a bit like a dark pattern. The fact
| that adding " n" to most keywords prompts " no ads" in the
| suggestions shows how popular this is.
|
| If I search for "tuner", I get two sponsored results first, then
| five ad-containing results with average 4.4 rating, then an ad-
| free app with 4.9 stars.
|
| My preference would be searching by rating with a minimum number
| of installs. Even using the 4.5+ filter seems to be the quickest
| way to find completely ad-free apps. But, what really works best
| (but never quickest) for many apps is to find an APK somewhere
| else, like Github.
| praptak wrote:
| > My preference would be searching by rating with a minimum
| number of installs
|
| This problem has a better solution - sort/search by the lower
| confidence bound for the rating:
| https://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating...
| ink404 wrote:
| Would prefer max installs filter instead of min to filter out
| the bigger apps that have budgets for seo
| PrimeDirective wrote:
| Sorry for the offtopic, but can you tell me the name of the ad-
| less tuner app? I've been searching for one, but the best I
| found was Fender's. Which is pretty ok, too.
| tambre wrote:
| I also ended up with Fender's, but it wasn't terribly
| responsive so eventually purchased a strobe tuner [0]. Has
| some disadvantages over something like a smartphone, but
| better for my simple usage.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.thomann.de/intl/ee/peterson_stroboclip_hd.htm
| jerf wrote:
| How can you have an electronic strobe tuner? I understand
| the mechanics of mechanical ones (they're really quite
| simple), but how can you have one with an LCD display? Is
| it merely a weird way of outputting the same electronic
| tuning you can get from any FFT-based tuning, and they're
| just riding the reputation of the mechanical devices?
| quitethelogic wrote:
| I use TE Tuner and like it. I don't use all the features, but
| the tuner and metronome are pretty great.
| PennRobotics wrote:
| Free Universal Tuner, by Dmitry Pogrebnyak.
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.aterlux.gui.
| ..
|
| I appreciate that you can choose the microphone source,
| change detection parameters, and easily select off-440
| tunings. It's responsive and accurate enough for my playing.
|
| The only issue I ever had was on the Fairphone 3. Starting a
| few months ago, if I had Google Assistant always listening,
| the tuner would stop working. I've since disabled Assistant
| and changed phones.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| > But, what really works best (but never quickest) for many
| apps is to find an APK somewhere else, like Github.
|
| My phone isn't totally de-Googled, but I always make a point of
| seeing if what I need can be found on F-Droid, and only
| searching the Play Store if nothing there will serve.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| Same here. Also, using aptoide for Android TV.
| commoner wrote:
| The Play Store already has a "Contains Ads" label for apps with
| ads. Preventing users from searching/filtering with this label is
| consumer-hostile.
|
| Here are a couple of third-party workarounds:
|
| - KPlaySearch (https://playsearch.kaki87.net) lets you search the
| Play Store and optionally filter by whether the app is free of
| ads and/or in-app purchases. Source code:
| https://git.kaki87.net/KaKi87/KPlaySearch
|
| - Aurora Store (https://auroraoss.com/download/AuroraStore/) is
| an alternative Play Store client that works without a Google
| account and without Google Play Services. Its app search allows
| filtering by whether the app is ad-free and/or dependent on
| Google Play Services. Source code:
| https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Honestly I'm OK with that.
|
| Title doesn't actually GUARANTEE there are actually no ads. I
| would rather train people to look for actual authoritative
| answer.
|
| (I also personally hate when games try to put attributes in
| title, it just makes the entire search list meaningless)
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| I suspect this is to foreclose against a future option for Google
| to monetize 'free' content in the play store without compensating
| the developers much as they do people's videos on Youtube.
|
| For those who aren't aware, in the games industry the distributor
| has been in the role of adding DRM to games on the pretense that
| they are "protecting their interests and channels". As the
| distributor, Google may feel empowered to make these sort of
| "protective" changes, and the one that would be most likely (in
| my estimation) would be wrapping the APK such that it played a
| pre-roll ad before your free game started.
|
| I could be completely off base here but to my way of thinking it
| would be consistent with Google's moves in the past.
| dheera wrote:
| Can we just all agree on an alternative language that means "no
| ads"?
|
| How about "coool" spelled with 3 o's? As long as you use that
| everyone will know it means "no ads" if we can get some media
| to write about it.
|
| I mean, this is exactly what happens on the internet in China
| when words are banned. No media writes about it but it spreads
| through social media fast enough such that it's not really
| possible to ban words. We can do the same for censorship in the
| US by Google.
| ryanschneider wrote:
| How about "Let's go branding!" /s.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I suspect this is to foreclose against a future option for
| Google to monetize 'free' content in the play store without
| compensating the developers much as they do people's videos on
| Youtube. As the distributor, Google may feel empowered to make
| these sort of "protective" changes, and the one that would be
| most likely (in my estimation) would be wrapping the APK such
| that it played a pre-roll ad before your free game started.
|
| I'd be quite surprised if Google forced ads into apps that
| don't have them, knowing full well that Apple would not do the
| same thing for iOS apps.
|
| While Google and Apple are in different businesses, they are
| both reliant on the same set of users for their different
| business models, and from users' perspective, they offer
| products that are both competitive and mutually exclusive (very
| few people use both an Android and iPhone daily).
|
| It's one thing to force ads in front of Youtube videos - a
| given _video_ is hosted on one platform, and users click links
| to the videos they want to watch with little sense of loyalty
| to a particular platform in the moment.
|
| But doing the same thing to mobile apps across an entire
| operating system risks people actually eschewing their product
| in favor of their competitor's, which would jeopardize the core
| of their entire business (search revenue is incredibly
| vulnerable to traffic on walled garden mobile platforms - it's
| the reason Google correctly saw iOS as such a threat and
| responded quickly with their investment in Android in the first
| place).
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| Sounds totally believable.
|
| The app stores are scams. Look at Apple's deliberately
| defective search functionality.
|
| Both these companies think nothing of stabbing developers and
| partners in the back.
| tauntz wrote:
| That would explain why they are trying to convince/coerce/force
| developers to hand them their signing keys during the last
| years.
| buu700 wrote:
| An alternative explanation is that Google was paid off to
| facilitate state-sponsored attacks.
|
| I wouldn't go as far as to claim that as fact, but it's
| nevertheless egregiously bad that Google suddenly wants a
| mandatory backdoor into every new app.
| pow_pp_-1_v wrote:
| I think the signing keys are required because of features
| like "play as you download" etc.
|
| [Not an Android dev]
| igneo676 wrote:
| The real Google response would be - it's to facilitate a
| migration to new signing keys in case the developer:
|
| 1. Loses their signing keys
|
| 2. Needs to migrate to a better signing algorithm
|
| Google can just handle that on your behalf. Additionally,
| there's no more need to care about signing keys at any
| point in the development pipeline. Rather than keep it
| secret, anyone with proper access to the Google developer
| console can sign and release apps
|
| More cynically, what they're really guarding against is
| other app stores. It's MUCH harder to migrate an app from
| the Play Store to another store if the signatures don't
| match.
|
| * Without a matching signature, the user can't pull their
| data from Google in the same way. They'd have to completely
| uninstall and reinstall the app, potentially losing data if
| the app isn't backed by a server.
|
| * With a matching signature, the other app store should
| pick it up seamlessly.
|
| Modifying apps without opt-in seems like a step further
| than they'd be able to pull off without massive backlash
| right now.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Frog leaps out of boiling pot, this news and more at 11.
| btown wrote:
| As we've seen with the complaints re: AMP [0], Google is
| incredibly talented at building "it loads faster" features
| that are _primarily_ a way to give them greater control
| over monetization in ways that are less than transparent.
| Requiring signing keys can be both of these things at once.
|
| [0] https://searchengineland.com/google-throttled-amp-page-
| speed...
| dataflow wrote:
| Google is a master at coming up with a "security"
| justification for whatever it wants to do.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _the distributor has been in the role of adding_
|
| That would cause (relative) avoidance of the distributors - and
| in the case of APK, any site could be a distributor.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| You are underestimating the prevalence and reach of
| centralized app stores. Consumers could side-load, but the
| vast majority will not, and that's where the money is.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| My simpler explanation is that putting "no ads" in title is
| meaningless and without proof and on its own unenforceable. As
| a consumer, honestly, as much as I want to rant against big
| companies and for small developers - yeah, I'm with Google on
| this one. Putting random unverified claims in title is bad.
|
| (concordantly, I fully support making "no ads" actual metadata
| searchable/filterable, as well as "Supports Controller" "in
| game purchases" etc.)
| gpt5 wrote:
| Your point is not specific for ads and completely ignores the
| dynamics of reviews. Your app will immediately receive a ton
| of 1 star reviews for misleading the users.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Which is relevant for trustworthy stable apps.
|
| I found it's irrelevant for fly-by-night actually
| fraudulent apps which are just going to redeploy with
| slightly different name tomorrow.
|
| (our experienced, mileages, and assumptions/preferences may
| wary :)
| bscphil wrote:
| It's worse than just meaningless, it's actively trying to get
| a bullshit SEO advantage, which is essentially zero-sum at
| best and makes things worse for users.
|
| If my app is named "CoolBrowser", the title on Google Play
| should not be "Better Browser than Chrome". If my app is
| named "SketchyVPN", the title on Google Play should not be
| "Netflix Region Locking Bypasser".
|
| At best, these are workarounds for the Play store's shitty
| lack of searchable metadata (why can't I filter out apps that
| aren't open source?), at worse they're Nigerian prince style
| scams that suck in unknowledgable users.
| joshstrange wrote:
| A bit of a tangent but I wish more than anything that App
| Store/Play Store allowed for more advanced search. Some of what I
| want I know will never come but I'd love to be able to filter out
| any games that have any type of coin/gem/currency for sale
| through IAP. Normally I have to rely on reddit posts or random
| blogs that I find with search terms like "$gameType game with no
| P2P/P2W" or "$gameType game with no IAP" but even that's not
| perfect. I'm perfectly fine paying for a game and I'm fine with
| the game having IAP for extra things like "No Ads", level packs,
| or similar but I despise games that have any sort of P2P/P2W,
| they always optimize for the wrong thing (making money >
| fun/interesting/etc).
| xd1936 wrote:
| It will definitely improve the readability of Play Store lists to
| have those titles removed.
| mrweasel wrote:
| The alternative is Amazon style titles which contains insane
| amount of details (because that is/was the only thing Amazon
| could search).
|
| Ideally Google would allow the apps to be tagged as free,
| freemium, paid and app supported. I suspect part of Google
| reasoning is that doing so kill almost all the apps supported
| by ads.
| onion2k wrote:
| That would make sense if, say, any phrase in square brackets
| was the reason for the rejection. The fact it appears to be
| only "no ads" means that clearly isn't the reason.
| notananthem wrote:
| Title is marketing drivel. If it is ad-free, that should be
| evaluated not by the developer. I'm a huge fan of not trusting
| developers :)
| perlpimp wrote:
| I wonder if no-ads would work. see I used Cyrillic a here.
| mandeepj wrote:
| You can't also add "new" in your game title. They deleted my
| account, just for that reason
| marcodiego wrote:
| I use e.os from the e.foundation. Good if you can live google-
| free. My app store I use is f-droid. It has instructions for
| reproducible builds of apps and, for each app, it clearly
| indicates its license and if it has anti-features.
| Kiro wrote:
| I fully support this. I truly despise the SEO spam on Google
| Play. The title should be the name of the app and nothing else.
| CynicusRex wrote:
| With "Aurora Store" you can filter out apps with ads, paid apps,
| or GSF dependent apps. Updating apps requires manually pressing
| "install", but other than that it's pretty neat.
| diogenesjunior wrote:
| the problem i faced is that aurora store is disliked by google
| and my account was terminated. would recommend though.
| anonymoushn wrote:
| Your google account was terminated because you installed a
| different app store on your phone?
| npteljes wrote:
| Aurora offers to use some built-in account, which sometimes
| doesn't work, or to use your own. I guess OP used their own
| and got banned. Similar can happen to NewPipe etc users,
| Google doesn't like third party clients - allegedly.
|
| Hacker news discussion of the NewPipe account ban incident:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21247759
| gibspaulding wrote:
| If I remember correctly, Aurora recommends signing into the
| app with a burner Google account in case of issues like
| this. I think Google's problem is not so much installing a
| different app store, but signing into your Google account
| from it.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| I'm pretty sure you can use aurora store without connecting
| it to your Google account, though you can only install gratis
| apps this way.
| Kinrany wrote:
| Is there an unofficial searchable index of Play Store apps?
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Not that I know, but there's this search tool which scrapes (so
| it's slow).
|
| https://playsearch.kaki87.net/
| dheera wrote:
| Can we just all agree on an alternative language that means "no
| ads"?
|
| How about "coool" spelled with 3 o's? As long as you use that
| everyone will know it means "no ads" if we can get some media to
| write about it.
| duxup wrote:
| It would be nice if there were better filtering options when
| searching the stores.
|
| Open source would be nice, but some validation would be nice and
| not sure that is easy.
| danShumway wrote:
| It's hard to interpret this because in the presence of better
| searching tools for ads, and better surfacing of metadata fields
| about ads, this would be a clearly pro-consumer move. It wouldn't
| even be remotely controversial. And my instinct is to interpret
| it through that lens, it is a policy that in many ways just makes
| sense. But I don't think there is a way to exclude apps with ads
| from search results or to search for add-free apps specifically?
| Google isn't taking advantage of any of the upsides of having
| "ad-supported" as a separate category of information. This is a
| general problem, search in the Play Store is kind of frustrating;
| it doesn't feel designed to help really filter information.
|
| I constantly wonder if I'm being far too charitable with Google
| or not charitable enough. It's a hard balance to strike, and I
| always feel like I'm slightly getting the balance wrong. Maybe
| the correct thing in this case is not to question the policy
| itself at all but to redirect all of that energy towards the more
| pressing question, "why can't I filter based on this category?"
|
| Because we can have a somewhat endless debate over whether this
| policy is good or bad based almost purely on Google's motivations
| and what they plan to do next. But most of that is just
| interpreting Google's intent; in the abstract forcing apps to
| move information out of titles into easily accessed
| categories/fields is a good thing. And in contrast to a debate
| about intentions, the lack of filtering tools around ads, and the
| lack of any ability for developers to highlight being ad-free as
| a selling point -- those are pretty unambiguous weaknesses of the
| Play store that make the store worse regardless of Google's
| motivations. The search page doesn't even show whether or not an
| app contains ads (or in-app purchases while we're on the
| subject), you have to go into the app screen to see that, Google
| really isn't putting a ton of effort that I can see into
| surfacing this information.
|
| That kind of stuff is negative, that stuff should be fixed. The
| search page does show the _price_ of the app directly in the
| result list. It should also show an icon indicating if the app
| has ads or not, that 's information that is just as relevant as
| the price. In a lot of cases ads are the price of an app, and so
| for UX purposes they should often be treated like they're the
| same category of information.
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| I wish so much I could simply pay for ad-free versions of
| software, and I don't mean in-app purchases to unlock features,
| which I wish people didn't do and instead had a paid version in
| the store.
|
| I use f-droid as much as possible, but there are a few things not
| available there.
| tfang17 wrote:
| Have new changes affected anyone else's Play Store Explore
| traffic?
|
| Would love to chat if so. We've seen a significant decrease and
| can't figure out why.
| pmarreck wrote:
| no addz
|
| The text above is spoofed Unicode and may bypass simple filters.
| Enjoy.
|
| In the event HN reverts these to ascii glyphs, try a regen from
| here: https://onlineunicodetools.com/spoof-unicode-text
| aww_dang wrote:
| >I didn't want to test more in fear of banning...
|
| This line says so much more than the words alone.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farmer_and_the_Viper
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:If_you_lie_down_with...
| [deleted]
| kache_ wrote:
| Good thing there are alternative app stores, and that you can
| straight up download and install an APK.
|
| I never go on the play store, and no one should.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Mobile platforms are the 21st century nanny state. You can only
| do what we allow you to do, because it's for your own good.
| drusepth wrote:
| FWIW, the store itself already displays whether the app has ads
| -- directly below the app title [1]. This seems reasonable to me.
| I'd imagine you probably couldn't add [no IAPs] to a title,
| either.
|
| [1]
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.StudioWhee...
| (random app with ads)
| motohagiography wrote:
| Very good to know! I had been mulling an app company that did
| privacy centric paid variations on popular free* apps, but it
| depended on being able to market them as being ad and
| surveillance free.
|
| However, if this policy precludes that, it does seem a bit anti-
| competitive.
| mynameisash wrote:
| I am an Android user fed up with Google, but I've never really
| focused on alternatives to stock Android. I briefly investigated
| Cyanogenmod and its successor, LineageOS, but never to the point
| of installing it. I do use the Gmail app on my phone, but it's
| not a requirement for me. Beyond that, I don't really have strong
| ties to the Google Suite of apps. I do have a few apps I've
| purchased and use frequently, but most are freeware.
|
| All that said, for those of you who have de-Googled your phone,
| how much friction was there? Is there a leader of the pack for
| alternate app stores (if necessary), and/or do you load APKs
| directly?
| pomian wrote:
| have been running de googled for more than last 6 years. during
| original setup of phone there is a lot of opportunity to shut
| down Google. how ever, can proceed and succeed most of the way
| with the right tools, and patience. vigilance in disable
| options is important. some times you can disable all actions
| after install - for example location, etc. F-droid is your
| primary source for apks. they have everything you need, with
| very good filters and warnings about privacy and other options
| of their apps. If you need some apk available on that is on
| Google only, then there are a few other sites, that package
| them and seem to work quite well. They look sketchy, they
| promote other apps, but I haven't had any issues using them in
| over 5 years. just click carefully. for example apkpure. You
| can get things like Signal, mapy. cz, Wyze and so on, better
| yet, sometimes older versions. In a few apps, while running,
| you have to ignore the message that you need Google for this
| app to work. I haven't had one that actually needed it. even
| Google photos. (assuming you don't want it linked to Google
| cloud.)
| stuaxo wrote:
| I really want a way to search for ad-free apps. I don't bother
| very much with the Android store because of this. If I want my 4
| year old to use my phone I don't want her clicking some ad and
| leaving the app by accident.
|
| As a result, I only have apps by the BBC and a couple of others.
| PennRobotics wrote:
| I don't know about 4, but for toddlers, use Screen Pinning if
| you're going to let your child touch any Android device.
| camelcasing wrote:
| ah so that's why my app got denied an update
| [deleted]
| distantsounds wrote:
| This is frustrating.
|
| One of my wife's favorite apps, Instagram's Boomerang, has been
| broken on Android 12 since release. No sign of fixing it. The app
| store has been flooded with 1 and 2 star reviews as a result. I
| went digging for an alternative. It's just playing a 5 second
| loop forwards and backwards, so it can't be hard to re-implement,
| right? Someone's gotta have an alternative.
|
| You have now entered the Clone Wars. Dozens of imitation apps
| that claim to do the same, with similar names, touting similar
| features. Except they are riddled with ads and often don't even
| do what's advertised without some big watermark or outright
| paying for it. I'd love to find the one that's ad-free and just
| does what it should but I'm wading through what looks like aisles
| of a dollar store. The curation has gone to hell and this isn't
| helping. We need better ways of sorting and filtering on the app
| store.
| ArchD wrote:
| Users are interested in apps that have no ads. Whether or not an
| app has ads is not part of the standard app info fields, so while
| publishers could lie in the title, where else can the users find
| out whether there are ads and why couldn't Google instead just
| ban apps that lie about having no ads instead of outright banning
| "no ads" in the title?
|
| I think Google makes no money from free ad-less apps, so it is
| plausible that allowing free ad-less apps to promote themselves
| as "no ads" (over apps with ads or paid apps) is not directly
| financially beneficial to Google and is perhaps even harmful. You
| can see the disincentives at work here.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I don't know why they have the policy. It is also possible that
| they don't want you to put something in the title that they don't
| have the means (or maybe resources) to check.
| kazinator wrote:
| Try using alternative Unicode characters; chances are the Google
| maggots forgot to normalize the characters in the title before
| looking for the substring.
|
| 0 ADS
|
| or whatever.
| amalcon wrote:
| So, let's be clear here. The problem is not that they've
| prohibited people from putting this information in the app title.
| The problem comes if they've done so without introducing another
| way for the user to express their preference for ad-free apps.
| E.g. it should even work better if, hypothetically, the search
| function prioritized ad-free apps anyway when the user puts "no
| ads" in the search box.
|
| I can't tell if this is the case right now because, well, the
| store is still full of apps with "no ads" in the title. Those are
| still coming up first.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Well, we can expect the heat death of the universe before
| google does something that helps promoting apps that have no
| ads.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Most of their own apps have no ads...
|
| And google doesn't require a share of revenue for mobile ads
| either.
|
| Some users clearly prefer apps without ads, and will have a
| better user experience without ads. Google makes lots of
| product design decisions to attempt to improve user
| experience (even if they fail often).
|
| Therefore there isn't a clear incentive to prevent the user
| finding an app without ads.
| jerf wrote:
| If a Google app has no ads, it is because the information
| they are gathering feeds into the other ad algorithms
| enough to make it worthwhile. They are in an unusual
| position of being able to do that because of their size.
| (Not unique, but unusual.)
| lostmsu wrote:
| What apps are you referring to? Gmail and GMaps, the only
| ones I use regularly, do have ads.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| The gmail app has ads? Where?
|
| The only "ads" I see in gmail is the metric tonne of spam
| I receive every day, and I can't really blame Google for
| that.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Maybe they tried them and reverted, I do not see them
| right now.
|
| But I've seen that previously: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=
| ffab&q=android+gmail+ads&ia=images...
| PrivateLaws wrote:
| I use LineageOS with F-droid... missing some things, but overall
| very happy.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Is foreign lanaguage OK?
| [deleted]
| ffhhj wrote:
| You can still put [no ads] or [PRO] in the icon, pro/paid in the
| title.
|
| That said, a no-ads app still has ads in Google's eyes if there
| is any promotional link, i.e. to your website or your other apps.
| Google takes down those apps if you don't label the links as
| "advertisement".
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the reason I got the infamous 'shadow ban' on
| Youtube for my Google account (i.e. I can see my comments but
| nobody else can, and my upvotes/downvotes behave similarly) was
| that I made a lot of snarky comments about how many ads different
| kinds of content had per minute of viewing time. I'd also note in
| the comments when Youtube gave the 'log in to see this age-
| sensitive content' warning (which didn't show up when logged in).
|
| They don't want anyone questioning their ad revenue model I
| guess, nor their algorithmic ranking system...
| edent wrote:
| Good?
|
| What's the alternative? Have a crappy, paid-for, add filled,
| bloated app promote itself as "Cauliflower Cooker Lite - the #1
| free cauliflower app. 100% ad-free".
|
| Metadata like file size, whether there are in-app ads or
| purchases, etc, should be part of the store's listing - not the
| title.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| > What's the alternative? Have a crappy, paid-for, add filled,
| bloated app promote itself as "Cauliflower Cooker Lite - the #1
| free cauliflower app. 100% ad-free".
|
| That's what we have on Amazon now. Looks like every single
| product contain all the metadata in product title. SEO spam
| from top to the bottom of the search results page.
|
| I hate it, but given how crappy filtering on both Amazon and
| Play store is, I still prefer to see more information about a
| product in the search result list than less, even if that means
| bloated titles.
|
| On the other hand, if both Amazon and Play store had usable
| filtering, all these bloated names would not be needed.
| npteljes wrote:
| The alternative I'd like is making common user expectations
| into formalized properties of the software, making them visible
| and searchable. Like how it lists "Offers in-app purchases"
| currently, it could also list "Ad-free", "Free", etc.
| chalst wrote:
| F-Droid does this already with its listing of 'anti-features'
| for each app.
| npteljes wrote:
| Yes, and I love it! I'm using LineageOS for the third year
| now.
| medstrom wrote:
| Yes, what I've sometimes done is search F-Droid first, then
| find that same app on the iOS app store.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| > should be part of the store's listing - not the title.
|
| How long has Google store been operating (under various names)?
| Over a decade I think. Do they know people would love to choose
| between apps with and without ads? Of course. Why they decided
| not to implement it in the listing? Because they live from ads.
| There is exactly zero chance they will do it as you propose.
| Kylekramer wrote:
| They've shown whether an app has ads for over five years:
| https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/04/28/the-play-store-
| star...
| addingnumbers wrote:
| They won't have my appreciation or respect until they let
| me permanently filter out paid or adware apps and keep them
| filtered out until I choose to see them again.
|
| It would be so easy to implement, it seems scornful not to.
| When I want a needle, they hand me a haystack and say "we
| etched 'this is a needle' into the needles for you so
| you'll know when you find one. Good luck."
|
| I admit I haven't used android for three or four years so
| maybe they have this capability now, would love to be
| corrected if so.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > I admit I haven't used android for three or four years
| so maybe they have this capability now, would love to be
| corrected if so.
|
| Nothing has changed.
| rpdillon wrote:
| What information folks are allowed to supply is distinct from
| ensuring its accuracy, I think. Misleading app names are a
| problem regardless, but given that many apps have ads and
| charge for the ad-free experience, it seems odd the developer
| isn't allowed to highlight that in the title.
|
| But Google can do as they wish: another reason alternative app
| stores have an important role to play.
| j1elo wrote:
| > _Metadata like file size, whether there are in-app ads or
| purchases, etc, should be part of the store 's listing - not
| the title._
|
| Well yeah, the theory is easy. I'd say "Yes" to what you say,
| IFF the metadata is usable as a search filter. Otherwise, it's
| of no use, thus not a better solution in practice.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Metadata like file size, whether there are in-app ads or
| purchases, etc, should be part of the store's listing - not the
| title.
|
| ???? Did I miss the part where Google announced they were
| adding _searchable_ metadata at the same time they eliminated
| adding this info to the title?
|
| If not, seems like a clearly anti-consumer move.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Listings show whether they have ads, in-app purchases etc. on
| a separate screen
| MereInterest wrote:
| User time is valuable, and must be respected. Data being
| present somewhere, in some form, doesn't mean that it is in
| a form that can be reasonably used. If I want to find an
| application without ads, requiring me to open every search
| result and manually check whether there are ads is very
| anti-consumer.
|
| My opinion here would be different if an alternative search
| interface existed. However, the Google Play Store's API is
| focused on developers and doesn't allow for making
| searches. In addition, the Terms of Service forbid
| redistribution of content, so a third-party API that
| scrapes the results would be forbidden. By removing
| alternatives, Google has taken responsibility for a good
| user interface (and blame for a bad user interface) onto
| themselves.
| mthoms wrote:
| Would building a Play Store search index that contains
| metadata and snippets (just like Google itself) be
| considered "redistributing" that content?
|
| Hasn't Google itself argued that such activities are
| explicitly not redistribution?
| megatoaster wrote:
| Searching 'no ads' seemingly won't query that tag,
| seemingly.
| drusepth wrote:
| Seems pretty trivial to eventually add, compared to
| trying to enforce correctness on results from user-
| provided tags in titles.
|
| I'm a little surprised you can't search for "no ads" apps
| outside of e.g. Pass listings, but I'm really glad
| they're not defaulting to just a title text search and
| cluttered listings of Farming Simulator [NO ADS] [NO
| IAPS] [NO REFERRALS] [NO TIMEWAITS] [NO DLC].
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| its trivial to add, yet hasn't been added in almost 15
| years, it is very much a title text search and nothing
| about this move indicates otherwise.
|
| there is no economic interest from google to make ad free
| apps actually findable, and no chance somebody making a
| better play store is going to usurp their position.
| handrous wrote:
| Even Apple doesn't have a "show only actually-free"
| toggle on their store for free apps with no IAP and no
| ads. Which sucks.
| tyingq wrote:
| It's not searchable for a reason. Ad free apps don't
| generate revenue for Google. So devs added it to the
| title. Google is now closing that loophole.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| App titles not being filled with a bunch of promo crap sounds
| pretty pro-consumer to me
|
| "It is what it says on the tin"
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Unless the tin says anything about whether or not it
| includes ads.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Referring more to the title field merely being a title,
| and not some banner to fill with attention-grabbing crap
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| It's Google's fault that the title is the only field that
| is searchable. They're never going to add a searchable
| "ads" field.
| kroltan wrote:
| Yes, because "Verby Noun" game titles and "<Word>-ly" app
| titles are incredibly informative at first glance.
| skratlo wrote:
| Absolutely NOT! It's waaay better to have huge multinational
| corporation dictate what's right and what's wrong and what's
| good and what's bad! And they do it for you my friend! For
| FREE!
| krolden wrote:
| Well its their platform
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| It doesn't work like that when you're one of two players in
| the segment, that's what antitrust is about. "It's their
| platform" would work well if there were any significant
| alternatives, which there aren't.
| drusepth wrote:
| There are many popular app stores on Android and you're
| free to use any of them (or none of them, if you just
| download apps directly from websites) without rooting
| your phone, jailbreaking, etc.
|
| A recent list of someone's favorites:
| https://42matters.com/blog/?p=the-best-of-2020-a-list-of-
| app...
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Apple and Google together have 95% market share.
|
| From the perspective of an Android user, a lot of the
| alternatives are interesting. Especially F-Droid.
|
| From the perspective of the app developer, it doesn't
| work. You use Apple and Google or you lose 95% of the
| market.
|
| And the same constraint keeps it that way. You lose most
| of the Android market if you're not in Google Play, so
| nearly everything that isn't explicitly banned can be
| found in Google Play, so most users have no occasion to
| install any other app store and the friction to
| developers using another one to the exclusion of Google
| Play remains high.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| I'd agree completely if you were talking about Apple and
| the App Store here, but this is Android. You can install
| alternative app stores on it without rooting it or any
| sort of advanced user skills. F-Droid is pretty great
| IMO.
| discreditable wrote:
| Google themselves have mildly loaded app titles too.
|
| Google Chrome: Fast & Secure
|
| Google Go: A lighter, faster way to search
|
| Gboard - the Google Keyboard
| Pxtl wrote:
| As a user, I'm constantly bothered by how poor the metadata is
| about how the app is monetized. And this problem occurs across
| multiple platforms - Windows Store is even _worse_.
|
| I do not hold it against developers that they need to make money.
| But when I'm searching for apps, I want to make an informed
| decision about how it's going to do that - be it through ads,
| through paid unlock of the full functionality, through paid
| subscriptions, or is it a paid-up-front app, or a combination
| thereof.
|
| The ability to filter on this critical attribute is slim-to-
| nonexistent.
| SquareWheel wrote:
| I'm actually glad to see editorializing disallowed in app titles.
| If everybody did it, the store would be a mess. I mean, it's
| already a mess, but even more so.
| sneak wrote:
| Yes, this is definitely the reason, and it's unrelated to the
| fact that the store is operated by an ad company.
|
| Lie to yourself, but please don't lie to others.
| TrueGeek wrote:
| The problem (with both app stores) is there are really three
| types of apps: paid, free, requires subscription. Devs are
| having to use titles to make it clear which is which since the
| stores aren't letting them use categories. It's frustrating
| (for both user and developer) when a user downloads an app
| expecting it to be free only to find it won't work if you don't
| pay monthly.
| SquareWheel wrote:
| I agree. I'd also like to see information for things like
| one-time, subscription-based, or repeatable in-app purchases
| (eg. "gems").
|
| Apple does a better job of displaying this information than
| Google. Sometimes I check what IAP are available on the iOS
| variant of an app I'm interested in, just to get a better
| idea.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| "No ads" isn't editorializing, though. Unlike "best" or "#1",
| it's a statement of fact, and a fact that is probably useful to
| shoppers.
| otterley wrote:
| The presence or omission of a fact is often the result of a
| conscious editorial choice. It is frequently the intent, not
| the nature of the words themselves, that underscores the
| editorial nature of the statement.
| Spivak wrote:
| Buy Uncle Miller's Corn Flakes -- 100% arsenic free!
| otterley wrote:
| Exactly. Another textbook example is the language
| describing meat as coming from pork with "no hormones
| added" even though it's unlawful to add hormones to pork
| grown for human consumption. Sure, it's a fact; but the
| choice to include it is made to provide a marketing boost
| over competing brands that might not have the language on
| the packaging.
| duffyjp wrote:
| Wow, that's incredibly dishonest to consumers! My turkey
| states "no hormones added," I assume that's also unlawful
| like pork?
|
| It should be illegal to advertise you're not doing
| something that is illegal in the first place if the
| intent is to imply others are in fact doing it.
| otterley wrote:
| Correct, both pork and poultry.
| Spivak wrote:
| The ability to use your regulatory obligations in your
| marketing materials and spin them as a positive is the
| carrot for companies to enthusiastically comply.
| zepto wrote:
| Avoid toxic chemicals - drink Coca Cola!
| Spivak wrote:
| Aspartame just hits different ya know?
| baseballdork wrote:
| Could this be in response to apps indicating that they don't
| have ads even though they do?
| petschge wrote:
| In that case these apps should be banned, not the use of
| "no ads" in titles.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Or apps which don't have ads when first installed, but ads
| later get added in an update. The user will likely never
| see the updated app name.
| rscoots wrote:
| That or the fact that google massively profits off the
| presence of ads in mobile apps.
| avereveard wrote:
| But the need does not exists in a void - the store does not
| allow to filter in searches apps with ads or microtransactions.
| peterkelly wrote:
| Good. Phrases like that are just spammy and annoying and don't
| belong in app titles.
| tehnicaorg wrote:
| Like the terms "fast" and "secure" in "Google Chrome - Download
| the Fast, Secure Browser from Google".
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(page generated 2021-12-09 23:01 UTC)