[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How to stop Google Play Store from replacing...
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       Ask HN: How to stop Google Play Store from replacing apps from
       other app stores
        
       I had Amazon Kindle installed from the Google Play Store. Amazon
       removed book purchases from the Google Play version of Kindle. One
       can still buy books from the Amazon Appstore version of Kindle.  *
       I uninstalled Kindle from Google Play  * I installed the Amazon
       Appstore  * I installed Kindle from Amazon Appstore  Direct book
       purchasing restored.  Every few weeks, the Google Play store
       uninstalls Kindle from the Amazon Appstore and installs its
       version.  Being able to use multiple app stores is (imo) Android's
       primary appeal. If Google Play can arbitrarily replace apps with
       its own, that's a serious problem.  How do I stop this from
       happening?  I have verified this -- when it happens, going to
       Amazon Appstore -> My Apps lists Kindle (Not from Amazon).
        
       Author : daggersandscars
       Score  : 21 points
       Date   : 2022-07-14 18:31 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
       | zinekeller wrote:
       | Not a satisfactory answer, but you could disable auto-updates for
       | Kindle from the Google Play. IIRC the Google Play and the Amazon
       | versions use the same package name (com.amazon.kindle) and
       | signing keys, so Google Play thought that you have an equivalent
       | app.
        
         | daggersandscars wrote:
         | Thanks! I will give this a try.
        
       | millzlane wrote:
       | My wild guess is that the Amazon Kindle app was preinstalled by
       | your device maker. That's why I think it keeps installing that
       | version when the apps auto update. You can try disabling auto
       | update. There used to be a way you could extract the .apk using
       | apk extractor and then resign it with APK signer orijinal and
       | android would think it was a different app. I'm not sure if that
       | is still the case though.
        
         | daggersandscars wrote:
         | Thanks for your response! It's a Samsung S22 Ultra, purchased
         | unlocked.
         | 
         | As far as I can tell, Kindle was not pre-installed by Samsung,
         | as it would have been preinstalled from the Galaxy Store.
         | 
         | The version of Kindle that keeps replacing the Amazon Appstore
         | version is specifically from Google Play.
        
       | sanderr wrote:
       | Same hapens with Fairemail if you install it from Github.
        
         | david_allison wrote:
         | Get in touch with the maintainers if it's causing a problem,
         | they probably don't realise and it's typically very easy to
         | perform a parallel release under a different applicationId.
         | 
         | GPL'ed code, but so is FairEmail:
         | 
         | https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/blob/7082f6ee93ed1...
         | 
         | Most of the relevant code is in parallel-package-name.sh
        
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       (page generated 2022-07-14 23:02 UTC)