Haven’t seen anyone mention it in here yet, but this is exactly why I use Aurora Store to search for and download apps instead of the Play Store. It still installs things so the Play Store can update it automatically if you want, but you don’t have to deal with any ads.
To be fair, it is a service/website that sows discord in American society.
Exactly. Discord isn’t a service name first, it’s a word with meaning.
People acting like discord is a made up word invented by the app.
Which is why alternative apps are definitely putting the word “discord” in their metadata to get close to Discord in search results without fear of trademark infringement.
Remember that every time you click an ad, you cost the advertiser somewhere between 10c and several dollars. And that which ads you’ve clicked on informs which ads you will get in the future. It would be a shame if somebody weaponized this knowledge and clicked ads without any actual interest in buying the products.
I used to have an extension that hid ads from me, but in the background clicked on every one. I’m super annoyed that I forgot the name of it.
It made the sites I visited more money and hid the ads from me while hurting the advertisers (by costing more money) and ad networks (by screwing with the value proposition from advertising). It was great!
Adnauseam
Why did you stop using it.
That computer died and I’d forgotten the name.
AdNauseam extension for Firefox does this
have you heard of the browser extension AdNauseam? it basically does this.
It’s petty, but when I search for a company and their competitor appears above them as an ad, I always click the ad then close the tab.
It drives up their bounce rate and costs them money each time.
No. It’s an open secret kind of deal that most online advertisements don’t actually sell or do anything. In fact, a large amount of google views are bots.
How? Because there’s nothing stopping thousands of apps from using the ads incorrectly and showing them to phones or accounts or users that aren’t real people. At least with iOS, it’s very hard to run instances on servers or bot clients. Meanwhile, android can run on windows. Exploits galore.
But, no one cares. The companies are told to spend more on advertisement. The ad department of the company has a budget, they don’t care where it’s spent. So they buy ads from google and they don’t care who they get shown to 90% of the time. Everyone wins except the company but the company doesn’t care because they’re already making money.
Not to mention that the average consumer is shown thousands of ads a day. The more they see the less they notice the ads.
Basically ads are just designed to waste time for everyone. Truth social ads just lead to more installs by people already looking for their garbage app.
Glad we’re on the same page 🤝
I don’t understand how that is even legal.
There’s no rule against placing ads at the top of search results, and there is no rule against advertising Truth Social. The reality is that they probably paid more than Discord to show up in the ad section and so are first.
Play store search results are mostly ads now. It’s really bad and unhelpful.
In fact, most of the play store is ads. It’s impossible to find anything of quality anymore.
Use the Aurora store. It’s an open source alternative frontend.
The shittiest thing in the Google Play Store is searching for incompatible apps. Not only cannot you get an outdated compatible version (which is fair enough), they just don’t show up with no warning whatsoever. This encourages impersonation because way too many people just install the first result.
they just don’t show up with no warning whatsoever.
That’s so untrue.
Maybe something changed in 2023, I’ve been only using alternatives (F-Droid + Aurora) on my phone since January.
Also, your Android version is too new, which I’ve never seen before (and didn’t know that could happen).
That isn’t straight up a lie either. I had a similar experience before on an old device where it simply filters out incompatible apps. Not sure if it was just default setting or wasn’t modifiable at all. I don’t use play store anymore so can’t test it either but it certainly is a valid concern either way. Probably why it’s changed now.
I’ve had the exact same experience many times over the years and I’ve never seen anything like the message in that screenshot. Hopefully that little message in their screenshot is the default way of handling these things now!
I checked on my sisters phone and got the same message. Seems to be the default now.
People said I was crazy for pointing out that google actively sides with the extremely far right but at least now people are starting to see it.
Dude, mine promotes an app for finding friends.
Google is suggesting this because of OPs history. Calm your tits.
Mines a chat app for singles hahaha
Hahahahah
Cries
Out of curiosity, are you Canadian, or just on the Canadian instance? I ask because if memory serves the search results tend to be a combination of search history (if you have personalized ads enabled, you can opt out of them), country/region, and general subject/topic (so in this case social apps), probably among other details.
For these types of things there’s usually a statistical scale where you fall between your interests and your demographic interests.
An ad might be targeted to your location, gender, age, or your ad-interests.
Go to your Google Ad preferences and see what they know about you, it’s a lot.
That’s pretty funny. I don’t think that app is going to help you if this is how you treat people.
Don’t need it, thanks.
More likely it’s a combination of his previous search history and how much Truth Social is paying for ad space.
I believe it. The algorithm keeps pushing far right videos to my feed despite Google knowing damn well that I can’t stand Republicans. Not to mention that it likes to show left wing media to the far right, so that they can dislike it and brigade the comments. Yet when a Fox News video is posted, nothing but likes and praise in the comments. If you didn’t know any better it could lead you to believe that 90% of Americans are MAGA Republicans.
I would consider myself pretty leftist, but I still occasionally get stuff like that, too. The only thing I can think of is that I am into fishing and the fishing demographic skews towards viewing right-wing content, I imagine. Maybe you have some other interest that aligns with people who watch right wing related stuff somewhere somehow?
I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, if anything it’s got to be a hiccup in the YouTube content algorithm somewhere.
I mean not really, unless cars and computers are a right wing thing now.
The most conservative thing I do is own guns, but only out of necessity and not because I like them. I literally never watch videos about them so IDK.
The car stuff might somehow be skewing it depending on what type of car stuff, but honestly who knows. It’s Google, so they may be pulling stuff from anywhere that your Google/YouTube email is allowed to access data.
It could maybe just skew towards showing right-wing stuff by default because it gets its normal righty viewers, plus the lefty hate watchers that way. Those kind of videos probably get more engagement, too, with full on debates going on in the comments.
To be fair, it is marked as an Advertisement. Ads will always appear above your search results. Thats how they get you! /s
Weirdly i got some ad for a programme called Bigo Live - Live Stream,Chat as ad when searching for Discord.
Block ads?
How do you block ads in the Google Play Store app?
By not using it.
Seriously though, F-Droid (a Play Store alternative) has a lot of nice apps.
If you need some of the apps on play store, use aurora store
Yes, Aurora Store works alright for that
I personally use Obtainium, since I’ve found updating apps on F-Droid’s not a very good experience.
Obtainium looks interesting; thanks for sharing. I wonder about the security implications.
Use an iPhone bahahaha
(The App Store on iOS is just as bad as the Play Store, if not worse. They delete tons of legit reviews. The Reddit app is 4.8 where I am. Diablo Immortal is 4.6. I love my iPhone but the App Store is the worst part about it.)
I downloaded it for 10 seconds so I could leave a bad review
I wonder which companies advertise there
Bots, just like their engagement.
also a reminder that you can download Vendetta and have client themes and mods on android. i like BetterTimestamps 'cause i can just type out my local time with backticks like `10:00pm` and it’lll post it to discord as a timestamp, converting it to the viewer’s local time.
i’m using vencord on desktop but apparently shelter’s supposed to be better long-term in terms of plugins not breaking, armcord will let you use either.
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Why?
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While it is true that a major stake in discord is owned by Chinese tech and the company has a long track record of spying on users, and discords hegemony over community stimies the growth of other communities, telling people to switch without being willing to explain why doesn’t make you the hero. It makes you a jerk
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What’s your goal then? Do you want people to make better choices for the web, or do you just want a license to be a jerk?
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Not explaining yourself just makes you look like an idiot. If you explain yourself some people may look into what you’re saying or they may think you’re a jerk. When you don’t all you’re doing is being a petulant nuisance who presumably can’t even explain what they’re advocating for.
You seriously think saying “this thing bad” and refusing to elaborate is an effective form of advocacy in any sense of the word?
What reasons?
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