Play Store now trying to update apps from other sources?

lbschenkel

I prefer to install apps from F-Droid when they have a suitable candidate. I have been doing this for a decade. Play Store has been smart enough not to try to update those apps, as they have different signatures from the non-store version and updating those would never work. However, lately that has changed and Play Store shows some apps in "Update Available", and naturally it won't work if I try to update them from there, so they remain stuck in that list. Cleaning cache/storage didn't really help, since they came back after a while.

Has anyone experienced the same? I'm on GOS 20231212 and Play Store is version 38.7.32-29 [0] [PR] 587762951.

[deleted]

lbschenkel It's because it can see the list of installed apps. I think someone mentioned in another discussion that you can manually turn off updates (and/or notifications for updates?) per app in Play Store. Take a look there.

lbschenkel

[deleted] I am aware that it can see the list of apps. It always could, in any phone, GOS or not.

But the point is that apps can only be updated if the signature is the same. Play Store knows this (and its developers aren't stupid) so it won't show update candidates if they aren't really updatable from the store — until now.

The "ignore updates" checkbox is not really a solution as it still shows the apps in the list and then shows a popup each time you use the "update all" button, asking if you want to skip ignored apps. UI that is clearly designed to discourage you from ever ignoring updates, as it makes the experience worse.

Anyway, I am puzzled by this change of behaviour from the Play Store so what I'm doing in this thread is asking if I'm the only one seeing this.

[deleted]

lbschenkel you are not the only one who sees this, those who use Aurora or some other F-Droid clients see similar stuff happening too and if I used Play Store, I would be seeing it too, but knowing what is happening (using multiple app stores where all of them can see the list of installed apps and some overlap) I would just ignore it and update from relevant source. Luckily, I don't complicate things for myself so I don't suffer this way.

lbschenkel

With the Play Store It was definitely not happening. As I said, this is the setup I've have had for 10+ years and I know this from first hand experience. F-Droid does show (but has ignore functionality that actually works as ignoring), and Aurora has a checkbox where it can ignore F-Droid apps.

Since it changed now (I noticed in the last 1-2 weeks), I'm trying to figure out what's going on, if this is a regression from a new version of the Play Store. Reports from other users would help shedding some light into if that's the case.

eatinggrumble84

lbschenkel

I'm also having this issue in the past week or so.