[mcv]

It's nearly impossible to find good, honest apps on the play store anymore. Everything is loaded with ads, in-app purchases, spyware, and wants way more permissions than it needs. Google is making it more and more attractive to completely sever the ties to the play store. Although there are a few things I still want from there.

[genpfault]

> Although there are a few things I still want from there.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/

https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore

[Tijdreiziger]

> Can not download or update paid apps.

[sudahtigabulan]

I wish they somehow find a way to offer incremental updates, like Play Store.

[jcynix]

Try the app Netguard which implements a nice firewall. I use it to disallow most apps network access with it. Some apps may be allowed to access the net when I'm on Wifi, but not when roaming. Netguard allows you to distinguish between Wifi and Roaming. And you can enable a protocol to check which connections are attempted if you want to to specifically disable certain targets.

Disclaimer: just a satisfied and paying customer.

[Paradigm2020]

Anyway to get net guard to work in combination with a VPN client (using wire guard )? (Using mullvad & mullvads client and can't get and netguard & mullvad to run at same time)

[dongcarl]

You may want to try using a generic WireGuard client (e.g. `wg-quick`) rather than Mullvad's client, you can generate a WireGuard config on Mullvad's website.

[dspillett]

> It's nearly impossible to find good, honest apps on the play store anymore.

The process of getting things into the app store can be a faf, an app maker who isn't making money off it is far less likely to bother than an app maker happy to flog your personal data for a few pennies, because the latter might make enough money to make it worth the effort.

[n_plus_1_acc]

I use aurora store to filter for ads and trackers