this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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Google enforces the installation of the crappy side bar google feed if you want to ship your phone with Google Play and Gapps
It also includes some other wacky tacky tracking and data collection bs, and some magic legal licensing stupidity that basically lets google control your software packages with what must be installed as system apps.
Google spent the past decade basically ensuring no competitor app store succeeds. No OEM uses Aurora, and only FOSS people use F-Droid. Samsung Shop is also a joke.
Anytime OEMs even try to make an alternative function, Google hangs their Gapps policy over them and prevents them from ever releasing into the market. Most notably affected are most of the Chinese brands which also got slammed by US government bans. "China government surveillance" is not an excuse when gapps literally do the exact same thing.
I think the last phone I ever had that had its own unique android apps and tools was the LeEco Le 2/S3, which came out in 2016. Nowadays, you can't even use allegedly superior RCS without google's crappy Gapps messages app.