Could be, but that could also just be done locally. Like your phone checking the apps you have installed and seeing if the same ones are on the play store. Having an install limit for an app - assuming that means that the app can only be installed some total number of times globally (a local install limit wouldn’t make any sense I think) - necessarily implies that when you install an app through an APK, it has to tell Google that you installed that app so it can track how many people have installed it and not approve installation of the app if its over whatever the limit is.
I’m pretty sure that was implemented a while ago. My install of VLC from F-Droid started showing up in Play Store’s update list.
It couldn’t update since the signature didn’t match, but Google knew about it and included it anyway.
OboTheHobo@ttrpg.network 3 days ago
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 3 days ago
If your phone is checking for that information, it’s a safe bet it’s reporting it back to Google.
OboTheHobo@ttrpg.network 3 days ago
Probably. But that might be under the umbrella of optional usage statistics/reporting that you can opt out of. Since this new tracking would be “necessary” for their “security” feature to work, there’s no chance that it could be avoided.
BananaOnionJuice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I think that’s how it works when you have apps with the same name from different app stores, I noticed it with a different app like two years ago.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 3 days ago
That’s interesting. I was just checking to see if Cromite showed up there but couldn’t find it, is there a menu you found yours under outside the update tab? If something as simple as a browser I use is going to be blocked from installs/monitored I can’t see why I’d stay in this ecosystem.
davidgro@lemmy.world 3 days ago
That has just always been the case as long as the app in both stores uses the same package string. (Like org.blitzortung.android.app or org.videolan.vlc)
Peffse@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Wasn’t always the case (I think it changed within the past two years), but upon doing research on when it changed I stumbled on this gem.
kopasz7@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
“Google would never do something like that” comments just one year ago. Oh my! Google dropped the “don’t be evil” motto a long time ago.
davidgro@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s been the case ever since I started using Android (and modded APKs such as old versions of apps re-signed to not update) in about 2011.
Some of the root apps back then such as Titanium Backup had features to “unhook” an app so it wouldn’t appear as installed in the store, but my experience was that it never lasted long enough to be worth doing.