right here’s one of the simplest ways to search out Play Retailer apps

It by no means fails to amaze me how unhealthy Google is and continues to be at search. For an organization that made its bones on this class, its apps lack the power to adequately assist me discover what I’m in search of, and I can’t consider a worse instance than the Google Play Retailer.

I’ve talked about a number of of the Play Retailer’s flaws in a latest function, however its search performance — or lack thereof — continues to be one situation I can’t appear to shake. Fortunately, others have observed this drawback and developed their very own pioneering options. Lately, I found an app that makes discovering Android apps a lot simpler; it’s referred to as App Finder.

Past providing a smattering of “sponsored” apps on the prime of the search outcomes web page and advertisements wherever there’s room, the Play Retailer’s search outcomes lack fine-tuning. You get what Google needs you to get. It’s not about looking for a selected app, however about prompting Google to counsel what it believes you need. One can perceive how this could result in loads of annoyance.

App Finder takes a distinct strategy by handing again management to the consumer. It’s a third-party search engine that reliably sniffs out Play Retailer apps primarily based on user-defined standards. It’s successfully the Superior Search instrument in Google Seek for the Play Retailer, and pulls particulars from an app’s title, package deal title, abstract, description, and even the changelog. This makes it farther-reaching than the answer baked into Google’s personal app.

After set up, you’ll discover one obtrusive situation with App Finder; it’s in no way a Materials 3 Expressive-adhering app. One of the simplest ways to explain App Finder’s UI is to say it’s aesthetically humble. Its house display closely privileges perform over kind, however I quickly realized this can be a optimistic resolution. In spite of everything, it’s a search instrument not an app magnificence pageant entrant. It’s user-customizable too, permitting me to pick out which search modifiers I would like available.

Discover apps simply utilizing filters, modifiers, and scales

If I wish to seek for a selected app, I can sort my question into the search bar — similar to the Play Retailer. Nonetheless, not like Google’s surface-level resolution, I don’t obtain a screenful of advertisements masquerading as outcomes. Regardless of this benefit, I don’t use App Finder this fashion, at the very least if I’m looking for a preferred or main app. As an alternative, its actual energy is in its search modifiers, filters, and sliding scales.

Let me present an instance. If I wish to discover all apps with the time period “music” of their title, I sort this into the search bar. Straightforward. With none filters utilized, App Finder highlights greater than 55,600 outcomes. (Hilariously, that is already extra info than the Play Retailer offers.) Nonetheless, if I transfer the Common consumer ranking to at the very least 4.7, improve the Variety of rankings slider to 100k, and toggle on the No advertisements selector, I can whittle that all the way down to 30 outcomes. This stage of management over which apps seem in your search report is just not achievable within the Play Retailer.

There are a ridiculously wide selection of filters and sliders in App Finder. Customers can management the entire variety of downloads and the in-app worth vary, or filter by launch, up to date dates, or style, and even kind by present downloads/month. That latter element is a far smarter metric for charting app recognition than the Play Retailer’s trending charts. You can too view this information by nation or see aggregated worldwide information.

I additionally frequently use App Finder to hunt out apps which can be on sale — it’s a nifty cheat code for locating video games. When you crank up the ranking to the excessive 4s, you’ll be able to usually discover some fairly entertaining titles lurking throughout the Play Retailer. It’s equally helpful for locating new titles that simply hit the Play Retailer’s gaming class.

One way or the other, in the event you want much more management, you’ll be able to benefit from App Finder’s search operators. I can embrace a + to demand that outcomes embrace a selected phrase of their title or abstract, discarding different outcomes. Then there’s using quotes, which permits me to seek for precise, lengthier strings. OR permits me to seek for outcomes that will include a number of phrases (for example, video participant OR media participant). App Finder dedicates a whole in-app assist web page for these operators. I actually admire this little element, and I nonetheless go to this web page every now and then.

As a lot as I like App Finder, it does have areas in want of additional polish. Sure, the UI is purposeful and intuitive, but it surely nonetheless feels decidedly dated. The outcomes display might do a greater job of highlighting related data, and textual content spacing and weight does really feel too compressed for my liking.

Then there are the event query marks. Though App Finder continues to be absolutely purposeful, it hasn’t seen an replace since October 2024. Extra worrying, the developer has famous that it’s planning “AI-based pure language search,” which makes my pores and skin crawl and would different anti-AI shoppers, too. Does App Finder want such an addition? No, I don’t imagine it does. Does something with the phrase AI in it proceed to promote? Publishers and builders certain appear to suppose so.

Lastly, it’s price noting that App Finder does have a paid part. Though the majority of the app is obtainable to shoppers without cost (at the very least on the time of this writing), you’ll have to improve to unlock extra filters, enhanced scale ranges, and the power to export information for additional examine. Given its performance, App Finder just isn’t all that costly both. The Final tier is round $10 for a lifetime unlock, and offered that Google doesn’t make any main adjustments to the Play Retailer that disrupt App Finder’s performance, this doesn’t appear too steep.

With Google frequently delivering a sub-par search expertise on the Play Retailer, it’s turning into extra needed moderately than handy to make use of a third-party search app like App Finder to find fascinating gross sales, trending, and hidden apps. Sure, it certain has its quirks, however I can not knock the unimaginable customizability, performance, and data that App Finder offers.