How Turn Off Play Store Auto Updates

[startac4]

A family member discovered today that google Play Store had updated all the apps on her Samsung phone. It had not done that before so something got changed that enabled it - but I don't know what that is. How does she stop these auto updates? At one point a long time ago I stopped it on my LG phone but I can't remember how I turned it off.

 

[startac4]

I found it buried off-screen under a list when selecting google play bar. It's "Settings" but one has to know to keep scrolling down and and down to find it, then go to "Network Preferences" which is not where apps updates should be. But ...that's google! In any case question is answered but still don't know what changed that setting from being off.

 

[Hadron]

I find it silly how hard Google make it to find Settings in the current Play Store app: it's much less obvious than it was in previous designs. But once you find that they at least make it visible from the top page where this setting is:



No idea why the setting might have changed though. Was it a new phone? Just speculating that if it was then maybe her previous preference was not carried over (most of these companies like auto update to be the default).

 

[startac4]

Thanks Hadron for agreeing about the design. No, it wasn't a new phone. I'm not going to worry about it other than henceforth to have that setting checked regularly.

 

[puppykickr]

My guess is that a system and/or 'security' update was allowed to go through, and Google wanted to update some of their built in spyware on the device.

Too many times have I woken up to find a device that was no longer mine because of some useless to me bullcrap 'update' that changed all my settings and updated tons of apps that I did not want updated.

This is a huge reason why I avoid Google whenever possible.

 

[nickdalzell]

A lot of times the Play Store updates what it considers 'critical' system apps even with the setting turned off (never auto-update apps). Also some apps get 'server side' updates where the UI can be redesigned to fit with say, the Android 12 "Material You" look, even without actually updating the app--Google apps are commonly updated server-side. I never updated Maps on one of my tablets that runs 4.3 Jelly Bean but it has the design of Android 9.x even though the app never got updated and has the older, Holo UI icon.

Annoys me to no end. I hate redesigns especially when they're downgrades visually, and when they move things around where I have to rediscover them it breaks my flow. That's why nothing I use today has the Play Store, or Play Services and no Google Account. I don't trust them to not change something even on 2.3 Gingerbread so I err on the side of caution and ditch any chance even to the point of disabling the download manager (most apps such as Amazon Music, Dolphin Browser, Samsung Internet, Kindle, etc don't need the system download manager since they have their own managers) so noting can download without permission including system updates. I no longer believe in updates after being burned too often by them.

For example, even without a Google account, my Galaxy S4 updated everything due to Play Services doing its malware-magic (look at its permissions and tell me it ain't malware) and the only way to permanently undo it was to uninstall all updates and disable both Play Services and the download manager.

Many people on forums think I'm stupid and tell me how I'm gonna get hacked running such 'outdated software' but for some reason, the 'outdated software' feels far more futuristic and works for me best. Why they care what I do with MY PHONE is a mystery. They feel outright threatened by the fact someone out there uses their Galaxy SII as a daily driver in 2022.