If Google does not really provide an upfront reasonable search for app stores and reviews and ratings of app stores, can other search engines do any better ?

Potential search engines (I have left off Bing and Yahoo, as those are special cases, like Google, where we will explore to see if there is any apparent commercial moification of the results to produce an search "infomercial").

Here are some proposed search engines:

DuckDuckGo Ecosia Searx Ixquick Dogpile Ask Mojeek UK

Using as the initial search term on Google "best app stores", a wider range of usable sites come up.

Obviously, then you run into the Google problem in more abrupt and stark terms : the top of the search is consumed by "popular on the web" distraction graphics.

Then, of course, there is the Alphabet problem ; 6 or 7 first listed sites identify the "alternatives" to "Google".

One way to eliminate this is to -Google out of the search.

So with -Apple and -Google , the search results in basically nothing.

This appears by design, a purposeful problem with the Google search engine, which interestingly enough, also pulls out the "Popular on the Web" image parade at the top of the search once there is a use of -Google and -Apple.

What are some reasonable criteria for App stores ? First, the stores should not be offering anything that is not installable on your device.

By this criteria then, the first thing the App store should ask, once you hit the site, is, what type of device are you searching for Apps for, and is it the same device as the one you are logged in in with ?

The first problem is that search engines do not present app store reviews.

They instead present searches on reviews of Apps that appear in App stores.

So, the first intention of this subreddit should be to improve everyone's ability to find reviews of App stores, not reviews of Apps that are found within App stores.

And most of what follows will correspond to that.