The voyager client has filters you could use to try and filter things out.

You can download videos and cut off sponsored moments in the video with sponsorblock.

GrayJay is pretty good!

Alternatively, in a similar fashion. Use “hail” to auto pause any app you want so they don’t run in the background unintended.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aistra.hail/

Even with inflation. Answering captchas for 8 hours a day will get you maybe 100$ a month.

Those “jobs” are meant for third world countries. Even then it’s a pretty low pay.

https://thebestbusinessadvice.com/captcha-typing-jobs/#h-how-much-can-you-earn-from-captcha-typing-jobs

Answering captchas pays much much less than that.

Yeah, because books, the web, and educated people have a liberal bias.

Some developers will publish their apps on github, you can download it, and use a different app to get the apk file from the app you get from the play store, and compare the hash of the file. If they’re identical then Google didn’t meddle with it. If they’re not, either Google did, or the developer releases a different version to Google Play.

Google playstore does not inject data in app packaging because it doesn’t own the signature key. F-Droid, however, does. I mean, they own the signature, but they do not inject or modify apps. They could, though.

Beehaw defederated with lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works because both of those instances allow(ed?) registering without email verification/captcha. They said it is bringing bots and spams. Haven’t seen this issue personally. I recommend being a member of an instance that still federates with both lemmy.world/sh.itjust.works and Beehaw.