BTW:
this whole thing reminded me of something:
Unless you want third-parties deciding what is good for you and removing apps and doing other stuff based on THEIR criteria, you need to manually turn off PlayProtect and remove all permissions from Play Store.
Flat just deleting an app from your device without first asking if you want to allow it, and why, is bad behavior.
Every time I manually update apps via Play (I NEVER allow an "update all"), I have to go back to Permissions and turn off all the crap they want to do that has been re-enabled. Although I can't determine whether Play itself is the villain or the individual apps themselves, most if not all the stuff I have turned off gets "magically" turned back on.
Regardless of what Google's EULA says, my device is MINE, dang it, not THEIRS.
There is an "archive" option in the Play settings that *might* keep an APK for an older version around for future use, but Play might search it out and delete it too. I manually copy all my APK's off to another computer before I update anything. Doing that has allowed me to re-install an old version when the "newest and greatest" verison is severely broken or has removed some functionality I need. This happens a lot.
The strategy mentioned above of keeping an old device around and not letting it update is a good one. I have several.
www.epever.com
