Google's curation of the Play Store, while protecting their own economic interests, feels a bit like a dark pattern. The fact that adding " n" to most keywords prompts " no ads" in the suggestions shows how popular this is.
If I search for "tuner", I get two sponsored results first, then five ad-containing results with average 4.4 rating, then an ad-free app with 4.9 stars.
My preference would be searching by rating with a minimum number of installs. Even using the 4.5+ filter seems to be the quickest way to find completely ad-free apps. But, what really works best (but never quickest) for many apps is to find an APK somewhere else, like Github.
If I search for "tuner", I get two sponsored results first, then five ad-containing results with average 4.4 rating, then an ad-free app with 4.9 stars.
My preference would be searching by rating with a minimum number of installs. Even using the 4.5+ filter seems to be the quickest way to find completely ad-free apps. But, what really works best (but never quickest) for many apps is to find an APK somewhere else, like Github.