Help for the non-tech but still logical re browsers and problems downloading apps

[buckmaker]

Call me skeptical or cheap but I am convinced that most software and constant "upgrades" that take more memory are not for safety but simply a form of spyware to capture data to sell. So, for economy, longevity, speed and older OS, that may be less able to capture that data, I recently bought used chromebooks. The first one worked well until the plastic around hinges disintegrated from stress (bad design). The next one, is like brand new with touch-screen and good speakers facing me (old one had speakers on the backside in part because the design was to swivel 360 (likely why the plastic surrounding could not handle the stress). I was able to effectively sync or migrate all my old saved sites and passwords except for the Brave Browser and two VoiP programs that I was forced to try and download from PlayStore. But, it did not seem to recognize my new hardware, only the old one and my phone that I set up with the same Google email account. Both of the OS were no longer supported, yet I downloaded to the last but could not to the new one. The message was that they could download but when I tried the error was they would download "SOON". Soon did not come so, my question is this some setting I missed or changed on the new one because it seems very odd that I would not get a different response if the OS was not compatible? Any help is appreciated.