It appears Google tries to degrade alternative application stores to just another app offered through the Play Store, and therefore subject to Google’s policies (including an annual $5,000 fee for policy and security reviews). So I wouldn’t be surprised this is very much intentional: as to force application stores through a channel controlled by Google, to technically allow competition (at Google’s discretion) while ultimately killing “side-loading” through other sources.
Remember when Microsoft was forced to give a “select your web browser” prompt when setting up a Windows computer?
Quaint times, those were…
Guys, work on improving Linux phone instead. Google is taking Android away from you and it just isn’t worth arguing with them about it. Let them hang themselves. Build a better alternative.
Platform is not the issue, apps are. Even on a Linux phone you will have to run android apps and you will have to install them from somewhere. And for most apps Play Store is the only place where apps are uploaded.
Nobody needs apps. We had a world without them before. We can do it again.
Ok, you go and tell all the companies to stop using apps.
My car charger? Controlled with an app.
Location of car chargers? In an app.
My bike GPS? Controlled with an app.
My gym entry? An app.
Climbing wall? An app.
You tell all those companies to stop using apps and add control panels to everything, go back to paper maps and RFID entry cards. I’m sure they will do it if you explain to them that there are dozens of users that don’t want to register with Google. Dozens!
it sounds like you chose to patronize places that force you to use an app – there are alternatives that don’t require apps.
they’re sometimes inconvenient AF, but convenience is literally the reason why we’re brining climate change down upon us and how the epstein class has so much control over us.
I guess you’re right. I will buy a gasoline car so I don’t have to use apps to charge it and I will drive to a gym in a different town couple times a week so I don’t have to use an app to enter it. This will sure help climate change.
Are you suggesting there are no charging stations out there that can be used without an app? I have been driving electric for 13 years and know you are absolutely full of shit. Sit down.
Have you been driving electric in Spain? Or do you think EV infrastructure is the same in the whole world? Ignorant clown.
You wish it’d be that easy. Building a phone isn’t the difficult part; building an ecosystem around is a huge task.
Where I live, you are almost forced to own either an Android or an iPhone, otherwise it’s tough luck getting banking, secure net identification, way to interact with the government agencies, bus or train tickets, etc.
That’s not a tech problem, that’s a regulation problem. If I am required to have something to use a service, private or public provided, that service needs to provide what I need to use it. I’m not buying my bank an interface to me. I’m not buying my employer a way to log in. I’m not paying for someone else’s problems.
Classic Graphene users, making this all about themselves. This hurts Aurora users, period.
Ironically, this hurts Graphene users the less because they can sandbox their google play services.
Misleading title. After reading the linked Gitlab discussion it’s more likely a backend change from Google side. Aurora does use burner account but early reports seem to suggest they are not flagged or rate limited.
How is it misleading?
Google actively blocking Aurora Store would be much worse than them simply changing their backend. The latter can likely be quickly resolved while the former might lead to a cat and mouse game, where it gets increasingly difficult for Aurora Store to continue to work.
Well, I don’t Aurora on my Graphene phone anyway.
I don’t use GrapheneOS anyway so fuck them, right? Why should I care about others when it does not directly impact me?
It’s working fine for me while logged in. It’s always been crap when logged out. This is nothing new.
Isn’t the whole point of it to get apps without login/anonymously?
Install it so I don’t have to have Google Play. Yes, Google can see what apps I have installed, but they don’t have their code running on my device. I consider it a 99% harm reduction.
It’s on fdroid.
I recommend blocking play store.
They are not blocking the download of the app from playstore. It was obviously not available there in the first place. They blocked API access to the google servers where aurora store was getting the apk files from. They just killed the concept of aurora store (and any alternative playstore frontend) entirely.
I was wondering cant we just scrape Play Store and distribute the apks on a different website? most apks has checksums so we will know nobody has changes the apk
There are a bunch of sites like apkmirror etc. that do that but eventually the large ones started enshittifying their service. On apkmirror for example you used to be able to just download the apk’s, now they’ve invented a special “format” that can only be installed through their app. Needless to say that was the end of that, I’m not keen on giving install capability to any more apps than I absolutely have to. (Zero is the ideal answer in case you’re wondering, but in practice it’s usually one, the system file manager. Any other app can download apk’s to /Downloads or go fuck itself.)
That’s insecure
It is if you use cryptography or cryptographically secure hashing.
Well looks like its time to start making alternatives or scream for Linux to come out with a phone.
Linux phones work, but they depend on many Google Android apps to be daily usable by normal people.
What alternative are you going to make? My bank only publishes their app on Play Store. I can either use Play Store app or Aurora to install it. You think that if you build alternative, open source store my bank will publish their app there? You think any bank will? F-Droid already exists, do you see any banks publishing their apps there? Do you see any of them dong Linux version of their apps?
The alternative here would be some other corporation building independent app store and getting everyone to publish their apps there. Amazon tried that many years ago. Maybe Samsung could do it now. It’s definitely not something we can make.
PostnarketOS sends their regards
But does it actually work like a phone? Calling, texting, no issues?
entirely depends on the phone and the setup you go with, postmarket is kinda more of a platform than a single specific OS, like if fedora made you choose one of their spins.
I’ve only used it on a pinephone (which isn’t exactly the ideal hardware…) and my experience on that was that you could probably survive using it as a fancy feature phone.
I’m out of breath by this point. You want to scream now of all times?
So that is why my Aurora store have been having trouble latley :(
Seems like clickbait but the graphene devs recommend against aurora store in favor of using a second profile with the sandboxed play store
The Play Store requires a Google account. Using a second profile is extremely inconvenient.
Graphene recommending this at all is extremely sus. My objective of using your operating system is to avoid giving Google any information I possibly can. Don’t know why they always recommend using Google shit in a sandbox like those packets aren’t still coming from my IP.
Its not sus. They’re just hyper-aware of security. And Aurora is just not terribly secure. Its just that you’re now choosing between privacy and maximum security. And I prioritize privacy, personally.
They pretty much only recommend Accrescent.
how is Aurora less secure than PlayStore directly? GOS devs literally never make sense, and of course they recommend a app store that doesn’t even properly label non open/free apps distincly, it is not like they evwr cared about FOSS just vague “security” theater
because aurora store isn’t developed by a big team of professionals with a massive budget, and aren’t getting security audits by other teams of well-funded professionals.
the point isn’t that aurora store is insecure, the point is that the play store is VERY secure (it’ll just also merrily sell your data to palantir)
