It’s working fine for me while logged in. It’s always been crap when logged out. This is nothing new.
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.
Classic Graphene users, making this all about themselves. This hurts Aurora users, period.
Edit: I ran into the same issue. For now, refreshing the anonymous Aurora account solved it.
Aurora still works for me for now on Samsung stock OS. I now mostly install Google Play apps with APKPure over Obtainium tho and only use Aurora for those not on APKPure. And most of my apps are from GitHub/GitLab releases and F-Droid. I disabled Google Play and didn’t login to Google account. I don’t want the requirement of a Google account to install an app and Play Integrity to run an app. It is by no means acceptable that a company, using a closed source implementation that also tracks user and breaks Android security model, can censor what apps a user can install and decide what security and privacy compromises a user needs to agree to just use the normal phone functionalities that they pay for and by no mean require those compromises technically. They are turning Android into a service and a prison like iOS did rather than a software.
Time to install it. They wouldn’t block it if it sucked right?
It’s on fdroid.
I recommend blocking play store.
What?
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.
So that is why my Aurora store have been having trouble latley :(
Still blocked. Europe, Wednesday 7 AM.
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 what a few sites like apkpure do…
and distribute the apks on a different website
Or with distributed technologoes such as torrents. Then it’s cheaper to operate any required servers.
And also if a server goes down there are still dozens of seeders ready to seed you the files
That’s insecure
It is if you use cryptography or cryptographically secure hashing.
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.
I agree. Specifically, it’s privacy AND freedom (free software development model).
If these two are against maximum security, GrapheneOS consistently chooses security. Which is unfortunate for me, because I would consistently choose freedom. (Especially due to long-term considerations.)
You can disregard their recommendation if you wish, I do sometimes. If they were here, I imagine they’d say they don’t see privacy and security as contradicting each other, just that there are different threat models. I think they subscribe to the idea that not everyone is going to be sufficiently informed in order to make a rational judgement, so instead they default to lowering potential risk. They do value accessibility for the tech illiterate as well.
Yup can confirm. Some apps return this error (example tutamail and windscribe vpn). Fix it by downloading the apk in fdroid or github/ gitlab directly.
Same error here. Fun times coming…
Any experience woth Apkpure app? Apk files downloaded straight from them.
I used APKPure for a good two years without much issue. Just felt very scammy with all the ads and it felt complicated because I was never sure which version to pick. Switched to Aurora (recommended officially by Huawei) and haven’t had a single issue ever since. Can even download beta versions now.
I’m not having any issues today either, kinda wondering what’s going on to be honest.
P.S. Still using Apkpure for Roblox / Fortnite / Brawlstars (can’t remember which) on the tablet, for the kids, and that’s pretty much it.
mine is working so far. ab testing the breaking change?
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…
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.
Honestly, at this point we just need alternatives to some of these Google apps in general.
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.
I don’t know about FOSS stores but banks have been known to make apps and publish them on alternate stores (Samsung, Huawei, Amazon) if there are enough users. Off the top of my head, Revolut and ING Turkey have apps on the Huawei app store right now.
IMO this needs a regulatory push. If the EU encourages or requests EU-based app stores with relevant twists (regional for example), they will appear, and Google will have to accept them, and the banks will put their apps there.
No app developer wants to deal with Google Play, it’s ass and a pain in the. If a company has a local audience (like a national bank) and they get a store that caters specifically to that country and it’s easier to publish (and cheaper) than Google Play, they will use it.
Local stores don’t have to accept all apps, either. They can be regulated stores that are only open to certain entities in that country like banks, government apps, telecom, utility, public transport etc. That would take care of the most immediate needs for their citizens and liberate those from Google’s control.
I was in the same situation, but I slowly started to get rid of android/ios only services. Now my new bank offers every service on their web page + it has very convenient REST API where I can monitor my account.
Thats why we need an alternative.someone, some company, anyone that can make software that dosent rely on Google just to work.
Its crazy that even in the degoogle world, we still have to rely on Google. if the whole point is to not use Google, then what’s the point? We should have our stand alone apps should we not? We can’t make them but someone our there can.
We should have our stand alone apps should we not?
We should but I’m afraid that ship has sailed and without EU’s intervention it’s not going to change. I was trying to buy a train ticket recently and the app for local train requires Google account now. It will just keep getting worse and more and more apps will rely on Google services and require play services and google accounts. This will not be solved by open source apps. Legal solution is required.
I’m out of breath by this point. You want to scream now of all times?
