this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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Using Google services is not a strict requirement to run Android. There are whole online communities around unGoogled Android.
I’ve long considered making this switch from iPhone to an ungoogled Android device. What always bothered me is still basically having to install proprietary apps from a Play Store adjacent source. Like the Aurora store is basically just the Play Store logged under someone else’s account. I know you can side load but that’d be a pain to maintain updates. Wish there was like a Flathub-like store on Android I could use instead.
Its called F-Droid
There's no proprietary apps on F-Droid. It doesn't even have Signal which is open source.
I'm not sure what's your pain point then? With Aurora you can install and automatically update proprietary apps. You can use anonymous accounts so you are not officially logged in (does this still work?). If you want FOSS, then fdroid. There's more updating tools such as unobtanium, but seems what you want is Aurora.
I’d just like to be completely free of Google’s app distribution infrastructure if possible. I’ll have to look into unobtanium. I haven’t heard of that one previously.
Google s is the largest, but not the only one. Amazon, Samsung and some OEMs have their own app stores too.
There are alson sites that archive and distribute apks, like Apkmirror.
I have a tablet logged to nothing (as in no account, not the OEM) and all my apps come from fdroid, obtanium or apkmirror.
It started as an experiment, and honestly it's (for me) not a big hurdle, but an app store would make things easier, that's for sure.
Obtainium does look sick. This might be what I was looking for.
I am not sure why you think this is so bad. You have a way to upload the apps you can’t get on F-Droid (default or by adding repositories (I have microG, DivestOS, Molly, Cheogram repos)). Many apps work fine enough without Play services with microG—except the stupid banking ones that don’t want you to root, run custom OS, unGoogle, or literally do anything with the device you own.
Personally I hope this is all a stop-gap to Linux phones. I tried Ubuntu Phone last year & while parts of it looked great, the rough edges were apparent—especially the chroot environments for applications not in the Ubuntu store.