Post in englisg first, french is below/ Message en anglais d’abord, la version française est en dessous.
After several years on FP with the regular android OS, I chose to switch to FP Open OS (now 19.05.2) to avoid beeing tracked, particularly by G. I have installed the F-Droid store but it happens that I am interested by one or two apps that aren’t open, in particular Signal to avoid Whatsapp (which belongs to Facebook with the same problems of using unethically our datas) for example.
Until this spring 2019, Yalp Store was working well but then I saw that I couldnot use it no more, so I used the ‘Aurora Store’, in anynomous mode (no account).
This end of august, I cannot update the apps or use the store again (it says ‘no internet connexion’). On the F-Droid store, I can find a new ‘Aurora Store’ by Rahul Kumar Patel but it happens not to work regurlaly in anynomous mode.
Is anyone knows about that store and the way to access it without G account ?
Otherwise, anyone knows how to access apps that are not available on the F-Droid store ?
Thank you very much for your help.
Après plusieurs années sur FP avec android d’origine, j’ai choisi de basculer sur FP Open OS (actuellement 19.05.2) pour éviter d’être trackée par G. J’ai installé le magasin F-Droid mais il se trouve que j’apprécie une ou deux applications propriétaires, en particulier Signal pour éviter Whatsapp par exemple (qui appartient à Facebook et présente les mêmes problèmes d’exploitation non éthique de nos datas).
Jusqu’au printemps 2019, j’utilisais le Yalp Store mais à partir de juin environ je n’ai plus réussi à mettre à jour les applis, donc j’ai chargé Aurora Store, en mode anonyme.
Cette fin d’août j’ai contaté en le sélectionnant pour mettre les applis à jour qu’il indiquait ‘pas d’acces internet’ et j’ai vu un nouvel Aurora Store par ‘ Rahul Kumar Patel’ mais il ne fonctionne pas de façon fiable en mode anonyme.
Quelqu’un sait-il comment accéder les apps qui ne sont pas accessibles sur le magaisn F-Droid ?
Merci d’avance pour votre aide.
Beside that, I’m (currently) only using f-droid (and thus cannot recommend anything else).
The microG Store (Phonesky) might be a solution, once there is an app developed.
Thank you very much for that information! I succeeded into installing one or two apps. That’s really nice of you to have allowed this:slightly_smiling_face:…
I saw that, for example, the ‘blablacar’ app https://blablacar.fr.uptodown.com/android cannot be installed, because it says it needs G apps.
I am not sure what to do with information in that page https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/wiki/Installation: is there already a possibility, via installing ‘Signature Spoofing Checker’, etc…; or is it safer to wait for the Store (Phonesky)?
Than you anyway for your help. Good we to all.
The Blablacar app cannot be installed. I hate when that happens. And I hate having to install dodgy ‘applications’ onto my smartphone. I prefer prefer a good old HTML web page. I don’t have a choice with a lot of services provided though. Actually, I don’t even have a smartphone since my last one broke, but that’s temporary.
WhatsApp! You still have an account with Facebook? I understand though - your friends use it and they refuse to look for alternatives. You’ve found a solution that blocks tracking when you’re not using it anyway.
Google can do whatever it wants to me, I don’t even care.
Thanks for your precisions. Yes, I am aware we can simply use web pages and I often do so. But I try to convince others around me to use Open OS: they sometimes agree but have difficulties not to use their regular apps…
In my case, I had never had any facebook acount and closed last year my whatsapp account… I just replace it with Signal and see that more and more people are using it. But in that case also, it is very difficult to have people move from an app to another similar one, even among relatives…
Ah! So that’s what Signal is. It does everything WhatsApp does, except it’s free and open source. You already know this of course, but I didn’t. I thought it was some kind of tracking blocker. I’ve looked on their website and I’ve looked on Wikipedia, and I’m impressed. I’m surprised it’s not on F-Droid. It certainly should be.
J’ai peut-être trouvé un moyen pour installer BlaBlaCar sans Google Play Store: apkmirror.
F-Droid, c’est le meilleur, mais apkmirror, ca va, il semble. Je vous laisse vous renseigner. Moi, j’ai trouvé ceci: https://www.phonandroid.com/top-5-des-meilleures-alternatives-au-google-play.html
Puis j’ai suivi le lien pour apkmirror est j’ai fait une recherche pour BlaBlaCar une fois dedans. Je ne sais pas plus que cela pour l’instant.
Fairphone Open OS is practically the same as Fairphone OS except that it does not contain Google Services Framework with all its mandatory apps including Google Play Store. On the other hand it contains easy facilities to root the device and with OpenGApps you can get your Play Store and Apps in the flavour you like.
You might want to check out apk pure, it’s an alternative app store, where I get my apps which are not open. You don’t need an account and I’ve used it ever since I’m on Open OS (it’s been a good year and a half now). Anyone else with experience and/or informations about apk pure? https://apkpure.com/
If you ever happen to stumble upon G-Droid, this is a fork of F-Droid, and it’s supposed to be easier to search for apps and comes with a sligtly different design. But as fork from F-Droid, it has the same apps to download.
Hope you’ll find what you need.
Thank you everyone for those informations: thank you Anna for this ‘apkpure’ app I didn’t know.
I installed it, downloaded Linkedin after having uninstalled the last version (I tried several times, after having switch off the phone), but once installed, the apps doesn’t want to operate. Do you know what could be the cause?
So for the moment I dowloaded it from https://linkedin.fr.uptodown.com/android. It works but I got a chinese label: I don’t know why also…
Thank you to anybody that could give us some informations about this!
PS Just for information, there is also an indication in that page https://www.frandroid.com/android/applications/522592_meilleures-alternatives-au-google-play-store-boutiques-applications (sorry it is in french and I just used https://www.deepl.com/translator to translate it), but I guess we need to be careful about which apps we choose to install: fr ‘Il existe d’autres alternatives encore dont vous avez certainement entendu parlé : Aptoide, APKPure ou encore UpToDown. Nous déconseillons néanmoins leur utilisation. Tout d’abord, certains proposent des applications illégales, qui ne rémunèrent pas les développeurs, mais on peut également y trouver des applications ou des mods qui peuvent représenter un danger pour votre smartphone ou votre tablette. Cela ne veut pas dire que TOUTES les applications de ces boutiques sont illégales ou dangereuses, mais la plus-value n’est pas suffisante pour justifier le risque.’ en ‘There are other alternatives that you have certainly heard about: Aptoide, APKPure or UpToDown. However, we do not recommend their use. First of all, some offer illegal applications, which do not pay developers, but you can also find applications or mods that can be dangerous for your smartphone or tablet. This does not mean that ALL applications in these stores are illegal or dangerous, but the added value is not sufficient to justify the risk.’
Do you fancy adding yet another (free) social media service to your list? How about Riot? It’s on F-Droid, it works directly in a web browser if you don’t want to download it, and it does everything signal can do I think (video conferencing etc.).
Disclaimer: I have not convinced a single friend or family member to bother with this social medium.
Correction: It does not work directly from a web browser in Android versions (https://matrix.org/clients/). Also, there was a scandal a while ago about a dangerous backdoor in the Android Matrix app. I can not remember the details and I don’t know if it has been fixed.
There are a couple of apps that don’t work properly/can’t even be opened/crash immediately when opened if they can’t access google play services (because not installed on your phone)… Linkedin might be one of those, I’ve never tried it.