App Stores
Apps are a very important part of being private. Without apps no private communications, no private notes, no nothing. Technically, you can download all your apps from the internet itself but there is numerous problems with this. The first is that unless you are sure about the app, it could be infected with virus. Secondly it takes a lot of time and you need to check very often if your apps don’t have self-updates. The point is we need an app store where we can get apps safely. I have my 3 favorites but I still only use F-Droid.
F-Droid
This is a strictly open-source alternative to Google Play. It has most apps you would want. I personally only use F-Droid as I am all in on minimalism. I don’t have many apps but the ones I have all comes from F-Droid. F-Droid seems to be much more secure to use than Play Store as Google don’t always do a really good just at vetting people’s apps. Statistically there is less malware on F-Droid than on Google Play. This is partly due to the fact that Google Play is a cesspool but also due to the fact that as far as I know, F-Droid has a team that checks all code before it can be posted on their store. This of course causes the Malware level to decrease a lot.
F-Droid is my main and only choice of app store as I don’t need anything else. With that said, we got other options that Google hate equally to F-Droid. You can download F-Droid on the internet, it wont be found on Google Play for obvious reason.
Aurora Store
This is most of all Google Play but without a Google account. The store consists of everything that Google Play have and is downloaded from the official page or F-Droid. Aurora does not require a Google account and I highly encourage that you do not use one. I can’t use Aurora myself as I blocked Google and Aurora need Google in order to let you download from the Play Store without the Play Store. The reason why Aurora is always going to be better than Sandboxed Google Play is that it doesn’t require a Google account.
Sandboxed Google Play
This is the play store without privilege. This means that it has no permissions and can see whatever other apps can. This is a huge privacy benefit. I do not recommend using Sandboxed Google Play over Aurora as it requires an account. You could potentially install Google Play Services and uninstall the Google Play Store. (Both sandboxed) This would just be if your notifications doesn’t work. Although most apps that are about privacy today has their own notification systems.
The conclusion comes down to your own needs, if you have Aurora store you can get most apps to work but some will need Google Play. What I did to avoid Google entirely is to just not use apps requiring Google. I only use F-Droid myself but my model might not fit your lifestyle.
The download is within the GrapheneOS “App Store” app that comes pre-installed.
