Comment by zoom6628 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zoom6628 | Hacker News Reader

For who ever is interested.... I live in China and have lived in a "google free" microcosm for some time forced on me by the government. Generally do not miss anything at all - at least I dont miss anything i dont know about.

FTR i dont game or media watch on my phone. For me a phone is a mobile device for getting things done when im not at my desk. I use a Blackberry DTEK60.

The apps I use: APKpure for getting apps - great selection and its fast. But you do need to know which ones need GPlay Services before downloading. work : Blackberry Hub - use this for work and service integration. Simply the BEST bar none - and yes I am huge fan of BB devices and yes i do/have owned and used everything else. email : MailDroid - for personal email. photos: Simple Gallery - photos txt: YAATA - sms/mms pCloud: cloud storage riot.im: messaging with a few friends and family + calls T-UI: a power saving and very efficient UI for android TurboClient: ftp client - fastest way to move files between pc/Mac and phone

Have loaded and will try some of the author's suggested apps as well. Im not anti-google, just need to have my apps work all the time whether im in Hongkong or China.

That's much easier in China because all the important local apps are obviously available without the Play store. Like banking, ridesharing, payment, etc. App publishers in the rest of the world always depend on Play store and it's a real pain for people with Chinese phones who're travelling/moving.

Good points. In China one needs only alipay & wechat and basically everything you need in life is covered....and I mean everything!

Previously i used the xiaomi store for apps on local phones, and phones bought elsewhere and it worked a charm - looks first on its own store and then has option to search elsewhere for the apk. Worked faultlessly for me until i decided to switch to APKpure because the signing in F-Droid and its occasional blocking became a pain for me.

I think you aren't missing anything because there's always a proprietary alternative, but unfortunately, for true freedom, very rarely an open-source one.

Is there a way to verify that the apk on apkpure is the same as the one on Google play? Or is that site very reliable by itself?

I was having the same issue. If you are fine with something more homegrown you can use gplaycli[1] to download the apks directly from Google Play. I use it in combination with rsync, but it should be possible, at least in theory, to host your private f-droid repository with the downloaded apks.

Unfortunately, this does not solve verification of the apk signature. As far as I understand it, Android uses something similar to "trust on first use" [2] with apk signatures, so verifying the signature before first installation should be sufficient for most people.

[1]: https://github.com/matlink/gplaycli [2]: https://developer.android.com/studio/publish/app-signing

The first few times i used apkpure.com, i downloaded the same apk though some other site as well. The files were identical.

It is additional work, i now only do it for more important apps.

Apk pure fetch all the data from Apk pure so you dont need ton worry about it

http://pokevision.site/clash-of-lights-apk-download-free-lat...

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