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Comment by pluc | Hacker News Reader

There's Aurora Store [1] as well. Both come default with CalyxOS [2].

[1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/

It's worth noting that Aurora is basically just anonymized wrapper around the Google Play store, it's not actually a separate app store. F-Droid is a wholly separate thing.

+1 for the Aurora store. In spite of being tied to the Google Play Store, Aurora is the only option I was able to find, via which to obtain latest versions of apps in a different country than the Google account, and maintain them via seamless updating process. While traveling, this is a must have option, as Google does not allow changing the "country of origin" of account more than once a year.

> apps in a different country than the Google account

I dont think thats true. I just searched Aurora Store with "ITV Hub", as its only available in GB, and I got no results, I am in US. Even if I manually go to the app page in Aurora Store, if I try to install, it says "Download Failed App not supported".

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.ITVMobileP...

I worry about Google nuking your account if they figure out who you are and you are using the Aurora store.

Is there any way to handle paid apps with Aurora, or are you limited to free apps only?

Using the anonymized login function, you're limited to free ones only. You have to login with your Google account to be able to download apps you've bought.

Although I think that doesn't work for all apps, since apparently some require the genuine thing to register / activate and won't work with microG. No personal experience, just read that somewhere once.

Personally, I only use a single paid app through Aurora Store (Sun Locator Pro for my photography needs) and have only done that for two days now. Google hasn't banned my mint fresh account. Yet. ;)

I use the Aurora store, simply because my banking apps aren't on f-droid. And without those, well, banking it becomes really inconvinient.

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