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Comment by erikvanoosten | Hacker News Reader

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GrapheneOS doesn't recommend Aurora Store for apps obtainable via sandboxed Play Store. We mention it as a workaround for apps setting their Play Store listings as requiring the Play Integrity device and strong integrity levels.

Aurora Store works without the default enabled account sharing feature. The account sharing feature is disallowed by Google's terms of use banning account sharing. We've warned about this very likely being banned for years and have recommended people make a purpose-specific Google account for this instead. Google often requires phone number verification for an account for anti-spam but many VoIP services work for it.

Play store works just fine on GrapheneOS. All of play services run in a sandbox.

You can install the Play store from the GrapheneOS App Store.

In fact I'm pretty sure the GrapheneOS folks advise against Aurora Store, etc.

The entire point is so you don't have to have a google account. Aurora actually works fine if you do sign in. This is just blocking anon downloads.

Market price for a Google account is about $1.50, you can also buy a burner SIM to set up the maximum number of accounts Google will let you with the same phone number.

You don't need a sim card to make accounts for a phone in the first place. Not sure how, but on android devices they let you make an account without giving them a phone number. Probably because even Google realizes how bad gating application installs on new phones on having a phone number would look.

The problem is that even if you have separate google accounts on each android device, Google can still track you by looking at your contacts.

Yeah, was confused. I'm on GrapheneOS and don't even know what Aurora is.

It's an alternative client app for the google store.

I wasn't aware GOS recommended AuroraStore.

We don't recommend the Play Store as a source of apps in general. For obtaining apps from the Play Store, we primarily recommend using our sandboxed Play Store feature. Aurora Store is mainly useful for working around Play Integrity API store listing restrictions.

Aurora Store can be used without the shared account feature. The shared account feature was on track to getting blocked for years and we've warned about it. Sharing accounts is against the Google terms of use and they've been ramping up their detection and banning of it. It's somewhat strange they allowed it to go on for so long. Aurora Store does still work as an alternate Play Store frontend since Google hasn't blocked that.

Due to Aurora Store bypassing the Play Integrity API store listing restrictions, they may decide to take steps to hinder it. It's a very easily bypassed way of using the Play Integrity API but it harms alternative operating systems.

They don't. It's unreliable but they have fixed security issues.

AuroraStore uses a pool of burner Google Play Store accounts to facilitate anonymous downloads. This is what happens when those burner accounts get flagged.

How does one even create a new google account in $current_year without requiring phone verification or worse?

You could suck it up and do the phone number verification, it usually costs around $5 for a phone number.

Or you could go through the android phone sign-up process which doesn't require one. Buy a cheap android phone and keep resetting it and making a new account each time.

Or you could buy an account on the grey web from someone who already did this. Should be under $2.

If you are really into this you could become a phone company and own a whole block of phone numbers.

The whole point of avoiding the verification in my case is for privacy reasons... I don't want google or anyone else tracking what I do through the use of an account.

> Or you could go through the android phone sign-up process which doesn't require one

This is worse IMO because now the number is associated with that device forever. And unless I'm willing to risk my account to compromise from a future owner of the same number OR device, I must now keep both... forever.

> grey web

I don't want to give them my info either, nor have my account associated with sketchy individuals.

> you could become a phone company

I do own DID blocks but this is unhelpful because google's verification specifically requires SMS over real mobile numbers, and I'm not interested in becoming an MVNO or cellular carrier.

Bad news - Google doesn't need an account to track your app downloadsm

Perhaps you'd be more interested in creating a website that downloads all the apps from the play store using burner accounts and makes them easily anonymously accessible.

GrapheneOS is not sending app downloads to Google that happen outside of Google's apps, which I don't use. And there are other ways to download APKs from the Play Store; EFF even makes their own tool for it, and there are third-party archive sites and alternative non-Google app stores as well.

btw. you can get prepaid physical SIM cards in Czechia for free send by mailbox, you just need some available mailbox wheere you can pick it up, like put Donald Duck sticker on your mailbox and address it to Donald Duck

I used android sign up process to create my other dummy account I use in TV only for smarttube and app updates, that seems like great option if it still works

I'm using my Proton account in my phone and in play store. now i tried adding my proton account in AuroraStore, and it worked flawlessly. so my question: why AuroraStore uses google accounts instead of another providers?

What the hell are you talking about? Proton accounts to access the Play Store?

what happened? if you're trying to say that this is "impossible", its not. But if you're trying to say about privacy, that account I tried is another one of mine. im not stupid to use my primary proton account in my phone.

What are you talking about???

How could an account from a completely different company let you login to Google's Play Store???

You probably mean a Google account that uses your Proton mail address?

Play store works fine on GrapheneOS.

GOS recommends play store

For people using sandboxed Google Play, we strongly recommend using the sandboxed Play Store as the primary way of obtaining apps from the Play Store. We don't recommend using the Play Store as a first choice for obtaining apps.

They suggest PlayStore if you need to get apps that are only available on the Play Store. They do not recommend it above other options, and have mentioned that they very much disapprove of Play App Signing being mandatory.

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