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#google#store#phone#play#account#grapheneos#aurora#app#security#apps
Discussion (210 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
For extra privacy, you can sign into the Play Store with a Google Account that isn't tied to anything else.
Somewhere in the FAQ GOS advertises that Play Services can be used without signing in, but they also recommend the official Play Store (which requires signing in) and explicitly don't recommend Aurora (which doesn't).
Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how you can functionally use Play Services signed-out when in order to obtain those apps in the first place, you need to sign into a Google Account for Google Play.
That's personally what I used Aurora for, plus as an easy way to export APK files.
At the risk of being a privacy absolutist / fatalist: Google’s entire business model is surveillance. They follow you around and track your habits so you can be influenced. Given that, a Google account is always tied to something else.
But my goal is to avoid a stranger gaining access to my google services if they manage to unlock a lost device or steal my TV/streaming box that has no lock at all.
I wish Google supported a permission system per device. For example on most of my android devices all I really want is to be logged into Youtube and the play store. I most certainly do not want those devices to have access to my contacts, emails, calendar, keep, drive, payment, etc. (I don't personally use all of those things, but you might and that's what a random thief would gain access to.)
All you can do is leave their ecosystem as much as you can and accept you will never be fully rid of them
Yes, the advertising targeting is incredibly invasive, but let's not pretend they aren't providing world class Search, Email, Docs, Maps, Video (YT), etc in exchange.
For instance, I use GrapheneOS because it provides better security and privacy out of the box than LineageOS, but I'm also not so paranoid that I'm going to just blindly listen to advice against using F-Droid. What I want out of my Android instance is good security defaults with no bloatware, not to stop the NSA from looking at my travel photos and what HN articles I once looked at. It's okay if my OS is great but not perfect.
So yes, I am a GrapheneOS user who is [modestly] hurt by this. Signing in with a dummy account is just another one of those things that will end up being futile in years to come when Google requires iris scans, DNA samples, and anal probes in order to get a new account. Personally, I'd prefer installing whatever software I want on whatever devices I [pretend like] I own, without telemetry or jumping through hoops.
And yeah the iris scans sound like a scare but only 2 years ago there was a constant line of zombies here in the shopping mall giving their eye scans to altman.
The masses really don't care about privacy if you give them a worthless trinket.
You probably "just" need to pull down while on the "Latest" or "Updates" tab, to update your repository (it will show a small banner at the top while it's doing that). It's incremental, so it may take a while if it has been some time since you last did it (and auto-updates are disabled).
The way F-Droid works is that it downloads the whole index and then the catalog, version checks, etc, all runs locally, quite similarly to some package repositories actually.
I am not claiming its intuitive, but I think that part works fine once you understand how it works.
We search for stuff, install it, it updates in the background. We install some of our own repos, but the bulk of our apps come from F-Droid's default repos.
Hard to reconcile your account with my experience without specifics.
I very much prefer Obtainium these days despite the setup steps. I don't think it's a coincidence that Obtainium, Aurora, Zapstore, etc. are gaining mindshare over F-Droid, just like how Brave has explosive growth over FF.
Sounds like an accurate recreation of the Play Store experience to me.
You're sure you understand what it does?
Isn't that pretty much impossible? You need a phone number for verification, which effectively ties it to that phone number.
> Isn't that pretty much impossible? You need a phone number for verification, which effectively ties it to that phone number.
I just want to follow-up on this because some people claim this is not correct because they have managed to create accounts without phone numbers.
Indeed, I think to this day, under special circumstances (like e.g. on reasonably recent Android devices) you might be able to setup a Google account without phone number.
The trick is, that in the general case, you can not keep this account online indefinitely.
I once worked out a trick to get it going and I was feeling safe because I had setup 2FA and backup codes (see https://masysma.net/37/google_how_to_create_an_account_witho...).
First thing to note: This way of account creation does not seem to work anymore.
Second thing to note: After once logging in from a different country, trying to login again REQUIRES me to provide a phone number after successfully giving username/password/2FA code. No way to use the recovery code instead...
Also, given that this account was never before connected to a phone of any kind, by definition, the addition of a phone number cannot provide additional security confirmation (it's data that simply wasn't present before and any "personal" phone number could potentially do -- of course I haven't tried, because that's the point of not linking a phone number).
I think this way it is finally proven that they only do this to harvest the data/phone numbers and any claim of enhanced security is void.
I write this after having lost the second account to the phone number required screen despite being in possession of all the credentials which were ever assigned to that account...
You can also just get a burner phone number for a few bucks.
But you have to keep paying the monthly cost, if you loose access to a phone number in your Google account it's game over for any account recovery or "let's verify it's you" it might decide to throw your way.
a burner sim, like a literal criminal, is the only way today.
For example, the banking app I have refuses to be installed from the Play Store on GrapheneOS due to "not-certified" device, but works perfectly fine when installed by Aurora.
The check seems to be purely store-based and never enforced later.
But using Aurora I can install it just fine and it works flawlessly.
(for me, the whole point of using GrapheneOS is privacy and not sending data to Google, so using the PlayStore is not an option)
Wether or not the most recent example is the best example, doesn't matter. What matters is when the government says "jump" in legalese, google's lawyers say "how high?"
GrapheneOS is much more privacy focussd than any other mobile operating system. Accrescent is the end goal for a secure and private app store but it's still in alpha. GrapheneOS is also the best for degoogling (eliminating all google services) because it comes with zero Google services unlike all the other ones listed here: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
How can you call other OSes more privacy focused when they haven't closed as many VPN leaks as GrapheneOS? That's like bare minimum for privacy.
Therefore, the system needs to protect itself and other apps from the user. Which is very much contrary to software freedom.
I personally would prefer to have both but choose the privacy side when both are into conflict.
Both viewpoints are valid, but I don't use GrapheneOS for this reason.
Note that nobody (new) can submit to it today; the developer console HTTP 503s and is only available to an allow-list of developers.
Google states: Using a false name or incorrect information when creating a Google account is against Google's Terms of Service.
I don't really see the point of using GrapheneOS instead of Stock Android if I then have to use the play store.
Also on GrapheneOS, Play Services and Play Store come unprivileged, sandboxed like any other app. So Google is not an admin on your phone, which I would argue is one step towards "severing the umbilical cord".
Moreover, GrapheneOS doesn't have any issue with apps sideloading.
And more. There are many reasons to use GrapheneOS.
"Hope ya got ten bucks!"
(I got a random 5G Moto phone for ~$10 on clearance and it was an absolute shitter of a phone full of garbage packed in malware, but after cleaning and debloating as much as I can, it's at least a nifty toy to poke at Termux or something.)
The problem with this is that increasingly Google is insisting on having a phone number to create a Google account. Further, they are aggressively deleting old accounts that appear to be dormant.
The good old days of creating a Google account with just an email seem to be swiftly becoming a thing of the past.
That isn't completely possible these days. Last I checked they want an existing email address and/or a cellphone number for verification. I guess "not tied to anything else" is proportional to how much you trust them to delete either of these bits of info after they are used, and not associate them with other accounts you might have used them with in the past/future.
I use it on a phone with (unfortunately) regular google play services. If I sign into the play store, that same account will be used for all other google services on the phone too. I'm not going to do that. I just don't want a google account (nor an apple one for that matter)
Interesting, I never tried Aurora on Graphene. For me the combination of Play Store and F-Droid worked really well so far.
Like my personal phone?)
Installing Google Play service is in itself a privacy downgrade.
For example the eBay app. Does not allow installing from the play store on grapheneos.
lol. lamo, even.
I think the increased popularity of GOS is going to draw in more users like me who picked it for reasons adjacent to Graphene's original purpose, and I hope it's not too annoying for their community.
I think it's fine the mission of the project isn't directly aligned with some of us, though I can tell we often get on the core contributor's nerves lol
For example, let's say hypothetically I want to be secure against the threat of Google pushing a targeted update to my phone that runs malicious code. Turning on automatic software updates from Google would make me vulnerable to that threat. Using MicroG instead of Google Play Services would make me less vulnerable to that threat. But Graphene devs say things like "MicroG is less secure than Google Play Services".
Similarly, if you want privacy you might secure your device by locking the bootloader with your own keys - not a third-party vendor's keys. Saying that's "insecure" is extremely misleading: it just puts you in charge of security, instead of abdicating to someone else.
I wish there were something like GrapheneOS that let you choose, yourself, who to trust instead of requiring you trust an OS vendor implicitly.
Far, far too "opinionated" for my taste. I frankly do not need the hyper paranoid security features like a hardened memory allocator or disabled root. I would rather be able to use my device the way I want, even if that's notionally "less secure".
I really wish there were another option. Lineage is too far in the opposite direction and feels like ad-blocked stock. Google still owns my phone, there's just a more pleasant coat of paint on it.
I get the part about disabled root - you're choosing to sacrifice freedom for security - though I don't understand why you wouldn't want a hardened memory allocator. It provides additional security over the stock OS for very little cost (slightly more resource consumption), in an era where we absolutely need as much security as we can get; what are you losing by gaining this?
There's plenty of people like that in the GOS community (the forum and the Matrix). Everyone generally understands that different people have different threat models and may want to do things that aren't the most secure. Otherwise everyone would be using GOS in airplane mode with disabled cameras and only paying for things with Monero.
The core dev team is obviously a bit more security absolutist, but even they usually dont mind
Citation needed. If there are such people in what can be considered a grapheneos community that haven't gotten fed up yet and left, grapheneos themselves sure doesn't understand this
> Otherwise everyone would be using GOS in airplane mode with disabled cameras and only paying for things with Monero.
Nah, they're fine with tracking, so long as it happens in their sandbox. The official website has an install guide for google's background services, saying it's fine because it's in their security model. So long as the modem can't access your contacts without a permission prompt, there is no tracking in baghdad
Their absolutist of their own view of security
Have you looked for help? It sure isn't because of any Google component being disabled
It's a shame that there is no official way to install apps on android without a google accout[1], since it's a basic functionality, just like calls or a web browser.
[1] For obvious reasons I don't want her to download apks from the internet.
It's the app publishers defaulting to Google that's the biggest issue.
At least WhatsApp has an official APK download, most apps don't.
That said, Google will still let you update apps without being signed in. Hold the Play Store icon to open the quick action menu. From there you can go to "my apps" and update all of the apps on your phone, bypassing the login prompt. Not great, but a workaround that should do the trick while Aurora finds another way to hack their way into the Play Store APIs.
https://www.whatsapp.com/download
Aurora hasn't worked right for the most part for a year due to device attestation shit.
I'm meh on it. Not being able to install the shit from play store isn't such a bad thing. It is lame as hell that Google is doing their damndest to make apple look user friendly.
Play Store won't let me install them, but AuroraStore will, and most of the time they work fine after that.
For example, I have Balatro running on my Ayn Thor this way.
Not news nor "blocking".
Honest question, because AFAIK there's no guarantee or (legal) requirement to support any API. Whether that's fully documented, has SDKs or whether it's something reversed-engineered doesn't matter WRT the support the company owning the API is supposed or required to give.
Or am I wrong there?
It affects using Aurora Store "anonymously" because that means using shared accounts, so far higher activity per account.
It's possible they're also detecting contemporary usage of the same account.
But there's a slight chance that it's just due to someone abusing the accounts outside Aurora Store.
Even this particular error ("Server busy, try again later"). I've been seeing over the past weeks but then a few days later it worked again. I'm not too worried. It also happens or me right now indeed.
https://en.aptoide.com/
Mistake from me: apparently GrapheneOS does not recommend Aurora Store (citation needed). Kind of weird though; it means Google still knows a lot about you, which doesn't seem very privacy conscience.
Google blocking Aurora Store was a conclusion made in the bug thread. It was not my conclusion.
And for the nit pickers: Sailfish OS is not Android, but its emulation layer _is_. :shrug: Even though Sailfish is nice, without its Android layer it is practically unusable.
Funny thing: the 'busy server' problem existed for almost a week. I could download 1 app per day max on my Jolla C2. But just now, now that this thread makes top of Hackernews, everything started working just fine!
I remember being in the GrapheneOS room and hearing them directly recommend using Windows 10 over Linux, as it was more secure. They are known to prioritize security over privacy.
On paper, I'm sure Windows does have stronger userspace and kernel-space protections against intrusion and such, though I most certainly wouldn't use it.
Not that it requires Google to "open up" their play-store, but that they must allow other app-stores to work on the same level. So basically allowing devs and users to move elsewhere.
Apple moved first with making a special 'sideloading' case for apps not under their control, Google is just copying what they did.
No more free sideloading.
Try and find a category for "open source" apps on any app store.
This seems like it was destined to get banned somehow... and I don't think it means that the store itself is blocked, just the pool of accounts they (ab)use.
Good times, good times.
The window to have a real open mobile OS is starting to close. If there is to be a meaningful change, it must happen soon.
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.
P.S. Sailfish OS is NOT an Android distribution. It is a proper Linux system and they have their own custom Android runtime (AppSupport) as a layer on top for running Android apps. This runtime _is_ Android under the hood, but is separate from Sailfish itself (has its own native app ecosystem).
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.