Hi , there are a few nice, paid apps (e.g. aCalendar, OSMand) but I need either Play Store, Amazon Appstore, Huawei appgallery.
As an OSS enthusiast I don’t want any of them on my phone, so the only alternative I see is to get the App vendor to sell license keys to me (List). However, many of them are not willing to do that. They insist on an app store.
Are you aware of any alternatives to the above mentioned store’s? I’d say F-droid is a trustworthy organization and it would be cool if they would offer a paid app store, but I fear they will refuse to do that since they want to stick to OSS only.
How about e.foundation providing such a app? This may also be a revenue-generator for an app-store.
Or Aurora Store? App lounge?
I could use the Shelter app to install Huawei appgallery and isolate that store, but I don’t know if that works under shelter and then I would also have to install my app (e.g. OSMand) within Shelter and that is not always want I want/can.
BTW. do you happen know if there is any data collection from Huawei AppGallery besides the data I’m would provide to them myself (name, address, payment info)? According to the start page of the Huawei App Gallary, it collects and reports device ID (IMEI?), IP address, birth date.
Huawei ID wants Phone, SMS, Cam, Storage, contacts permissions, but apparently permission can be denied and license function still seems to work.
I’m thinking if this could be a a halfway acceptable, temporary solution.
In the case of OsmAnd, you can download the opensource version from App Lounge, which has the same features as the paid version including unlimited map downloads.
it’s true that it’s confusing!
it seems that the Osmand~ version doesn’t allow everything, in particular no connection to the Osmand Cloud. Below for Osmand 4.47
I do not have an Osmand account but the versions I installed from F-Droid (it installed 4.3.12 and I had to select 4.4.7 to update that) implies it works with the cloud(?). If I create an account will it not work in the F-Droid version?
I have no idea. I installed but have not yet run version 13.2.1.301 from apkmirror.
For user permissions it only has ‘Files & media’ (storage) and Phone.
It has 16 in-app trackers but I do not know what’s good/required or bad.
I have used Aptoide in the past. It is P2P so you will find some garbage and questionable apps that normally reside in the other stores you mentioned. They actively scan APK’s for malware and check signature certificate chains. Some apps will still need a Play account so you can’t really say they are illegal from a user perspective. You can also create your own store and upload your install APK’s via their app if you want to curate your own experience and share with others. I think you can also make it private. The other feature is their App Coin, if you are into token economies. It is open source and F-Droid is forked from it.
I am currently using Obtanium because I want to keep what I use from Play/Aurora/App Lounge and F-Droid/App Lounge to a minimum. Both (Play and F-Droid) have used questionable judgement with regard to user freedoms.
are you talking about the AppCoin Wallet?
So one needs those 2 Apps and App-Developer could add their paid apps to Aptoid and receive payments via AppCoin Wallet, right?
The question for a developer would be license protection. Their app won’t work without Aptoid and AppCoin Wallet with a valid purchase, right?
There is also the question about App safety. Is an app real or fake? I can see that there is Aptoid trusted badge that is supposed to verify app.
The only problem that I see is that the aptoide app store (server side) is not open source. Neither is Aurora Store Server side so). However, if there is no know security issue, then I would find it better then Google Play, Amazon or Huawei Store. At least the Aptoid client app is open Source (as you pointed out)
It would have been cool if they would allow Bitcoin Lightning transactions cause why invent another token if there’s a good one already available. Whatever, I would also buy the token if the transaction fee’s are not too high.
Question is also how much app store fee’s Aptoide is taking. If it’s not higher (or even lower) than Play Store, then it’s fine.
I think it just passes through Play store. Aurora Droid (their FOSS store) just passes through F-Droid.
Aptoide is probably just using something like LAMP for their web store. If there is more happening on the backend than what is immediately evident from reviewing the page source then that is a shame.
I am not sure on the requirements for setting up paid apps. They have a sales team you can contact for that, I think. If I want to start a store with just the apps I have on my phone, I just use the Uploader and it will upload the apps I have from what is installed on my phone. I don’t know of any good verification framework to secure EULA or copyright(left) but I imagine some blockchain technology would make that less intrusive so there wouldn’t have to be DRM or an invasive “dial home”/sign in. If it could just verify a wallet address that should be sufficient. Those would be good things to ask the Aptoide people about.
This may also be a revenue-generator for an app-store.
