Hi,
Yesterday, I upgraded to e23 on my BQ Aquaris X Pro. All went fine until reboot. Then I launched the “App Lounge” (the new name for store app) and was asked to either enter a Google account, or use Anonynous mode.
I selected to 2nd choice, then (almost) blank screen appears : seems there are some icons but not really visible. Then I get “Connection Impossible ! Check your internet connection and try again” (translated) after trying Parameters button : -
Tried a reboot, still same. No more way to use App Lounge, install any app, etc… It is a bit annoying.
Thank you.
Found this was related to my DNS (PiHole). Two hosts to add to whitelist to make App Lounge working :
clients3.google.com
android.clients.google.com
Well I am surprised to have to enable some Google’s domain to make it works. I am not using /e/ OS to have such requirements.
Can someone explain what is going on here ? Is there a document explaining this new App Lounge behaviour and requirements ? It seems to me not following /e/ promise, am I wrong ?
App Lounge now gets its non-FOSS apps direct (but anonymously) from Google’s Play Store, the most trustworthy source of Android apps. To do this, it needs to use Google’s services.
Previously the apps came via the anonymous cleanapk.org.The apps that cleanapk.org delivered almost certainly also came from the Google Play Store (they have the same signatures as the play store versions) although no-one at /e/ ever officially admitted that.
You need them if you want to install apps from the Google Play Store (i.e. any non-FOSS apps). The Play Store is where those apps come from. In the past, cleanapk.org (presumably) did the connection to Google, and the old Apps store got the apps from cleanapk.
NextDNS has a “NoGoogle” blocklist that one can utilize, but I never have since I needed Aurora Store. When I get home (my work wifi can be hit an miss for updating apps) I’ll see if adding these two exceptions allows me access to the App Lounge while blocking the rest of Google.
I get the same result when opening the App_Lounge while connected to ProtonVPN with default settings. I’ve done nothing to block google with DNS. This even happens when just trying to access the settings tab in App_Lounge.
The App_Lounge can’t connect even when “Show only open-source apps” is selected.
It would be best if the google connection only happens when actually querying Play Store apps so it can be used for open source apps only without requiring a connection to the Play Store.
I see this topic is “solved.”
Does it mean this concern is rejected and we should just abandon the App Lounge when we use a vpn or if we only want open source apps?
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