Application Installation - choices

lcalamar

I am totally aware of the issues regarding Aurora Store and Neo Store...

I try to use Accrescent, ffupdater, and Obtanium first and foremost

I try to stay away from Google Play Store as no matter WHAT GOS can provide for privacy there, The Play Store STILL uses my account login... so its tracking all apps under my google profile.

However - i do find that the Google Play store is better than any of the aforementioned methods to add/update apps.

While I try to use Obtanium as my main app installer - it can be hit and miss for finding apps as well as keeping them up to date (big miss for keeping apps up to date in my opinion). I also get lists of apps ready for an update where the version is already updated on my device... Obtanium just isn't good at 'versions' (IMHO)
Accrescent is great but very limited in choices
FFUPdater is find for my browser apps (though I don't know much about its security/privacy)
Aurora/Neo do a better job of finding/updating apps than Obtanium... but then I'm using Aurora/Neo :(

I'm wondering if I can/should perhaps create a dummy google account (no easy thing to do)... and use that for all my app management from w/in Google Play Store? (unfortunately since I use Google FI - I must have a valid/active google profile on my device).

Are my observations way off? Or any other thoughts/ solutions on finding a single 1 or 2 privacy app stores?

raccoondad

lcalamar if I can/should perhaps create a dummy google account

Should be easy, I don't believe google usually even requires a phone number.

mmobder

lcalamar issues regarding Aurora Stor

btw, FYI - Aurora provides good feature of requesting updates only for apps installed using Aurora, and not for all apps, that prevents a bit profiling based on all installed apps
there are apps, unfortunately, one can't find as apk from official sources

lcalamar

raccoondad
These are the steps that 'sideofburritos' provides: (note: you CAN create a google account w/o a phone number but to do that you need to do it FROM a google account.... https://www.makeuseof.com/create-google-account-without-phone-number/

Creating an anonymous Google account without getting it blocked or locked is somewhat difficult but not impossible. If you try to create it over a VPN or Tor, you’ll likely run into issues. What I do is drive to a parking lot with free Wi-Fi—like at a grocery store or coffee shop—connect with my laptop, and create the account using a fake name generator for the required information.

The tricky part is when they ask for a phone number for SMS verification. You don’t want to use your real number here because it would ruin the anonymity. Instead, you can temporarily rent a phone number just for receiving the SMS code. There are free services, but I wouldn’t recommend them because they’re public and often blocked. You’ll have to pay, but it’s usually 50 cents to a dollar. I’ll link the site I use in the blog post for this video, but I won’t mention it here on YouTube. Once you receive the SMS code, you can validate your account.

SgtSurehand

Creating a dummy profile will provide zero benefit if you are going to provide personally identifiable information in just a single app you use and something tells me this will be the case.