Is it obligatory to log in with Gmail to use Sandboxed Google Play?

OmarTayham

Hello everyone.
Today I've started using GrapheneOS, it's great so far but I'm kind of confused about Sandboxed Google Play.
Okay, I've downloaded from Graphene App Store "Google Play Store", "Google Play Services" but when I try to log in to Google Play, it asks me to log in using Gmail.

Is it okay to log in using Gmail or it's possible somehow to bypass it and just "emulate" that you've logged in under a certain default user and can download apps?
I have a lot of proprietary apps I still need to install on my phone but I don't trust websites with APK. I also don't know about Aurora store and F-Droid's repositories is obviously not enough for me.

Let me know please If I understood whole flow/Google Play usage process correctly.

W1zardK1ng

OmarTayham once you installed sandboxed play services with network you get notifications for the apps that depends on it also some apps refuses to work if play sevices are not found. you don't have to log-in for that to work. But you need to login to the play store if you want to download apps from it. You can create a throwaway gmail account and use it only for this purpose, even if you use your real gmail id there is not much you are sharing with google in this case. Aurora store is good if you really dont want to login with any gmail id on the phone. Its just a front end for the play store apps but have few issues and tends to break when google changes something in the back. Avoid fdroid.

Best use case for a normal person should be, to login to play store with a throwaway gamil, get all apps from there, replace proprietary apps with open-source apps and download from play store. Get the other apps using obtainium from their source like GitHub.

americanDude

Sandboxed Google Play runs right after you download it no account required, to use the Google Play Store an account is required.

OmarTayham

americanDude
What is the difference between Sandboxed Google Play and Google Play Store?
How to properly access Sandboxed Google Play account to start browsing store and finding necessary apps for download?

wizoatk

OmarTayham

Google Play Store is one part of Google Play.
https://grapheneos.org/features#sandboxed-google-play