Hey you guys,
so I've been using the Google Play store with my google account for all the apps that aren't available through F-droid.
Mainly youtube and banking.
I now heard about the aurora store that is basically just a mirror to Google Play without the connection to your google accounts. Now I do have two questions:

  1. Where can I actually get this from? I saw they had a gitlab repo, but I wasn't sure if that's the prime source to get the APK from.
  2. Do you guys recommend using it, instead of Google Play? Are there any drawbacks or Apps with sensitive information (thinking of my banking app!) that I shouldn't download through it?

Thanks so much in advance!
I have been using GrapheneOS since December of 2022 and am loving it so far!

    You can get Aurora from F-Droid. I use it for things not in F-Droid. Have not had any issues.

    5 days later

    Max-Zorin

    Thank you.
    I prefer the much nicer Aurora Droid instead of the very old looking F-Droid Store.
    Aurora Droid has the same pretty and modern design as Aurora Store and the user interface looks cleaner.

    In addition, there is access to many developers' own repositories and you can add further repositories and then also select them from the long list.
    All apps from the selected repositories are then displayed in the app overview.
    This offers much more than the old-fashioned F-Droid Store.

    BTW: For all those who have not dealt with it before and therefore do not know the background:
    There are three types of repositories:

    1. Google's App Repository, signed by Google
    2. F-Droid-signed apps
    3. Apps signed by independent developers
    • Apps offered by Google not for free you can get from Google Play only
    • Apps offered by Google for free you can get from Google Play or at Aurora Store
    • Apps offered by F-Droid you can get from F-Droid or Aurora Droid
    • Apps offered by independent developers you can get directly from these devs
    • or if they have cooperation with F-Droid and therefor a link from F-Droid to there own file server, then you can get apps by using these links.

    Devs with links to their own repositories on F-Droid have a note on their website with link info and how to setup it at F-Droid.
    The way to setup these links into Aurora Droid is a little bit divergent.

    -

    You can get aurora from its website, or from its gitlabs page, or from fdroid.

    If aurora doesn't update itself, then installing it from gitlabs using Obtanium will allow you to update it.

    To get apps from Fdroid you can use:

    • F-driod app, or
    • Droid-ify, or
    • NeoStore, or
    • Aurora Droid.

    Droid-ify is very stable and robust, and looks good. Thats what I use. But I have Aurora installed from gitlabs using obtanium.

    10 months later