DeletedUser28
[deleted]
False.
Playstore gathers a lot of data about you, your connectivity/activity, your ip address (and hence your location though ip tracking), information about your installed apps, and potentially more info about those apps and your identity though IPC, as well as various analytics capabilities that interface with apps through API, and then some. Play store gathers all data it can about your android "instance" even without a google account, and saves it permanently. It doesn't actually need a google account to attach that data to your identity. It just needs to figure out who that "instance" belongs to (through ANY means) and then builds a permanent profile. Using a google account enhances their tracking capability and makes it much easier for them, but is not required. If it ever gets a whiff of your home IP address it can narrow down your identity to only a few individuals because it already has a strong profile of that ip and people associated with it.
Aurora doesn't do any of that. The potential privacy loss through account sharing that @[deleted] mentions is a rather niche and unlikely issue, as compared to the definite privacy problems that using play store implicates.
Although one could argue that all that data gathered by play store may not be that important, and not a big deal.
In fact it may even be ok that google have your actual identity and info about your android instance, your apps, your ip, and location.
Is it important? Or is it not? Decide for yourself and your case.
Also using shared google accounts can significantly cloud google's tracking of your info. Using a dedicated account always makes it easier for google.
In fact the only good arguments for using a google account that i see are:
- when you absolutely have no other choice but to use a google account (or the app wont work);
- when that google account is used for verification of some identity based app like a financial or government app, and has to be unique or could compromise your security; or
- when you have paid apps that are associated with a google account.
The main reason to use play store is "convenience" or "forced necessity" That's it. Well, except the security points I mentioned.
The Overwhelming majority of the apps that people use are absolutely fine downloaded from aurora using a shared account.
So it is so, from what i can tell.