Play Store blocks AuroraStore, leaving privacy-focused Android users unable to install apps
Aurora Store, a third-party app installer popular with GrapheneOS and degoogled users, has stopped working with anonymous accounts.
What to know
- Aurora Store, an app installer that works without Google accounts, has stopped accepting anonymous installations and now returns "Server busy" errors.
- While GrapheneOS officially recommends the Play Store, many users intentionally rely on Aurora to avoid Google entirely or because certain apps refuse installation on GrapheneOS through official channels.
- The outage affects all degoogled Android users, not just GrapheneOS, and raises the question of whether there should be an official way to install Android apps without a Google account.
The dispute Whether the Aurora outage meaningfully harms GrapheneOS users or is overblown by the headline, since GrapheneOS recommends the Play Store but many users prefer Aurora for privacy reasons unrelated to GrapheneOS's official guidance. · positions read across 251 posts and comments
GrapheneOS users are not significantly hurt because the project recommends the Play Store, not Aurora.
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“GrapheneOS actually recommends against using Aurora and instead just using the Play Store, so this shouldn't really hurt users.”
pyrophane · Hacker News
Aurora is essential for privacy-conscious users who want no Google involvement and should work regardless of GrapheneOS recommendations.
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“I've been stuck with unupdated apps because Aurora hasn't been working for me for a while... I have everything Google disabled or removed, and no I won't reenable any of it.”
skeledrew · Hacker News
There should be an official way to install Android apps without a Google account, as it is a basic device function.
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“It's a shame that there is no official way to install apps on android without a google account, since it's a basic functionality, just like calls or a web browser.”
ssernikk · Hacker News
Google accounts can never truly be "tied to nothing" because they require phone number verification, which inherently ties them to you.
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“Google's entire business model is surveillance. They follow you around and track your habits so you can be influenced. Given that, a Google account is always tied to something else.”
juiceland · Hacker News
“Server busy, please try again later”
Aurora Store error message · GitLab issue #1566
Aurora Store Third-party app installerGoogle Play Store Official Android app platformGrapheneOS Privacy-focused Android distribution
The record 1 articles and posts · last 30 days
What people are saying 24 voices from 2 sites · best of 251 · verbatim
- What caused Play Store to start blocking Aurora Store's anonymous installations?
- Is this a deliberate action by Google or an unintended side effect of Play Store policy changes?
- What is the correct way for privacy-focused users to install apps on degoogled Android without Aurora Store?
- Sep 3
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We don't recommend using the Play Store as a first choice for obtaining apps. Aurora Store is another way to use the Play Store as a source of apps. If someone is using sandboxed Google Play in a profile, it makes sense to use the sandboxed Play Store to install apps. Aurora Store is mainly useful as a workaround for store listings enforcing Play…
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Google Mobile Services apps installed on GrapheneOS including Play services run as regular sandboxed apps. They receive absolutely no special access compared to other apps by installing and running them. There are the standard permission toggles for granting those but none of those are required for typical usage to provide compatibility with many…
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Aurora Store still works fine without the default enabled account sharing feature by creating an account for this purpose. Google hasn't blocked using Aurora Store as an alternate Play Store client. What's happening is that they're getting better at detecting and banning shared accounts. Account sharing was disallowed long before Aurora Store…
- Sep 2
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> You can't use the software in the way you want if it uses hardware backed cryptography to block you from doing so.You can use the software the way you want, from sources. If I run an open source server at home, it does not give you the right to enter my house and come reboot my server, does it?> This is completely infeasible for 99% of the…
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> Software freedom is about being able to use the software the way you wantYou can't use the software in the way you want if it uses hardware backed cryptography to block you from doing so.> you get access to the sources, you modify them, build them and run themThis is completely infeasible for 99% of the population. If you technically have a…
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I had last successsful update on August 26, which I wouldnt call for a while, tried yesterday, I've got error messages everyone mentionstoday I bothered to try various anonymous Aurora accounts and found finally the one working (like 5th in row) and updated the apps, I can live with updates once a week, not exactly sure what is OP doingI mean if…
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> I think it's fair to say that that's at least borderline anti software freedomThen you don't understand software freedom either.Software freedom doesn't mean AT ALL that random projects on the Internet MUST implement the features YOU want. Never, not at all, it's not borderline, it's not up to debate.Software freedom is about being able to use…
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>Citation needed. grapheneos themselves sure doesn't understand thisThe GrapheneOS team understand full well that in cases where the Play Store does not allow installing an app on your device due to device or georestrictive rules you may have no choice. I have seen them mention this and acknowledge it first hand. What they do not want is for…
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They (GrapheneOS development team) live and breathe the principled stance you seem to be describing.They are staunchly against authoritarianism and mechanisms that are vulnerable to government coercion which is why they promote Android IAR and criticise Play App Signing for being mandatory.I have understood their position to be that software is…
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Aurora Store returns a “&$Server busy, please try again later.” error when trying to install an application (#1566) · Issues · Aurora OSS / AuroraStore · GitLab
- Sep 1
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Ok, you clearly don't know what F-Droid is.F-Droid builds all apps by themselves, which especially with their old servers took a lot (between detecting that the update exists, building the app and going to sign everything at their air-gapped signing computer).Now a lot of apps use the "reproducible builds" feature, which means that F-Droid will…
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This is exactly why I switched to Android. Running any Linux binary with just a small bit of patchwork to get Xorg running (this was before Wayland) felt like magic. So much power in your pocket, I could plug a keyboard and display into the device and use it as a computer! And internet-connected 24/7! Coming from a literal Nokia where I made some…
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> That's also incorrect, because the gmscompat app is just a helper app. Hmm, ok. I was reasoning the helper app was needed to get around the default assumptions from Google Play Services. > Those permissions are handled by the OS under the play services app Yes, but I assume you don't mean that as that GOS makes special hard-coded provisions for…
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> never displays or updates apps correctly. Half the time an app showed up on the website that didn't show up on the phone app. The other half of the time even when I did get something installed, it would just never understand that an update existed and needed to download and update a given appYou probably "just" need to pull down while on the…
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> Everyone generally understands that different people have different threat modelsCitation needed. If there are such people in what can be considered a grapheneos community that haven't gotten fed up yet and left, grapheneos themselves sure doesn't understand this> Otherwise everyone would be using GOS in airplane mode with disabled cameras and…
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> > a Google Account that isn't tied to anything else.> Isn't that pretty much impossible? You need a phone number for verification, which effectively ties it to that phone number.I just want to follow-up on this because some people claim this is not correct because they have managed to create accounts without phone numbers.Indeed, I think to this…
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GrapheneOS (the project) might recommend for or against certain things in relation to their specific objectives, but that doesn't mean all GrapheneOS users have the same objectives or need to comply with the opinions of GrapheneOS.For instance, I use GrapheneOS because it provides better security and privacy out of the box than LineageOS, but I'm…
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Verified boot does indeed make this more complicated, but it's totally possible to build Graphene with your own signing key and get full control over the OS that way (i.e. https://github.com/schnatterer/rooted-graphene).Looking at their public statements on the matter, it seems like the problem isn't exactly that they treat the user as a…
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They're both security, just security "against" different things. Graphene frequently fails to clearly describe the threat model when calling something "more secure".For example, let's say hypothetically I want to be secure against the threat of Google pushing a targeted update to my phone that runs malicious code. Turning on automatic software…
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> Which is very much contrary to software freedom.Yeah, the goal is privacy although the OS is completely open source.They do improve user experience by allowing disabling emergency alerts, call recording without alerts, no mandatory camera noise in Japan, no extra warning popup from installing APKs from the web (it's the same permission in every…
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The whole point of avoiding the verification in my case is for privacy reasons... I don't want google or anyone else tracking what I do through the use of an account.> Or you could go through the android phone sign-up process which doesn't require oneThis is worse IMO because now the number is associated with that device forever. And unless I'm…
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Okay, it was a bit of clickbait. Didn't expect it to be picked up like this.Mistake from me: apparently GrapheneOS does not recommend Aurora Store (citation needed). Kind of weird though; it means Google still knows a lot about you, which doesn't seem very privacy conscience.Google blocking Aurora Store was a conclusion made in the bug thread. It…
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I'm under no illusion that google doesn't know I own my multiple accounts. They most certainly do. I usually use the same user agent (with containers) on the same IP, after all.But my goal is to avoid a stranger gaining access to my google services if they manage to unlock a lost device or steal my TV/streaming box that has no lock at all.I wish…
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That can't be true? <https://grapheneos.org/faq#hardware-identifiers> As of Android 10, apps cannot obtain permission to access non-resettable hardware identifiers such as the serial number, MAC addresses, IMEIs/MEIDs, SIM card serial numbers and subscriber IDs. Only privileged apps included in the base system with READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE…