Looks like Google is making life more difficult for deGooglers
Looks like Google is making life more difficult for deGooglers
I haven't been able to update my cellphone anonymously with Aurora since January. Every time I try, Aurora errors out with "Oops, you are rate limited".
This isn't the first time Google plays at making non-normies' lives difficult. So I tried the usual tricks, updated Aurora, tried the nightly build, waited, tried again... for months - to no avail: Google just won't play ball this time.
Last week, Signal stopped working and demanded to be updated. Fortunately, Signal offers the APK as a normal download without having to get it from the hateful Google Play store.
Today, my home banking identificator app did the same thing and stopped working. I needed to make a payment right now, and I had no way to update the app: "Oops, you are rate limited". And my bank sure doesn't offer the APK outside of anything but the goddamn Google Play store.
So I relented and created a Google account. Which of course entailed giving Google a phone number. I sure didn't give them mine, so I phoned a friend abroad who doesn't care to ask him to receive the verification SMS on his phone and read out the code to me. Which worked long enough to set up 2FA and do away with phone numbers altogether. And finally, after an hour of fucking around, annoying other people and compromising their phone number, I could update my banking app and make my payment at last.
All that because Google has decided they want to control my phone.
Fuck Google.
Seriously, how they are allowed to hold the Android world hostage like this without getting their monopolistic ass Sherman'ed AT&T-style, I'll never know. It's long overdue.
I haven't seen the rate limitation issue for a couple of months now. The issue is not new, IIRC the Aurora team needs to provide more and more anonymous accounts as the user base is growing. Some months ago we had this problem for more than two weeks. I just checked and Aurora finds no connection, but until today everything worked flawlessly. And I expect it to work again soon.
I feel your pain though. I am degoogled for more than 5 years now and what I learned is that Google will always look for ways to make our life harder. More and more basic functions such as network location were seperated from the AOSP into proprietary google services. I am pretty sure this will get even worse in the future.
We must not forget that we rely on open source software and a hand full if developers, everything can break tomorrow and we are fucked.
We must not forget that we rely on open source software and a hand full if developers, everything can break tomorrow and we are fucked.
In no way am I blaming the kind souls who create the open source software I love, and make life livable despite Google. I am squarely blaming Google who, like you say, has everybody's balls in their hand and can squeeze at will - somehow lawfully.
Try deleting app data in Settings > Apps > Aurora Store, some data remains persistent even with reinstall, I had a similar problem showed that Aurora is down for maintenance, were reinstall didn't work but removing data did, go figure.
you guys are aware the new play integrity API will demand us to have both the official play store AND a locked bootloader to use any app that wants to enforce it right?
they are definetly coming for us.
I would recommend using apkupdater for closed source apks, in particular enabling apkpure repo, rather than insisting on using google repo with aurora store or any other mechanism.
Also looking for FLOSS alternatives if possile (granted things like whatsapp and waze won't have alternatives for example).
Some metioned apkmirror as the more trusted repo for closed source apps, however it's currently formatting apks on multiple apks, and supposedly requesting for the apkmirror own instaler, so I recommend apkpure instead, which is also pretty well regarded, and they also in theory offer the same packages as the ones on google play...
For FLOSS apps, the different f-droid repos (official ones and non official ones such as izzy-on-droid) offer a good amount of them.
Thanks!
Try Obtanium! You'll also get updates ahead of F-Droid.
Really seems to me that the only way to manage this consistently will be with a non-de-googled phone as back-up for downloading and exporting apks. Doesn't need a phone number, and wouldn't have to have a google account with any real information.
As Android becomes increasingly hostile to users who want to control their own device, and without Google bullshit, I've grown to accept that I'm basically just going to have to carry two phones.
Rooted/Lineage phone is main, if something refuses to work (which is rare for me), I kick on the hotspot and pull out the "clean" one.
Been doing it for a year or so now. It's annoying but not that big a deal, honestly. I've gotten used to it.
I'd probably end up having two anyway for work stuff. This way Verkada and Microsoft's garbage can stay on the "clean" phone too. I'm not about to tolerate Outlook wanting device admin privileges on my personal phone, but if it wants it on the "clean" one, go for it.
Maybe this will spark the next Linux phone wave as there’s not much reason for to run Android if you are already forced into a second smart phone.
Oh no, I was talking about keeping the stock android phone at home. I'll use outlook on a phone again when that employer buys me a phone, period.
i hate this because it defeats the whole purpose of degoogling
whats with this fetish on depending so heavily on a single US corporation for what is now critical infrastructure anyway.
This isn't the first time Google plays at making non-normies' lives difficult.
I agree with the tone of this, but are you seriously using "normies" unironically?
Don't read condescension into it. I said non-normie as a convenient shortcut for "not in the statistical norm" - which is what we who reject Google's vampirizing influence are. Hopefully we'll be the normies one day. But for now we definitely are not.
These corporations would never let that be the norm. They are presently moderate about it because we are an extreme minority, but if this population starts growing at rapid rates, these leeches will go crazy. Just like how Google behaved a few months ago to prevent ad-block usage on YouTube. The unfortunate news is that we can't even do much about it; they already have a scary market share and the money to do whatever they want. Worse thing is that these corporations will unite together in such scenario.
I can't say I've heard the word "normies" used ironically before
Yeah everything is broken with anti-patterns meant to kill competition.
I keep a separate Google Chrome install with no addons for government and banking. Websites break things so badly unless you're leaving yourself wide open to all their privacy snooping and what not.
For random web browsing the annoyances don't matter as much. It's unacceptable when it comes to important things. It's all by (anti-)design.
Another solution would be downloading the APK from APKMirror. I believe all their APKs signatures are checked against the proper Play Store releases or something like that (don't quote me on that), but the baseline is that all their APKs should be pretty safe.
As much as I hate Google and the Play Store, I trust it more than third party app stores. APKPure, Aptoide, APKMirror... They all sound a bit sketchy to me. Because if you think about it, there's absolutely no way to verify that the APK files they serve haven't been diddled with, since the Google Play store doesn't give a file hash that would enable me to verify the file's signature independently. Not to mention, their apps have a knack for displaying obnoxious advertisement at full screen and full volume.
And even if I did trust them, do you find this normal? Why is Google allowed to make me jump through hoops and compromise my security with impunity?
This comment about the app signature should apply to your situation too, you can't mess with an APK and then sign it with the Google Play keys.
APKMirror is the most trustworthy website there is for APKs out there, if you do some research you will see that the community consensus is it being pretty safe.
I do however understand your concern, especially when talking about banking apps. Honestly now that I think about it, for a banking app I'd rather make a burner Google Account as well. For less sensitive apps however, APKMirror is the best non Google way to get their APKs.
About the app, I have no idea, I only ever used the website (with uBlock).
Obviously it sucks that you need a Google account to access all these apps "properly" through the Play Store, for free apps they should really just let you download them without an account.
RCS just got cut for me again today because I'm rooted. At this point I'm spiteful enough that anybody who wants to reach me is going to have to do it through signal.
The egregious part in this is that Google presents RCS as an open standard to get carriers to adopt it. But then they retain enough control to exert their power over users like this. The same happened with Android. I don't know how long such exploitation is tolerated before such aggressors are split up into a thousand competing businesses.
RCS is the non-Apple aquivelant to iMessage, right?
RCS is XMPP if it were invented by corporations for corporations with the goal of minimal EU data compliance of messaging interoperability & maximal loopholes. The irony is these big corpos used XMPP a decade ago until they realized they have nothing to gain from interop or contributing to the working groups, but everything to gain from walling off the gardens & making users create accounts.
There is RCS the standard, which isn’t really used - maybe Apple’s support will give it a boost. Then there is RCS + proprietary addons that is used, Google iMessage.
Sorta, it's supposed to replace sms to an extent, but does require an internet connection. However, it is an open standard to my understanding meaning that any platform could implement it, not just android/ios.
@shoki @alphapuggle is RCS the version of texts that get pushed through Google's servers so they can strip mine out for behavioural data?
I just switched to a degoogled phone and Aurora recently, and it worked fine installing 30+ apps. When you get an error, try logging out of Aurora and start a new session, maybe the current Aurora proxy your phone is using is down
Yep this is it. Same thing happened to me randomly for a week before i said "maybe it's not the servers" and did the whole turn it off and on again thing.
I banged my head against this for a while, turned out switching VPN servers did the trick for me. Might help for you? Could also try installing an update for aurora. Or you could try deleting all aurora data. Those have helped in the past as well.
For banking exclusively, I use an insecure old phone with all the Google stuff updated through the Play Store. This phone is only on, without a SIM, behind a VPN, when I make a transaction. Battery lasts forever.
And yeah, Google don't like people who won't allow them to fuck around with Android phones.
I've been running GraphiteOS and get most of my apps from Fdroid.
I love FDroid but no way in hell is my banking app going open source and uploading there. I can use the website instead of the app but I doubt that's the case for everyone.
You mean GrapheneOS? Or is GraphiteOS a different OS I've not heard of?
GrapheneOS?
Yes
It makes me nauseous to say this, but I am now considering getting a goddamned iPhone just to avoid Google, trading one shitcorp for another shitcorp.
What other options are there to be de-Googled and avoid the app troubles OP is battling?
I've been using GrapheneOS on Pixel 7 for about 5 months now, and haven't seen any issues. With this, bootloader is also locked, so no issues there.
I've been eyeing the Murena Fairphone 4 and I think I may go that route. Their OS is purpose built to de-Google, offering free competing services while still having access to the Play store. It seems like it might be a good way to do this for someone like me who doesn't know what a bootloader is or why it should be locked.
I noticed I only got the rate limiting error when searching for an app on Aurora, but not to download and install. But how to get to the install page if you can't search?
I opened Firefox/Fennec on mobile, searched for an app, clicked the result for the Google Play store. Once on the play store page for the app was open, I would choose the "Open in App" option from the Firefox menu and select Aurora.
That would launch Aurora and bring me directly to the App Install page. From there I could complete the installation.
This was sometime in 2023, but hopefully it will still be helpful today.
It works for me! Just try loging out (via the settings) and back in...
my only hope is that with the receding influence of us tech companies we will get more breathing space for alternative foss software in the future.
Spoken like someone from Kaliningrad (as opposed to someone in the US, where US tech companies' influence is only getting even stronger).
oh fuck you got me!
srsly though, what makes you think that its not declining