F-Droid and Aurora Store Guide - Install Android Apps in Privacy!

hi this is jason from atsanic in this video i'll take you through the use of f droid and the aurora store first i'll introduce f droid and how to install it then i'll guide you through how to search for and install apps and finally go deeper into the fdroid settings including adding additional app libraries for the second portion of the video i'll take a look at aurora store so installation setting it up how to search for and install apps i'll also discuss on how you can get paid apps from the google play store to work even if you have a device with no google services on it timestamps are provided in the description in case you want to move ahead to a particular chapter i try to go slow in my tutorials so they're easy to follow if you find i'm going too slow feel free to change the speed and settings so what's f droid in aurora store so these are two markets that can be installed as apps on your android device f droid offers apps that are free and open source they don't ask for questionable permissions and they don't contain trackers or share personal data it's been operating as a non-profit volunteer project since 2010. aurora store allows you to privately install most apps found on the google play store without having to log into a google account they both work well on de-googled android phones with operating systems such as calex os graphene os and lineage os but can be used with stock versions of android as well let's go on to the rest of the video okay so to install the f droid app it's very easy on your browser go to fdroid.org download the apk file and install it when you open it the home screen defaults to latest and shows you the most recent updates and new apps within the entire aftroid library at the bottom is a menu that also includes categories nearby updates and settings so i'll select categories you can see the interface allows you to browse apps by groups by scrolling to the side you see more apps in that category if i select view all i can see and search all apps within that category so to search for apps you need to be in either the latest or category sections and then select the search icon i'll do a general search for a photo gallery app at the top right the clock icon defaults and shows apps that fit the search criteria and have been recently updated if i click on the icon it now ranks the most popular apps that meet the search criteria i'll select simple gallery pro the page for each app will show when it was last updated if i select more there's a full description of the app and a list of its features if i page down to links there's information on known issues with the app links to the developers website and opportunities to make a donation so they can continue on improving the app clicking any of these will typically take you to an external website permissions list what data or sensor access is required by the app in order to function properly at the bottom of the page you can find and install previous versions next i'll look at osm amd which is a map and navigation app again the interface for the page is identical to simple gallery but in this example when you select more and then page down you can see that there are anti-features listed selecting an anti-feature will take you to the fdroid page where all these are described so f droid defines anti-features as behaviors in the app that might be undesirable from a user's perspective so they're often serving the interest of the developer or some third party in most cases anti-features really have minimal privacy concerns especially when you compare them to many apps that you would find on the google play store but since f droid is very transparent those are all listed here as a comparison apps from the play store often contain built-in data trackers and may report a significant amount of identifiable private data about you to the developer big tech companies and other third parties in the description i have a link to an exodus privacy article for more information on data trackers and why they are a significant concern in order to install an app all you need to do is find an application and then select install since i'm going to look at aurora store later on the video i'll do that one after installing if i don't want the app to update in the future then i can select the three dot menu and use a check box to indicate if i'd like to ignore all updates or re-enable them to check for updates i can refresh afterwards repositories or app libraries by swiping down on the screen i can also have f droid automatically check for updates and i'll discuss that later on in the settings chapter selecting updates will list all available updates for f droid apps currently installed on your device so then of course you can choose to update them or leave them in the queue okay back to the home screen so by selecting nearby it allows you to swap apps with other f droid users via bluetooth or wi-fi by selecting to connect that other person's phone will be prompted to accept the connection and once they have then i can pick apps installed on my phone that i would like to share with them and they can do likewise it's important to note that these are only app files and not any personal data that would be saved to the app okay let's go into settings uh here you can customize how f droid operates so first is manage installed apps it lists here all the f droid apps currently installed on your device you can uninstall apps you no longer need in repositories it lists all the application libraries currently installed on the device so it's also possible to add more app repositories so to find a list of these i can search online for f droid repositories some contain single apps while others contain groups of apps these aren't the only repositories available for f droid there are a few ones not listed here like bromide browser and collabora office i've provided links to those in the description to add a repository just copy the url that begins with https i'll add one for cgo which is used for outdoor geocaching games after you've added the repository you can search for the app or apps in f droid and you should be able to find them okay back to settings you can make changes for updating amps so first you can allow wi-fi or data for updates or prevent updates using those connections you can also turn automatic updates on or off you can change how often the repositories update in the background so it's important to mention that you need to update the repositories in order to be notified of app updates you can change the update interval from hourly to daily to manual checks and you can toggle notifications on or off for available updates for myself i only update over wi-fi i have manual checks for updates where i swipe down on the screen and never automatically fetch updates i don't want to use my data and i'm hoping it will reduce some battery drain because f droid won't be syncing in the background you can change the name of your device and local repo if you want to share apps via bluetooth so this is the name that will appear to others who you decide to share with paging down here you can set f droid to download apps via orebot and the private tor network to do this you have to install and configure the orbot app you can also enable proxies in aftroid and i have a link in the description that describes both the tor network and proxies and the reasons why they're useful for online privacy there are some additional privacy options for crash reports preventing screenshots and f droid and panic settings now let's look at aurora store as shown previously this app can be installed via f droid or you can install it by going to the developer's website downloading it and installing it from there opening the aurora store for the first time you're greeted with a welcome screen and a pop-up window here you can review the app's terms of service that's also linked to in the video description below the next page allows you to choose an installer the developer recommends to keep it as session installer as it applies to most users you can also choose other options including native for old android versions root installer if you have taken the extra specific steps to root your phone and aurora service if it's installed as a system app in themes you can select how the application appears in accent you can select highlight colors for the application on this screen you'll need to grant certain permissions for the application to work properly this includes external storage access external storage manager and installer permission on the next screen you'll be given the option to log into your personal google account or an anonymous account that's provided by the aurora store using the anonymous account much less data is going to be passed on to google about the apps you've downloaded and installed on your device if you want to find out exactly what data is shared then it's a good idea to go to aurora's privacy policy link to in the description that is a very quick read and it's easy to understand i'll log into the anonymous account and once that's done it will take you to the app's home screen on the home page you can filter by apps and games you can also update any applications you installed through aurora store aurora won't automatically notify your updates and really the only way to check for them is to navigate to this section of the app searching for apps can be done by pressing the search icon in the lower right of the screen so all searches and downloads are anonymized then sent to google to initiate the search provide results and download the apps google does receive some data but not any that can be considered personally identifiable for most people you're also ensured to receive the same app installation file as found on the google play store because it comes from the same source on each app's page you're presented with similar information as to what you would find on the play store this includes the app's user rating of a score of five how many times the app has been downloaded date of the last update and what's changed since the last update you can find more about the app including a description of its features read and filter user reviews by critical positive and score scrolling down you can find recommendations for similar apps and the developer's contact information in the privacy section it lists the number of data trackers for the app if you click on view report it takes you to the exodus privacy site for that app exodus lists the tracker names and categorizes each one so here you can see tick tock has eight known trackers categorized by analytics identification and advertisement so by clicking learn more exodus provides detailed information for each tracker category so tracker data is sent and analyzed by big tech companies so they can create a individual profile about you based upon the private information collected by the tracker some of that information is also shared with the app developer considering that trackers are one of the biggest privacy concerns when using a smartphone in permissions you can see the type of data or sensor access a particular app requests to find a full description there's a link in the show notes to an exotic website on app permissions finally by clicking on install the app will download and then install on your phone selecting the three bar menu at the top left brings up some more options my apps and games will show you what apps from aurora are installed on your device selecting apps on sale will show you a list of normally paid for apps that are currently being offered for free blacklist manager shows all the apps installed on your device whether through aurora store or not you can toggle each checkbox to prevent or re-enable the app from being updated spoof manager will allow you to fake your device model and language so this is only useful when you're using a personal google account to log in spoofing prevents your device model from being shared with google changing the language will also change the operational language of the aurora store download shows the apps that you've downloaded from aurora store including updates for those apps accounts allows you to log out of an account and log into another account so for example moving from an anonymous account and into a personal google account and then vice versa finally settings offer some additional controls so in filters you can filter out google and f droid apps from browsing and search results some developers offer their apps on both the play store and f droid but on f droid they offer pro or enhanced versions for free so by filtering these out you can download those apps from f droid instead installation and customization just allows you to change settings that you defined when you first open the app in downloads if you select user external storage this means that when an app is installed aurora can access your device storage then if you choose to keep the installation file it will save the apk file onto your device in an aurora folder where you can automatically delete the apk file after the app completes installation okay so if you log into an anonymous account you can only download free apps there's one workaround that allows you to install and use apps that you paid for previously on the google play store so say you have a personal google account where you paid for an app and you'd like to use that app on a de-googled phone so this is a device where all google play store and services have been completely removed and perhaps a custom android operating system like graphene os or lineage os has been installed so by logging into your personal google account you can now search for and install those paid apps i found many but not all my paid apps will function when installed in this way and some apps just won't because they have certain requirements or license checks that need google play services or micro g to work i won't go over micro g here but in the description there is a link to an atomic calyx os setup video that has a chapter in it that describes micro g and its settings after you install your paid apps open them to ensure that it works and then log out of your google account so you're not sharing any more data with them than you have to just to get those paid apps working again so that concludes the tutorial thanks for taking the time out of your day to watch it i really hope that you found it useful for additional privacy resources check out our youtube channel and the insanic website where there's a lot of practical information that you can use to set up your android smartphone for privacy atsanac also offers a selection of phones for sale with the privacy respecting graphene os or kxos installed technology is intrinsically neither good or bad the key is using it to support your goals and values rather than letting it use you with just a few changes you can be in control of your personal data online spend less time in the virtual world of your phone and more time on the truly important things in your life if you have any questions or constructive comments please post those below thanks for watching

Channel: Android Privacy Lab

Views: 48,984

Keywords: F-Droid, Aurora Store, Privacy, Android, Phone

Id: ZVSdOrm2pqo

Length: 16min 24sec (984 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021