I'm unfamiliar with what's going on here. It sounds like this thing vends Google account credentials for a small pool of accounts to be used anonymously? I've gotta be misunderstanding something because that sounds like something that definitely should be blocked and would be wildly outside of Google's terms. How does this thingy work?
This is a major problem for most people with a degoogled phone. Luckily I am using Graphene which provides a sandboxed Google Play services. This means that the only access you need to give it is network access rather than the promiscuous normal access it has to just about everything on your device. <a href="https://grapheneos.org/features#sandboxed-google-play" rel="nofollow">https://grapheneos.org/features#sandboxed-google-play</a><p>It would be helpful if others can share here how to extract and install APK's outside the Play store.
Seems like Google is spending way more energy in preventing user to avoid being spied upon by them than they are actually moderating the app store against spywares and malwares.<p>Aurora wouldn't need to exist if they gave us an easy way to get apps from the Play store without giving control of our entire phone to the worst privacy offenders on earth.
Huge issue with those having to use a phone from one country with apps local to another country - very common for extensive travel, as the formal Google play store locality change is only allowed once per year.
Obtainium is open source and can download/update directly from source on GitHub or GitLab—or even use directly F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid, Mullvad, Signal, APKMirror, APKPure, Steam, Telegram, VLC, Neutron.<p><a href="https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium">https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium</a>
I don't know when it started but I had the same issue on a Samsung tablet yesterday afternoon. If Google permanently blocks access to the Play Store from Aurora then that will be sufficient for me to finally spend the money to get an iPad.
It's been a great app, but I've found myself relying on APK Mirror more and more. Would be nice if there was a more up-to-date APK Mirror client that can handle updates automatically.
Solution:<p>1. Settings -> Apps -> Default apps -> Opening links -> Aurora Store -> Add link -> check both boxes<p>2. Search for your desired app with any web browser + search engine, long press on the play store link<p>3. Open link in external app (Aurora Store)<p>4. No need to de-anonymize yourself or wait for an update. Hopefully this gets fixed soon.
For those affected, I just tested, and there was a Signal update available which successfully completed. Perhaps updates for existing / old users will continue to work? Fingers crossed