I use GrapheneOS and it’s de-Googled. I use Aurora Store and F-droid to download my apps. I can’t find a way to download apps from the Play Store’s beta channel using Aurora Store, is there a place I can download the APK directly?
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I havent fully tested this. But this is supposed to use a Google account to download from the Playstore. I would not use a primary account as this is against the EULA for the playstore and may get the account banned.
Yalp Store (Download apks from Google Play Store) -
That’s similar to Aurora Store. I tried it, but it hasn’t been updated in 10 months and doesn’t seem to work. Aurora Store works, but doesn’t have an option to try apps in the alpha or beta channels.
I also tried backing up the APK from another device that uses Play Store using CX File Explorer, then sending it to my main phone, but I couldn’t get that to install either.
I was hoping there would maybe be an APK available for the beta and alpha versions that I hadn’t found yet, outside of Google Play. Thanks anyway.
It seems that opting in to the beta/alpha builds does involve a certain amount of Googlifying, so I guess your only option would be to set up the development environment and build it from source.
From what I’ve read the maps will not work, and the app still requires some Google libraries, so if your Android image is fully de-Googled it may not work at all.
It would definitely be nice to have fully agnostic APK releases, but I’m not even sure if that’s possible.
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I’m good without maps. I probably won’t use it outside my house very much. Mostly for fun, an alternative way to communicate with friends privately in town.
The stable version is functional without Google for sending and receiving messages. But I only found this project recently and haven’t tested my setup very much yet, I just got my devices and tested a little last night.
My device wasn’t visible on the map, but the other person who was using Google was visible. I thought my device’s GPS might send location info. Those options are neat, but they aren’t required for what I’m using them for.
yes - I occasionally push up APKs to the github releases directory.
Alas - though I love open source (which is why all of this project is open source) I can’t distribute this app on f-froid. Because their terms of service do not allow analytics services.
I do include analytics, but it is optional. And analytics is too useful for me as a dev to give up.
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Good to know why it’s not available on F-Droid. Do those terms apply if a F-droid repo is hosted elsewhere?
I’m good with stable version for now, I just like to help test beta and alpha apps if I can.
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Alas I don’t know - I only looked briefly.
I compile debug APKs of Meshtastic-Android for a related project.
I run an open webserver on my build machine that serves my latest binaries:
http://avjimgnwfmwdenlgfe2ewvhdx77txseg55hqqa63pz7jnzfq3b3t24qd.onion/apk/
My debug key fingerprint is:
5C:FC:DC:90:93:45:9C:9D:C3:EB:7C:B3:0F:E6:95:A8:4A:F1:A5:16:8D:0F:52:45:D8:93:B0:F2:E9:62:C5:FE
Be warned that these are self-signed debug binaries from an unknown source, and treat them as potentially harmful.
I hope this helps someone (and harms no one) 
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In my opinion this sounds a little scary.
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@geeksville, I use Conversations (xmpp messaging app). The app has an option to send crash reports which is turned off by default. If you want to send logs, crash reports you must enable it on purpose. I think it’s fair and transparent.
Conversation is on F-droid.
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re: analytics are scary
I hear you and I understand that feeling. That said optional analytics will be in this app for some time - mainly because 90% of fixable bug reports come in that way. Also statistics on # of users, what types of devices (and phones) they are using are super useful for the devs. If this bothers anyone, I think the slight burden of clicking the checkbox to turn off analytics is bearable. 
re: fdroid
alas, the fdroid terms of service which don’t work for me are:
We cannot build apps using proprietary tracking/analytic dependencies like Crashlytics and Firebase. Please talk to upstream about an untainted build flavor (either using a FLOSS analytics software like ACRA or by removing Non-Free dependencies completely). (from here)
I used crashlytics (because it was super easy and well documented). I considered ACRA, but to do that (at the time - not sure now) I’d have to host my own analytics server. Which was more than I was able to sign up for.
That said, if anyone wanted to send in a PR to remove crashlytics and provide an alternate fdroid acceptable analytics solution I’d eagerly accept it. To enable this I made a ‘analytics provider’ interface of which crashlytics is one particular implementation.
Also, someone would need to constribute an alternative to mapbox (which we also optionally use - but is closed source)
For software to be FLOSS, the software in its entirety must be so - including all libraries and dependencies used. Additionally, it must be buildable with only FLOSS tools.
IMO - fdroid is being too dogmatic about what they will accept, but they are certainly within their rights to be so. I used mapbox for similar reasons to crashlytics - it was super easy and quick to use. But I’d eagerly ditch it if someone wants to do that. Fundamentally, I just have a very limited # of hours per day I’m able to program so I have to pick carefully.