Murena is in the business of deGoogling Android smartphones in the name of privacy. The French/European firm has been doing this for around five years, as We recently got our hands on a Fairphone 4 running Murena's tracker-blocking /e/OS. Our curiosity was piqued to see an alternative OS running on ...
Can I get my banking app on F-Droid? How about my home security system app? How about a dozen other apps that I want or need, and can't be replaced by loading a website in Firefox?
This is entirely on the companies. There's no technical reason or requirement for this happening.
Fdroid works great and is the most likely thing to be adopted, in my opinion. It's easy enough for anyone to spin up their own fdroid server and distribute their own app.
If you're wanting to use a new store, you're going to have to wade through the growing pains of adoption. It's just a fact of life.
Wait, I assume if you install a banking app through Aurora it still works? Totally fair if that doesn't work for your needs (you kinda need a google account, even if a blank one, to have it work right now) but I assume installing apps through it doesn't limit them or make them less functional for having been installed through Aurora?
We're talking about stock android having 3rd party app store with permissions to install apps in the background. Yes, you can install f-droid but on a stock android it can't update apps automatically. It's not an alternative for normal users. And as long as 3rd party stores are not used by normal users app developers will not care about publishing apps there. What needs to happen is that EU needs to force google (and apple) to allow alternative stores, some heavy weights have to support it and developers need to start publishing apps there.
Droid-ify can install apps in background (or at least without the package installer popup. The main f-droid app is still targeting too low of an android version to do it.
f-droid can install app in the background on my iode OS. It's not a technical problem, it's a legal issue. Google and apple don't allow 3rd app stores preinstalled on the phones.
Thats because the fdroid extension is installed. By default it cant do that. Google added the ability for app stores that target android 12 and above to update apps that also target android 12 or above without the package installer.