By that measure, F-Droid is very close in that both have the majority of apps some people use (Aurora for you, F-Droid for me).

Neither can compete with the Play store though, as only Google's offering is allowed to update or install apps in the background without user interaction (without root). For that matter, only Google Play Protect (part of the Play Store IIRC) can uninstall apps from user's devices with no interaction.

>only Google Play Protect (part of the Play Store IIRC) can uninstall apps from user's devices with no interaction.

That sounds horrible. Why can a store decide to delete an app with no prior notice?

But it does seem Google has given more freedom to other apps to install apps. I guess it comes down to if that's still too many clicks or too fear mongering to count as "competitive".

It’s a security feature. They’ve had this feature for more than a decade [1].

It allows them to remotely remove any malicious app from Android devices without any user intervention.

1: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2752902/google-remotel...

Worse than that, I've had it unilaterally block legitimate third-party apps I've installed from F-Droid. Then since I've disabled it, it constantly nags me to re-enable it so it can re-delete my third-party apps. If you want to talk about anti-competitive, Play "Protect" should be where you start.

In my experience Google Play Protect can be disabled, and shows a warning an app might be "Harmful" and sometimes prompts to Uninstall or Ignore the warning, afaik no unprompted uninstalls

> only Google's offering is allowed to update or install apps in the background

Not anymore, since Android 12 (2021).

https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-alternative-app-st...

You're right! I thought I'd heard something about that, but couldn't quite remember :) From your linked article though:

> in response to mounting pressure from Epic Games and government regulators

Just because it came out before the judgement doesn't mean it wasn't because of the court case. And frankly, needing to be sued to do the not-a-monopoly thing isn't exactly a great look.

Maybe I'm just grouchy because I'll never get to use it though - BlackBerry stopped making handsets, so I'm using either the last great physical keyboard (subjective, but true IMO) while being "stuck" on Android 8.1, or GNU+Linux à la Pinephone Pro.

I don't fully understand. Are these functionalities baked into Android that only allow Play Store to use it?

Pretty much. Google Play services runs as like a root process that can (among other things) bypass all the security checks that the OS usually has. That includes those annoying update confirmation dialogs which make it impossible to install updates automatically without user interaction.

Specifically GMS runs as a "privileged app" (that's what priv-apps stands for) which can declare access to permissions in the manifest that non-privileged apps can't even ask for.

Importantly, this is largely a property of preloaded apps rather than GMS explicitly.

Yeah, they are curated by the author(s) of the Android build that the device is running.

> That includes those annoying update confirmation dialogs which make it impossible to install updates automatically without user interaction.

Important to note this has changed starting with android 12, now you just need accept installing the app, and the source can update the app without interaction.

Droidify (third party fdroid client) supports it, among others like Aurora store.

> Pretty much. Google Play services runs as like a root process that can (among other things) bypass all the security checks that the OS usually has.

Unnecessarily mind you, GrapheneOs proved that you can get the vast majority of GMS functionality without it needing to run as root. Even Gpay would work if google allowed it.

> That includes those annoying update confirmation dialogs which make it impossible to install updates automatically without user interaction.

This has changed with android 12, third-party sources can now auto update an app after a user accepts the initial prompt go install it.

AFAIU Aurora isn't an alternate store, but an alternate front-end to the Google Play Store.

That is, the only apps available through Aurora are those on Google Play, and if Google's rejected an app, then you won't be able to install it via Aurora.

By contrast, F-Droid is an alternative front-end and app store, with apps available which aren't included in Google Play (for example, Termux).

(I use both Aurora and F-Droid on an Onyx Android device.)

You can install and run apps from Aurora store without having Google Services installed? Did Aurora store replace Google Services somehow? Many apps depend on those services.

Many of the Google Services functionalities can be provided, mimicked, or worked around with microG: https://microg.org/

Google Play is not just app store, but also the only way to efficiently deliver push notifications on Android devices. And latest modifications to Android OS make it very rippled without push notifications, all background apps unload from memory very fast. The result is that it makes many types of apps impossible to implement without relying on push notifications - and lock in to Google Play services.

Same is true for Apple, of course.

While they carry almost the same name, Google Play Services are not the same as the Play Store, though. You can use the former without using the latter.

I highly doubt that a manufacturer can release an Android phone that does not have Google Play Store app but does use Google Play Services. We have evidence that Google prohibits even releasing other models w/out Google Play store if it wants to make Androids with Google Play.

Oh absolutely!