> What they do not want is for people to become satisfied with subpar solutions instead of striving for bare minimum privacy/security standards. They want a Play Store alternative front end to at least be able to guarantee you are receiving the right app you want

Aurora is a lot less invasive while achieving that same goal, but they recommend installing Googleware instead. Wouldn't the open source front-end be the "bare minimum" standard to strive for, with all the added tracking when installing GMS falling below that standard?

> It was the best way for them to provide compatibility without destroying the privacy of their platform

Again mixing up threat models and equating it to privacy. It may not compromise the technical security (as GrapheneOS goes to incredible lengths to point out while implying that this covers everything), in that it doesn't allow Google to access data on the device that Android's security model says they shouldn't have, but Android's security model isn't my threat model. My threat model, and many other people's, includes Google tracking me. If nothing else, the servers can always see which IP addresses I pop up on together with other people and build a social graph if they wish (or if they're ordered to)

By just grabbing the apk files from their servers whenever I open aurora.apk, that issue can be almost entirely avoided, for example. There's the matter of microG but just to show that there are easy wins to be made that work for a lot of apps already (that don't depend on the rest of the framework) that GrapheneOS vehemently opposes 'for security'

It's not strange that they offer a way to install GMS in a secure manner, it's strange that they don't recommend open alternatives where possible

And you're surely aware of the obvious bias of that link you shared. It's like those tables on vendor websites that show their product as the only one that does virtually everything to perfection with everyone else far behind, by measuring and including only the metrics they focus on. Whoever made that takes GrapheneOS' statements at face value and assumes it must be great. And that's assuming that the sheer number of checkmarks is evidence of anything. Depending on what your threat model is, each one can outweigh all others

>Aurora is a lot less invasive while achieving that same goal, but they recommend installing Googleware instead... GrapheneOS vehemently opposes 'for security'..

It's more accurate to say they suggest improvements not vehemently oppose. The community/project have opened issues with the Aurora Store project to get them closer to that goal of making sure the app downloads cannot be intercepted https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore/-/work_items/697 and mitigating the TOFU problem by ensuring the first install is definitely the one the developer distributed via Play https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore/-/work_items/1177 This is what I meant by standards. They only suggest Play Store because it is an existing solution that already meets those standards.

>Again mixing up threat models and equating it to privacy. My threat model, and many other people's, includes Google tracking me.

GrapheneOS are very conscious of avoiding sending data to Google where unnecessary. The evidence of that is in the link previously shared, but also in third-party reviews like https://www.kuketz-blog.de/grapheneos-der-goldstandard-unter... They also do advise that if you want to avoid Google's gaze you should explore non-Play Store apps if they can meet all your needs because Play Store apps are extremely likely to include Google libraries and dependencies that expose even more data to Google. Apps on your phone may be able to determine your locality, and can definitely fingerprint you uniquely, so it is not enough to download an app via Aurora Store. I believe that from their perspective it takes a lot of careful consideration and planning to avoid exposing data to Google. This consideration and planning would never end with just Aurora Store so hopefully you can understand why they would not recommend it as a well thread-modelled privacy solution for Google. Instead they do suggest Aurora Store as a last resort in special cases where the Play Store prevents you from getting the app nonsensically. Does my explanation make sense?

>... like those tables on vendor websites that show their product as the only one that does virtually everything to perfection with everyone else far behind, by measuring and including only the metrics they focus on. ...that's assuming that the sheer number of checkmarks is evidence of anything. Depending on what your threat model is, each one can outweigh all others

I agree. Checklists are a bad way of conveying verified information and importance of each feature, and I do think the table can be improved. Thankfully it is open to contributions from Github account owners.

The first ticket you link is not by someone who seems to work on GrapheneOS, at least there's nothing in their profile to suggest as much. The improvement they suggest is hardening, preventing basically nation state attackers who either compromise or compel a CA to issue a false certificate for Google's servers

The second ticket is about checking if the data that Google sent via TLS has a second signature from Google. It doesn't prove what you claim about ensuring the key is from the developers. This is more useful for places like apkmirror that distribute apps and could include the signature that Google tacked on, for people who trust but cannot use Google; to verify Google's signature without needing to be able to connect to Google. That's not what Aurora does, so it's not relevant to the project. Can be defense-in-depth in case Google's front-ends are compromised but the signing back-end is not, but again, that's less likely than getting struck by lightning and such a powerful attacker could also just compel the developers to make a special update that performs malicious actions on their target

This is the level of misunderstanding that I find very common among GrapheneOS users btw: it all sounds good if you don't know much about it, but when you drill down to what it actually does and consider a specific threat model, it's no reason to recommend Google Play over Aurora for 99% of people's threat models. If you're an oppressed journalist in Iran or whistleblower in the USA, then the cert pinning could help, but most of us are more impacted by everyday tracking than by targeted nation state attacks

> Apps on your phone may be able to determine your locality, and can definitely fingerprint you uniquely, so it is not enough to download an app via Aurora Store.

I'm probably misunderstanding you, but nobody said downloading an app via Aurora changes the contents of the download to become privacy-friendly. Like, downloading a .exe via an open source browser also doesn't change the download compared to if you download it with Google Chrome

You still have to be wary of what you download, deny it internet access if applicable, etc. It's just that you don't have to have google's stuff running in the background all the time, toggling internet access on (letting it upload queued telemetry) anytime you want to download or update an app that is distributed only via google

Aurora at least lets you filter on apps that don't have GMS listed as a dependency, and works with Exodus to show other trackers, making this process a lot easier than via Google Play

> Instead they do suggest Aurora Store as a last resort in special cases where the Play Store prevents you from getting the app nonsensically.

What do you mean by nonsensically? I didn't know they recommend it under any circumstance though, that's cool. Do you happen to have a link for that, or remember where they wrote that?