Alternate app stores for Android

[SteveRiley]

Google is purging ad blockers from the Play Store.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/03/13/breaking-google-has-begun-purging-ad-blocking-apps-from-the-play-store/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/google-censoring-android-apps

Who knows what's next. At least we have a selection of alternate app markets now.

* F-Driod specializes in free and open source applications. Sideload their application to download and install items from the repository. My favorite ad blocker, AdAway, is now in F-Droid.

* SlideMe is a community marketplace that's attracting an increasing number of developers who become frustrated with Google's restrictive policies. Sideload their application to browse the SlideMe collection.

[woodsmoke]

thanked for the info.

woodsmok

[vinnywright]

sweet , thanks for the info

VINNY

[oshunluvr]

Installed..

[vinnywright]

supper sweet ,,,,, just installed a QR/barcode scanner to that old HTC-G1 running Ginsense ,,,,,,scaned the QR code at the bottom of the F-Droid page and it auto DL'ed the F-droid repo app ,,, one click install and it looks cool ,,,,,,in fact it shows an update to my terminal emulator that I got from the google play store

VINNY

[vinnywright]

LOL ,,,,, sory but had to add ........ I coped the URL of this page , opened Klipper , clicked show bar code , scanned it , and it opened this page in the browser on the G1,,,,,,,how cool.

VINNY

[dmeyer]

This is great for those of us who can sideload apps but unfortunately there are a huge number of people who can't. Might I also recommend the Amazon app store. It gives away 1 free paid app a day, has a decent selection of apps and has quite a nice interface.

[vinnywright]

This is great for those of us who can sideload apps but unfortunately there are a huge number of people who can't.

and why not ??

VINNY

[dmeyer]

and why not ??

VINNY

Carriers can lock everything up so that getting root is difficult. Then, its also possible to disable installing non-market apps entirely even with the menu option. Fortunately most carriers do not do this but some indeed do. Verizon limits sideloading a lot!

[SteveRiley]

The XDA Developers forums have plenty of information for rooting just about every phone in existence. Have you checked there?

[dmeyer]

The XDA Developers forums have plenty of information for rooting just about every phone in existence. Have you checked there?

Oh no. I'm all sorted. I have an international S2 running CM10.1. I have no problem at all, never have and probably never will. For us its easy, but some of these things can seem daunting for average users. I was just sort of playing devil's advocate.

[SteveRiley]

That's true. Different phones have varying degrees of difficulty getting into. But eventually they all fail. Yay for software bugs!

[Feathers McGraw]

Thanks!

Have been using F-droid for a while and like it, but it lacks ratings.

Had a quick look at Slide me, it seems it may be what I was after all along!

Feathers

[Feathers McGraw]

It's strange, but both F-droid and SlideMe seem to have quite old versions of apps in the repository.

For example, K9 mail is at version 4.8 on Google Play, 4.409 on F-droid, and 4.200 on SlideMe.

I guess it requires quite a lot of effort to recompile new versions, but I'd expect K9 to be quite a widely used app and therefore up to date...

[claydoh]

https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/wiki/ReleaseNotes

A bit complicated, as 4.8 is specifically for android 4.4, 4.409 is the current stable version, and there are other, newer test builds in their Google code page.


I think that it might just be too much work for many developers to keep things up to date on these other app stores, considering the smaller audiences they bring.

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