Accrescent is a novel Android app store focused on security, privacy, and usability. We’ve been building Accrescent since 2021 to improve the security and freedom of everyday Android users by providing an alternative to Google Play which doesn’t compromise on technical excellence and protecting our users. Aligned with this mission, over 42,000 people worldwide trust Accrescent to deliver their apps safely. Now, we need your help to continue. Accrescent has always been free to use because we believe security shouldn’t have to come at a price. We also understand we’re trusted by our users to secure a sensitive and significant portion of their lives — the apps they use — so we’ve built Accrescent transparently, making our code open source so others can run and inspect it as they please.
  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
    6·
    12 days ago

    Personally, ever since I heard of this store, I’ve not been interested. It just seems like another Google Play to me.

    I understand that the developers have done some things to enhance the security such as app certificate pinning and such, but I cannot get over the fact that it’s a single source that any government can contact and pull down an app from.

    I personally stick with fdroid because if they are forced by governments to pull down an app the app dev can launch their own onion repo without asking permission.

    • SorryImLate@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      I don’t think they’re aiming to replace F-Droid. Rather think of this as a tool to wean the masses off the play store. It’s also an alternative for those people currently using microg and Aurora Store.

      Personally I have some proprietary apps that I don’t want to be without. If Accrescent could provide them, I could finally delete my google account. I literally just have an account to download apps.

      • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        4 days ago

        You do not need a Google account to download apps. May I introduce you to the Aurora store. You can download it from fdroid and you can use an anonymous account to download apps with it.

        Edit: I clearly did not read your comment closely enough. If you already have the Aurora store, then why do you need a Google account? I haven’t had one in like two years and didn’t use the one I had for years before that.

          • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
            2·
            4 days ago

            Guess it’s a good thing I’m a cheap motherfucker then. If an app has a price tag next to it, I don’t use it. Now if an app is open source and they ask me to donate to it, I’m willing to do that.

            • SorryImLate@piefed.socialEnglish
              1·
              4 days ago

              Why not both? ;)

              Some FOSS apps are only available for a fee in the play store and I think that’s great. They’re able to access a bigger market for funding purposes, and we both know the vast majority of play store users won’t make the effort to figure out how to make donations otherwise.

              • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
                1·
                4 days ago

                I believe OSMAnd is in the Play Store, but costs money. But if you get it from fdroid, it’s free. And I’m okay with that, because I use fdroid.

    • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
      3·
      12 days ago

      And fdroid is working very diligently on reproducible builds. Which is unique in the app distribution landscape.

      I understand the premise that you don’t want to trust a third party if you don’t have to. But I also don’t trust the developers to publish the source code correctly either. At least fdroid keeps everyone honest with the code being available.