this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
178 points (94.5% liked)
Android
28042 readers
335 users here now
DROID DOES
Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules
1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.
2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.
4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.
5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.
6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.
7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.
8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.
Community Resources:
We are Android girls*,
In our Lemmy.world.
The back is plastic,
It's fantastic.
*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.
Our Partner Communities:
[email protected]
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
APKPure is no good btw. Most of the packages you get from there are in their own proprietary XAPK format, requiring you to install their extremely sketchy, filled with ads package installer to make any use of them, not to mention you probably can't guarantee the app itself is unaltered by that point. (yes, that is for stuff APKMirror often/always has in standard APK).
I guess I could still use APKMirror with a proper adblock if I really have to (I probably would pay for that damn subscription if a) it wasn't that expensive for something I use maybe once in two months and b) they didn't start forcing it LIKE THIS), but, you know, all this really makes for a feel of internet literally being a dying star.
AFAIK xapk is not proprietary to APKpure and its safe. Its just a way to ease the installation of packages that require additional data (OBB) not contained in the apk to run. If you installed the same app from APKMirror (as an plain apk) you would need to then hunt for the obb files and "install" them manually for it to run. Packages that dont require this additional data are distributed as plain apk's in APKpure, its only those that do that come in xapk format.
As for the sketchy installers, I've seen a couple of them and they suck, I agree. Fortunatelly I discovered the other day that an app called ZArchiver (a file browser developed mainly to manage compressed files) can install xapk's without problem, its a quite competent file browser and its free, without ads.
Now if you still dont trust them you can try with the sites listed in FMHY
Edit: Just remembered a site called apk.support They too use xapk but they also offer downloads as zip files containig both apk and data or the option to download them separately directly from google servers. I've used it a couple of times without issues.
Oh, pardon my ignorance! I've had no idea these are plain archives and ZArchiver could handle them - still, I don't get why APKPure would provide XAPKs for apps under 100 MB in size with no OBBs inside (example: Textra), other than to promote their installer.
edit: I guess this may be to distribute additional config APKs (language, architecture) in one file with the main app, so perhaps APKPure isn't that guilty here.
That FMHY link is also incredibly helpful, thank you!