Im just about to root my Note 8 for the first time. I just found out about this Yalp app to download apps from google play without needing account.
But my question is; what about the apps that I have paid for in the past in google play store? How does that work exactly. I tried to read some on yalp website but cant find more then one line about it saying thats the reason u need to keep playstore…?
Someone please explain for this noob how this works… I would really like to get rid of gapps/google playstore as much as possible as I am very privacy concerned. At the same time I have some paid apps and subscriptions like eset antivirus and malwarebytes etc…
To download/update payed apps via yalp store you’ll have to log in with your own account instead of the one yalp provides.
This doesn’t completely defeat the purpose of not having the play store. Yes, you are sending data to G%§$e again, but not as much.
FYI: anti virus apps for android are BS.
The best way to keep your phone safe is - you guessed it - staying away from G%§$e and other shady apps and websites.
Thanks for your answer! appreciated.
Couple of followup questions:
If Im rooting and just using stock rom, can I just use something like titanium backup then and just erase the playstore app totally? I know once I installed cyanogen mod on my tablet many years ago, there was a option to root without gapps but I guess those options are not availible for stock samsung roms.
About anti virus apps… Im sort of a novice user… Is that really true that I wouldnt need something like malwarebytes at least for blocking potencial shady scripts from websites or whatever…
For PC theres been such a long discussion about needing antivirus versus “just be careful”… I always went with the safe way of protections but also being careful.
Do you mean really that on android “being careful” is really enough…?
I’m pretty sure there are alternative OSes like Lineage OS for most Samsungs and flashing them is probably easier than getting rid of GAPPS on a stock ROM.
Obviously there are different levels of being careful. If you only install apps from F-Droid and browse the web with Firefox and PrismBreak approved addons enabled you’re on the safe side. If you still sometimes download random apps from Play/Yalp and browse random sites you should protect yourself with e.g. Adaway and Tor.
Most anti virus apps are malware themselves.