For extra privacy, you can sign into the Play Store with a Google Account that isn't tied to anything else.

Somewhere in the FAQ GOS advertises that Play Services can be used without signing in, but they also recommend the official Play Store (which requires signing in) and explicitly don't recommend Aurora (which doesn't).

Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how you can functionally use Play Services signed-out when in order to obtain those apps in the first place, you need to sign into a Google Account for Google Play.

That's personally what I used Aurora for, plus as an easy way to export APK files.

You still need to supply Play Services:

GrapheneOS uses Sandboxed Google Play. LineageOS requires flashing a package like MindTheGapps. There is also microG, an open-source reimplementation of Play Services APIs.

At the risk of being a privacy absolutist / fatalist: Google’s entire business model is surveillance. They follow you around and track your habits so you can be influenced. Given that, a Google account is always tied to something else.

But my goal is to avoid a stranger gaining access to my google services if they manage to unlock a lost device or steal my TV/streaming box that has no lock at all.

I wish Google supported a permission system per device. For example on most of my android devices all I really want is to be logged into Youtube and the play store. I most certainly do not want those devices to have access to my contacts, emails, calendar, keep, drive, payment, etc. (I don't personally use all of those things, but you might and that's what a random thief would gain access to.)

   - ALL: Log me in to all Google Services
   - Calendar
   - GMail
   - YouTube
   - ...

All you can do is leave their ecosystem as much as you can and accept you will never be fully rid of them

Their tracking is baked into various apps even if you don't have an account with them. Anything with social media integrations can report back to the mothership behind your back.

Yes, the advertising targeting is incredibly invasive, but let's not pretend they aren't providing world class Search, Email, Docs, Maps, Video (YT), etc in exchange.

For instance, I use GrapheneOS because it provides better security and privacy out of the box than LineageOS, but I'm also not so paranoid that I'm going to just blindly listen to advice against using F-Droid. What I want out of my Android instance is good security defaults with no bloatware, not to stop the NSA from looking at my travel photos and what HN articles I once looked at. It's okay if my OS is great but not perfect.

So yes, I am a GrapheneOS user who is [modestly] hurt by this. Signing in with a dummy account is just another one of those things that will end up being futile in years to come when Google requires iris scans, DNA samples, and anal probes in order to get a new account. Personally, I'd prefer installing whatever software I want on whatever devices I [pretend like] I own, without telemetry or jumping through hoops.

And yeah the iris scans sound like a scare but only 2 years ago there was a constant line of zombies here in the shopping mall giving their eye scans to altman.

The masses really don't care about privacy if you give them a worthless trinket.

You probably "just" need to pull down while on the "Latest" or "Updates" tab, to update your repository (it will show a small banner at the top while it's doing that). It's incremental, so it may take a while if it has been some time since you last did it (and auto-updates are disabled).

The way F-Droid works is that it downloads the whole index and then the catalog, version checks, etc, all runs locally, quite similarly to some package repositories actually.

I am not claiming its intuitive, but I think that part works fine once you understand how it works.

F-Droid builds all apps by themselves, which especially with their old servers took a lot (between detecting that the update exists, building the app and going to sign everything at their air-gapped signing computer).

Now a lot of apps use the "reproducible builds" feature, which means that F-Droid will distribuite them as they come from the author, leaving their digital signature; but they still need to build those apps before distributing them, to verify that what the author built corresponds to the declared source code.

With the much powerful servers that they've had for a few months builds are a lot quicker, but there are still steps that can take several days, especially the part of signing the apps' index on their air-gapped computer.

There's a ton of things that could be improved, and it would be best if there were an alternative with better maintainers, but they're currently the only service of this kind for Android (well, IzzyOnDroid is a partial alternative, if you're careful to check their reproducible builds results).

We search for stuff, install it, it updates in the background. We install some of our own repos, but the bulk of our apps come from F-Droid's default repos.

Hard to reconcile your account with my experience without specifics.

I very much prefer Obtainium these days despite the setup steps. I don't think it's a coincidence that Obtainium, Aurora, Zapstore, etc. are gaining mindshare over F-Droid, just like how Brave has explosive growth over FF.

https://github.com/rumboalla/apkupdater

though personally I use it only for Fdroid, Gitlab and Github

Sounds like an accurate recreation of the Play Store experience to me.

You're sure you understand what it does?

Isn't that pretty much impossible? You need a phone number for verification, which effectively ties it to that phone number.

> Isn't that pretty much impossible? You need a phone number for verification, which effectively ties it to that phone number.

I just want to follow-up on this because some people claim this is not correct because they have managed to create accounts without phone numbers.

Indeed, I think to this day, under special circumstances (like e.g. on reasonably recent Android devices) you might be able to setup a Google account without phone number.

The trick is, that in the general case, you can not keep this account online indefinitely.

I once worked out a trick to get it going and I was feeling safe because I had setup 2FA and backup codes (see https://masysma.net/37/google_how_to_create_an_account_witho...).

First thing to note: This way of account creation does not seem to work anymore.

Second thing to note: After once logging in from a different country, trying to login again REQUIRES me to provide a phone number after successfully giving username/password/2FA code. No way to use the recovery code instead...

Also, given that this account was never before connected to a phone of any kind, by definition, the addition of a phone number cannot provide additional security confirmation (it's data that simply wasn't present before and any "personal" phone number could potentially do -- of course I haven't tried, because that's the point of not linking a phone number).

I think this way it is finally proven that they only do this to harvest the data/phone numbers and any claim of enhanced security is void.

I write this after having lost the second account to the phone number required screen despite being in possession of all the credentials which were ever assigned to that account...

But you have to keep paying the monthly cost, if you loose access to a phone number in your Google account it's game over for any account recovery or "let's verify it's you" it might decide to throw your way.

Yeah now they have IMEI and all the other device specific info anyway they might as well forego the phone number

a burner sim, like a literal criminal, is the only way today.

  As of Android 10, apps cannot obtain permission to access non-resettable hardware identifiers such as the serial number, MAC addresses, IMEIs/MEIDs, SIM card serial numbers and subscriber IDs. Only privileged apps included in the base system with READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE whitelisted can access these hardware identifiers. Apps targeting Android 10 will receive a SecurityException and older apps will receive an empty value for compatibility. The currently enabled carrier-based messaging app for SMS/MMS/RCS is a special case that's given access to certain device identifiers including the IMEI. This is normally the GrapheneOS fork of AOSP Messaging but can be changed to another app by the user.

  Since these restrictions became standard, GrapheneOS only makes a small change to remove a legacy form of access to the serial number by legacy apps, which was still around for compatibility. It used to need more extensive changes such as disallowing access to the serial number but those restrictions are now standard.

In any case, my parent comment was meant for stock Pixels, as mentioned by armadyl further up in this thread.

> Google Play receives absolutely no special access or privileges on GrapheneOS as opposed to bypassing the app sandbox and receiving a massive amount of highly privileged access.

It doesn't mention IMEI here, but hopefully READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE is included in "privileged access."

That one lists:

  ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE
  ENFORCE_UPDATE_OWNERSHIP
  FOREGROUND_SERVICE
  FOREGROUND_SERVICE_SPECIAL_USE
  INSTALL_PACKAGES
  INTERNET
  POST_NOTIFICATIONS
  QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES
  RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED
  REQUEST_DELETE_PACKAGES
  REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES
  UPDATE_PACKAGES_WITHOUT_USER_ACTION

There is no READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE mentioned there.

  > That's also incorrect, because the gmscompat app is just a helper app.

  >  Those permissions are handled by the OS under the play services app

EDIT: "GmsCompatConfig is the text-based configuration for the GrapheneOS sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer. It provides a large portion of the compatibility shims." [1] This seems to indicate that the permissions requested by Play Services are being honored with the shims from the helper app. That would alleviate the permission problem.

1. https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_packages_apps_GmsComp...

For example, the banking app I have refuses to be installed from the Play Store on GrapheneOS due to "not-certified" device, but works perfectly fine when installed by Aurora.

The check seems to be purely store-based and never enforced later.

But using Aurora I can install it just fine and it works flawlessly.

(for me, the whole point of using GrapheneOS is privacy and not sending data to Google, so using the PlayStore is not an option)

https://github.com/privacyguides/verified-apps-android

https://github.com/privacyguides/verified-apps/

I think in general trust is established for Play Store apps by downloading the app with the Play Store on a phone with Google Certified Android. Then the app can get the signing key for storage in the database. Then this can be used to verify APKs downloaded outside the play store.

Wether or not the most recent example is the best example, doesn't matter. What matters is when the government says "jump" in legalese, google's lawyers say "how high?"

GrapheneOS is much more privacy focussd than any other mobile operating system. Accrescent is the end goal for a secure and private app store but it's still in alpha. GrapheneOS is also the best for degoogling (eliminating all google services) because it comes with zero Google services unlike all the other ones listed here: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

How can you call other OSes more privacy focused when they haven't closed as many VPN leaks as GrapheneOS? That's like bare minimum for privacy.

Therefore, the system needs to protect itself and other apps from the user. Which is very much contrary to software freedom.

Looking at their public statements on the matter, it seems like the problem isn't exactly that they treat the user as a potentially hostile actor so much as that they treat the system UI and persistent storage as a potentially hostile actor (though I admit from a practical perspective that's nearly the same thing): https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/13264di/is_root...

I wonder how they'd feel about something like protected confirmation to enable sudo: https://source.android.com/docs/security/features/protected-...

I believe you misunderstand what "software freedom" means. You can compile and install GrapheneOS yourself, and you can grant yourself admin access. This is software freedom.

Software freedom does not mean that you should run everything as an admin, always. And just in case: software freedom does NOT mean that you should remove your firewall and let everybody SSH into your server by having a blank password.

I think it's fair to say that that's at least borderline anti software freedom, even if it's true they have good security reasons for doing things that way.

Then you don't understand software freedom either.

Software freedom doesn't mean AT ALL that random projects on the Internet MUST implement the features YOU want. Never, not at all, it's not borderline, it's not up to debate.

Software freedom is about being able to use the software the way you want, as in "you get access to the sources, you modify them, build them and run them". You can do that with GrapheneOS (well except for the binary blobs situation, but that's not in GrapheneOS' hands at all). Software freedom is NOT about GrapheneOS giving you root access on official builds because you want it. And it's also NOT about GrapheneOS installing Doom on the official builds because I want it.

You can't use the software in the way you want if it uses hardware backed cryptography to block you from doing so.

> you get access to the sources, you modify them, build them and run them

This is completely infeasible for 99% of the population. If you technically have a freedom but have no practical way to exercise it, it may as well not exist.

You could argue "but someone else could modify it for you, build it, and make an easy way for you to install it", and normally I'd accept that, but given that installing that modified version would require you to completely reset your phone and install the new modified OS from scratch, I think it's debatable at that point whether you'd still be running Graphene, rather than a fork. And if exercising your freedom requires you to stop running Graphene and start running something else, is it really fair to say Graphene itself supports that freedom? Like I said, borderline.

If you're still not convinced, consider what would happen if companies started using remote attestation to verify you're running the official GrapheneOS build and block forks...

Yeah, the goal is privacy although the OS is completely open source.

They do improve user experience by allowing disabling emergency alerts, call recording without alerts, no mandatory camera noise in Japan, no extra warning popup from installing APKs from the web (it's the same permission in every app store iirc), increases password length to 128 digits. All the network services are open source afaict while all the other mobile operating systems listed in that android comparison connect to Google's closed source services, netowrk permission, sensors permission, storage scopes, contact scopes.

You can still easily install whatever Android app you want on GrapheneOS and you can install dangerous apps like shizuku and apps with way too many permissions. But yeah the goal is privacy so that everyday people can protect themselves as well as journalists can protect themselves. I want journalists to get the best privacy possible without having to know a ton of technical things or making many choices.

I personally would prefer to have both but choose the privacy side when both are into conflict.

Both viewpoints are valid, but I don't use GrapheneOS for this reason.

They said they don't want to do it because it would stop working in the future when Google move to enforcing hardware-based attestation and it is not sustainable.

Note that nobody (new) can submit to it today; the developer console HTTP 503s and is only available to an allow-list of developers.

I dare you try creating a Google account that isn't tied to anything else.

Nowadays you can't even create an account in desktop browser without first having to scan a qr code from a mobile device first.

Google states: Using a false name or incorrect information when creating a Google account is against Google's Terms of Service.

I don't really see the point of using GrapheneOS instead of Stock Android if I then have to use the play store.

Also on GrapheneOS, Play Services and Play Store come unprivileged, sandboxed like any other app. So Google is not an admin on your phone, which I would argue is one step towards "severing the umbilical cord".

Moreover, GrapheneOS doesn't have any issue with apps sideloading.

And more. There are many reasons to use GrapheneOS.

And “worried about anonymity in that way”… that’s the topic being discussed here.

As far as cell service goes well yeah there is no such thing as anonymity. Towers will always know your location as long as the radio is on and that can be correlated easily.

"Hope ya got ten bucks!"

(I got a random 5G Moto phone for ~$10 on clearance and it was an absolute shitter of a phone full of garbage packed in malware, but after cleaning and debloating as much as I can, it's at least a nifty toy to poke at Termux or something.)

The problem with this is that increasingly Google is insisting on having a phone number to create a Google account. Further, they are aggressively deleting old accounts that appear to be dormant.

The good old days of creating a Google account with just an email seem to be swiftly becoming a thing of the past.

That isn't completely possible these days. Last I checked they want an existing email address and/or a cellphone number for verification. I guess "not tied to anything else" is proportional to how much you trust them to delete either of these bits of info after they are used, and not associate them with other accounts you might have used them with in the past/future.

I use it on a phone with (unfortunately) regular google play services. If I sign into the play store, that same account will be used for all other google services on the phone too. I'm not going to do that. I just don't want a google account (nor an apple one for that matter)

How can I get this wonderful thing?

Interesting, I never tried Aurora on Graphene. For me the combination of Play Store and F-Droid worked really well so far.

Like my personal phone?)

Installing Google Play service is in itself a privacy downgrade.

For example the eBay app. Does not allow installing from the play store on grapheneos.

Braindead dev claims this is to limit the "piracy" and bug reports, nevertheless it's either Aurora or APKMirror.

I think the increased popularity of GOS is going to draw in more users like me who picked it for reasons adjacent to Graphene's original purpose, and I hope it's not too annoying for their community.

I think it's fine the mission of the project isn't directly aligned with some of us, though I can tell we often get on the core contributor's nerves lol

For example, let's say hypothetically I want to be secure against the threat of Google pushing a targeted update to my phone that runs malicious code. Turning on automatic software updates from Google would make me vulnerable to that threat. Using MicroG instead of Google Play Services would make me less vulnerable to that threat. But Graphene devs say things like "MicroG is less secure than Google Play Services".

Similarly, if you want privacy you might secure your device by locking the bootloader with your own keys - not a third-party vendor's keys. Saying that's "insecure" is extremely misleading: it just puts you in charge of security, instead of abdicating to someone else.

I wish there were something like GrapheneOS that let you choose, yourself, who to trust instead of requiring you trust an OS vendor implicitly.

  >  Turning on automatic software updates from Google would make me vulnerable to that threat. Using MicroG instead of Google Play Services would make me less vulnerable to that threat

It is. microG runs Google DroidGuard blobs in a privileged process (to pass Play Integrity Basic). Reminder for those who forgot about DroidGuard: it's an obfuscated binary blob delivered to you by Google on each request that uses a special VM with constantly changing registers, etc. to avoid analysis.

On GrapheneOS that crap runs in a sandbox.

You're missing my point here, which is that failing to describe a particular threat scenario leads to meaningless words spoken about ill-defined "security". Security has to be against some particular threat... it's not an absolute concept.

Far, far too "opinionated" for my taste. I frankly do not need the hyper paranoid security features like a hardened memory allocator or disabled root. I would rather be able to use my device the way I want, even if that's notionally "less secure".

I really wish there were another option. Lineage is too far in the opposite direction and feels like ad-blocked stock. Google still owns my phone, there's just a more pleasant coat of paint on it.

I get the part about disabled root - you're choosing to sacrifice freedom for security - though I don't understand why you wouldn't want a hardened memory allocator. It provides additional security over the stock OS for very little cost (slightly more resource consumption), in an era where we absolutely need as much security as we can get; what are you losing by gaining this?

There's plenty of people like that in the GOS community (the forum and the Matrix). Everyone generally understands that different people have different threat models and may want to do things that aren't the most secure. Otherwise everyone would be using GOS in airplane mode with disabled cameras and only paying for things with Monero.

The core dev team is obviously a bit more security absolutist, but even they usually dont mind

Citation needed. If there are such people in what can be considered a grapheneos community that haven't gotten fed up yet and left, grapheneos themselves sure doesn't understand this

> Otherwise everyone would be using GOS in airplane mode with disabled cameras and only paying for things with Monero.

Nah, they're fine with tracking, so long as it happens in their sandbox. The official website has an install guide for google's background services, saying it's fine because it's in their security model. So long as the modem can't access your contacts without a permission prompt, there is no tracking in baghdad

The GrapheneOS team understand full well that in cases where the Play Store does not allow installing an app on your device due to device or georestrictive rules you may have no choice. I have seen them mention this and acknowledge it first hand. 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 instead of being a substitution attack risk. I don't think that is unreasonable.

>The official website has an install guide for google's background services, saying it's fine because it's in their security model.

The context is that before sandboxed-play-services were introduced people were sourcing APKs in unsafe/via unverified routes and having all sorts of problems with app compatibility because since GrapheneOS is a privacy project that do not accept sending copious amounts of data to one party with a mediocre privacy policy they included no Google services at all. sandboxed-play-services is a specific solution to the problem of apps being dependent on Google Mobile Services for functionality, and in that sense it is entirely optional. It was the best way for them to provide compatibility without destroying the privacy of their platform by introducing a privileged Google binary that can glean and abuse your production environment. It's reduced to the same level as any other app the user might choose to install themselves (which GrapheneOS want absolutely no say over as a user freedom protecting project).

GrapheneOS do not bundle any Google services in their official installation. They do not endorse Google's data collection and service practices. They do not believe Google tracking is fine in anyway, and the evidence is here: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm What they have done is provide a workaround for people who have no alternative, while making sure it does not violate the device owners device in a special way compared to any other app they might install.

Their absolutist of their own view of security

Have you looked for help? It sure isn't because of any Google component being disabled

today I bothered to try various anonymous Aurora accounts and found finally the one working (like 5th in row) and updated the apps, I can live with updates once a week, not exactly sure what is OP doing

I mean if they are really rate limited just give me waiting time, I don't really care whether I have to wait in queue for an hour if it will update the app later without my intervention

btw. I am not using graphene, find it too paranoid for my taste, though I use my phone without google account for like 10+ years and current phone is first where I have (not disabled/have preinstalled) google play services

It's a shame that there is no official way to install apps on android without a google accout[1], since it's a basic functionality, just like calls or a web browser.

[1] For obvious reasons I don't want her to download apks from the internet.

https://www.whatsapp.com/download

It's the app publishers defaulting to Google that's the biggest issue.

At least WhatsApp has an official APK download, most apps don't.

That said, Google will still let you update apps without being signed in. Hold the Play Store icon to open the quick action menu. From there you can go to "my apps" and update all of the apps on your phone, bypassing the login prompt. Not great, but a workaround that should do the trick while Aurora finds another way to hack their way into the Play Store APIs.

Grandma doesn’t care if it looks like an update or not.

Aurora hasn't worked right for the most part for a year due to device attestation shit.

I'm meh on it. Not being able to install the shit from play store isn't such a bad thing. It is lame as hell that Google is doing their damndest to make apple look user friendly.

Play Store won't let me install them, but AuroraStore will, and most of the time they work fine after that.

For example, I have Balatro running on my Ayn Thor this way.

Not news nor "blocking".

Honest question, because AFAIK there's no guarantee or (legal) requirement to support any API. Whether that's fully documented, has SDKs or whether it's something reversed-engineered doesn't matter WRT the support the company owning the API is supposed or required to give.

Or am I wrong there?

It affects using Aurora Store "anonymously" because that means using shared accounts, so far higher activity per account.

It's possible they're also detecting contemporary usage of the same account.

But there's a slight chance that it's just due to someone abusing the accounts outside Aurora Store.

Even this particular error ("Server busy, try again later"). I've been seeing over the past weeks but then a few days later it worked again. I'm not too worried. It also happens or me right now indeed.

and in the end I don't really care whether my apps won't get updated anyway, only app which will start bitching about being outdated is whatsapp, which can be for now downloaded directly from whatsapp without playstore (I have also telegram as backup which also allows direct APK download) so not too worried even if Aurora was down for couple of months, I don't use any banking/payment apps in my phone for a reason

https://en.aptoide.com/

Mistake from me: apparently GrapheneOS does not recommend Aurora Store (citation needed). Kind of weird though; it means Google still knows a lot about you, which doesn't seem very privacy conscience.

Google blocking Aurora Store was a conclusion made in the bug thread. It was not my conclusion.

And for the nit pickers: Sailfish OS is not Android, but its emulation layer _is_. :shrug: Even though Sailfish is nice, without its Android layer it is practically unusable.

Funny thing: the 'busy server' problem existed for almost a week. I could download 1 app per day max on my Jolla C2. But just now, now that this thread makes top of Hackernews, everything started working just fine!

I remember being in the GrapheneOS room and hearing them directly recommend using Windows 10 over Linux, as it was more secure. They are known to prioritize security over privacy.

On paper, I'm sure Windows does have stronger userspace and kernel-space protections against intrusion and such, though I most certainly wouldn't use it.

They largely ignore any threat that could come from US agencies, and are very presumptuous about some of their convictions (e.g. that open source is irrelevant for security).

There is a balance to be made, given that there often isn't any ideal option, but they often get that balance assessment wrong, in my opinion.

I appreciate exposing the security weaknesses of other products, but they end up adding threats that they don't have with some of their drastic views.

They are staunchly against authoritarianism and mechanisms that are vulnerable to government coercion which is why they promote Android IAR and criticise Play App Signing for being mandatory.

I have understood their position to be that software is not automatically secure because it is open source, but being open source is one of the best ways to ensure to maximise attack resiliency (they believe in kerchoff's principle, shallow bugs, collaboration as a pragmatic help to get there not taken for granted or a guarantee). You'd probably be interested to know the founder once proclaimed publicly that they would never work on proprietary software.

Don't pay too much heed to how community members frame things, they are human and get things wrong in service of trying to reduce conversation to specific facts and technical assurances instead of discussing the bigger picture.

Not that it requires Google to "open up" their play-store, but that they must allow other app-stores to work on the same level. So basically allowing devs and users to move elsewhere.

Apple moved first with making a special 'sideloading' case for apps not under their control, Google is just copying what they did.

No more free sideloading.

Try and find a category for "open source" apps on any app store.

Good times, good times.

The window to have a real open mobile OS is starting to close. If there is to be a meaningful change, it must happen soon.

This seems like it was destined to get banned somehow... and I don't think it means that the store itself is blocked, just the pool of accounts they (ab)use.

You can install the Play store from the GrapheneOS App Store.

In fact I'm pretty sure the GrapheneOS folks advise against Aurora Store, etc.

The problem is that even if you have separate google accounts on each android device, Google can still track you by looking at your contacts.

P.S. Sailfish OS is NOT an Android distribution. It is a proper Linux system and they have their own custom Android runtime (AppSupport) as a layer on top for running Android apps. This runtime _is_ Android under the hood, but is separate from Sailfish itself (has its own native app ecosystem).

How could an account from a completely different company let you login to Google's Play Store???

You probably mean a Google account that uses your Proton mail address?

Or you could go through the android phone sign-up process which doesn't require one. Buy a cheap android phone and keep resetting it and making a new account each time.

Or you could buy an account on the grey web from someone who already did this. Should be under $2.

If you are really into this you could become a phone company and own a whole block of phone numbers.

> Or you could go through the android phone sign-up process which doesn't require one

This is worse IMO because now the number is associated with that device forever. And unless I'm willing to risk my account to compromise from a future owner of the same number OR device, I must now keep both... forever.

> grey web

I don't want to give them my info either, nor have my account associated with sketchy individuals.

> you could become a phone company

I do own DID blocks but this is unhelpful because google's verification specifically requires SMS over real mobile numbers, and I'm not interested in becoming an MVNO or cellular carrier.

Perhaps you'd be more interested in creating a website that downloads all the apps from the play store using burner accounts and makes them easily anonymously accessible.

I used android sign up process to create my other dummy account I use in TV only for smarttube and app updates, that seems like great option if it still works