# The Future of Accrescent **URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/the-future-of-accrescent/29739 **Category:** Off Topic **Tags:** article **Created:** 2025-08-04T16:45:09Z **Posts:** 70 ## Post 1 by @yes — 2025-08-04T16:45:09Z > **[The Future of Accrescent](https://blog.accrescent.app/posts/the-future-of-accrescent/)** > > 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... > In short: in order for Accrescent to continue advancing, we need $5,800/month in recurring donations to fund its full-time development. This work includes adding features to the Accrescent app and developer console, building new subprojects and tooling, and making improvements to Accrescent’s architecture and server infrastructure — work we currently have limited resources to do, as I can no longer afford to work on Accrescent after October with its current funding. > For the next 3 months, development will continue according to a short-term roadmap we plan to publish in a follow-up blog post next week. Also in that blog post, we will include an extensive development progress update and long-term roadmap for how we hope Accrescent can develop beyond the next 3 months. > After October, feature development will cease unless we reach our funding goal. Maintenance will continue regardless of funding on a best-effort basis, including dependency updates, security patches, and bug fixes. Accrescent will continue operating as-is since recurring donations still cover all existing server infrastructure, so apps will continue to update as usual and developers will still be able to manage and update their apps. New app submissions are unlikely to be accepted to Accrescent for the time being. If you can, please [donate](https://accrescent.app/donate)! --- ## Post 2 by @anonymous378 — 2025-08-04T17:03:15Z This has major DivestOS vibes.. > [@[SUCCESS] DivestOS is unsustainable and needs community support!](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/success-divestos-is-unsustainable-and-needs-community-support/16089): > > EDIT: The Fundraiser has concluded and it has been a great success. Thanks for your donations! Donate here: Happy New Year! DivestOS and the Divested projects as they currently stand are ultimately unsustainable. My goal for 2023 was to acquire a grant to continue my work, I was unsuccessful. Today (2024-01-05) I am announcing a fundraiser of raising $12,000 USD by end of February. It may be a stretch to ask, but I hope you all have found sufficient value in my work to keep these projects go… Going from their current $112/month to $5800/month seems improbable at best. I will try and donate as much as I can but can’t say I am optimistic for the future. --- ## Post 3 by @jonah — 2025-08-04T17:42:42Z > [@anonymous378](#): > > Going from their current $112/month to $5800/month seems improbable at best. Yeah. It sounds like what they need is an actual business model. They are building a centralized app store. FOSS projects that rely on servers like F-Droid and Mastodon don’t get attention and support because of the merits of their codebase, they get support because they are frontends for networks that are larger than just themselves and their own developers. Accrescent has always explicitly eschewed this model. That makes them a single point of failure that a lot of people will unfortunately find challenging to support, as much as I wish FOSS devs to be fairly compensated for their work. (This is exactly one of the many reasons I always wanted them to position themselves as a true F-Droid replacement with support for external app repos.) If you insist on building a centralized service, usually the only sustainable business model is to obtain as many users as possible, then charge businesses/orgs for the privilege of using your service to distribute their content to all your users. Basically, Accrescent needs developer fees. --- ## Post 4 by @anonymous378 — 2025-08-04T17:51:17Z It is also going to be a hard sell to people when they say their costs are currently around $50/month yet they need $5800/month without providing a bit more in depth reasoning as why their costs will rise by 100x in the next 3 months. > We are currently spending $53.53/month on our services. --- ## Post 5 by @anon11657877 — 2025-08-04T17:53:48Z > [@anonymous378](#): > > This has major DivestOS vibes.. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Accrescent eventually dies. At least F-Droid is still around. > [@jonah](#): > > FOSS projects that rely on servers like F-Droid and Mastodon don’t get attention and support because of the merits of their codebase, they get support because they are frontends for networks that are larger than just themselves and their own developers. Accrescent has always explicitly eschewed this model. That makes them a single point of failure that a lot of people will unfortunately find challenging to support, as much as I wish FOSS devs to be fairly compensated for their work. (This is exactly one of the many reasons I always wanted them to position themselves as a true F-Droid replacement with support for external app repos.) From their [FAQ](https://accrescent.app/faq) > supporting third-party repositories breaks the Android security model. > Another reason Accrescent doesn’t support third-party repos is lack of available security features. The chain of trust between Accrescent and the signed repository metadata would be weakened since Accrescent can’t reasonably maintain a list of hardcoded keys for all third-party repos. TLS certificate pinning is also impractical to implement for third-party servers. Accrescent aimed to be the more secure replacement for F-Droid and Google Play and ultimately it’s the one failing. --- ## Post 6 by @anon42475305 — 2025-08-04T18:02:49Z Seems fairly obvious to me but it’s explained on their GitHub: > [@accrescent’s goal is to earn $5,800 per month](https://github.com/sponsors/accrescent) > > A huge step for Accrescent’s future! We’ll be able to continue feature development by funding a developer to work full-time on Accrescent. --- ## Post 7 by @TheDoc — 2025-08-04T18:05:34Z It’d be great if Accrescent supported paid applications and took some percentage as a cut. Their situation is similar to some other FOSS projects (in that it’s difficult to make money) and both Accrescent and some FOSS app developers could benefit from it. I know paid distribution isn’t the most common method of monetizing FOSS, but it’s sometimes the only possible option for certain applications such as Cryptomator and InviZible. (I believe they technically use a key licensing system which I assume could be removed from the app, but this would be a convenient alternative.) I think I read that F-Droid was not interested in this so I believe they’d be the only FOSS app store around supporting paid Android apps. --- ## Post 8 by @anonymous378 — 2025-08-04T18:08:28Z But why in three months? Did they just realize they need to switch to full time development immediately, this month? Why not try to do this incrementally and set a more realistic fundraising goal? If you think about it for more then a few minutes it does not make sense at all to tell users costs will rise by 100x in 3 months and if they don’t get the money the project is basically dead. --- ## Post 9 by @InternetGhost — 2025-08-04T18:19:32Z It sounds to me like rising costs are basically them saying that they need more money to account for labor and feature development. Maybe their infrastructure and related expenses are about $50/month, but labor is probably huge. My guess is that the devs need more money or they won’t be able to focus the same amount of time as they have been. Which is understandable - everyone has to eat. --- ## Post 10 by @anonymous378 — 2025-08-04T18:23:32Z I tend to think that there is probably some other opportunity for the dev, that they have to make a decision on, that will require to much time for this to be a side project, so they are trying to see if this project can be their full time job instead. Pure speculation on my end.. --- ## Post 11 by @jonah — 2025-08-04T19:02:25Z > [@anon11657877](#): > > From their [FAQ](https://accrescent.app/faq) > > > supporting third-party repositories breaks the Android security model. I’m fully aware of the reason _they_ give for not supporting it. It just isn’t a good reason. Of course, it is _easier_ for them to do it the way they’re doing it instead of building the tools that would be required to make this system secure from scratch, so I don’t _blame_ them, but I’m not exactly applauding their approach to security either. Around a decade ago Moxie Marlinspike was working on a project to tackle a similar centralization problem—except with HTTPS/SSL—called Convergence. Unfortunately it never took off and we all decided to centralize on Let’s Encrypt instead, but a similar system could be deployed here. --- ## Post 12 by @HackOrSwim — 2025-08-04T20:07:42Z It’s very unfortunate that they can’t properly fund feature development currently, and, although improbable, I really hope they can reach their goal. It is a fantastic app store. I’ve been wondering why they have been telling developers that they currently can’t accept new app submissions, but I guess this explains it (I know both CoMaps and Syncthing-Fork wanted to be added, for example). --- ## Post 13 by @anon11657877 — 2025-08-04T23:10:17Z It’s the same reasoning as “federation/decentralization is bad for security” or “installing uBlock Origin is dangerous” bullshit. --- ## Post 14 by @Smee — 2025-08-05T01:01:51Z How do they verify the security of the applications in the first place? --- ## Post 15 by @Chess — 2025-08-05T04:17:15Z It’s not as much about verifying the security of the apps themselves, although there’s that too, but rather verifying that you are downloading the app you said you wanted to and not malware instead. Essentially ensuring that nobody tried to MITM the download process, as well as things like letting devs sign their apps securely themselves rather than signing it for them, which ensures that the integrity of the app is intact straight from the developer until it gets to your phone. --- ## Post 16 by @HackOrSwim — 2025-08-05T12:57:24Z They have the submission process in their [documentation](https://accrescent.app/docs/guide/getting-started/new-app.html): > A reviewer will be assigned to your app after you submit it. To increase its chances of being accepted, please review the app requirements later in this guide before submitting. Edit: Forgot to add, but they also have their requirements [here](https://accrescent.app/docs/guide/appendix/requirements.html). --- ## Post 17 by @gregandcin — 2025-08-05T14:11:09Z The only reason I currently use Accrescent for like 2 apps is because its in the GrapheneOS store. Its not a hard requirement for me to use it, but I have found some interesting projects just looking at the app list. I might throw a couple dollars their way, but I don’t have a reason to support them on a monthly basis. Maybe that will change as the app list grows --- ## Post 18 by @anon94117004 — 2025-08-05T14:58:46Z This is absolutely absurd. Even back when GrapheneOS had a goal, theirs was still $5000, despite doing 100x the work. Their approach is completely incongruent with typical FOSS model. They need an actual business model if they want to earn a comfy $70k a year for this offering. --- ## Post 19 by @Chess — 2025-08-05T15:30:49Z Their monetary approach might be different or not as good, but as far as their approach to privacy and security for an app store, their approach of following textbook best security practices is unmatched compared to other FOSS app store attempts, which is what sets it apart from others. It’s the reason I care more about this succeeding that I normally would personally otherwise. --- ## Post 20 by @Smee — 2025-08-05T17:13:18Z See that would be my main concern is someone uploading an app that says one thing and does another. MITM wouldn’t be the first thing I would worry about because it would be much easier to write some code maliciously than it would be to MITM. If a bad actor were to write an app and hide a few lines of code in there (which wouldn’t be hard) and so to me at least it’s really important how these apps are verified. Small unknown app store is a nice place to target and I’m sure people have tried, if they already have malicious app coded and tried to upload it to other repos, there’s no harm in trying again at smaller ones. Obviously they want to cast a wide net but and getting it into the play store would be ideal and personally I’ve never even heard of this app store before and I am sure that’s true for a lot of other people but after seeing how the spending is drastically increasing makes it more skeptical now than ever. --- ## Post 21 by @Chess — 2025-08-05T18:48:21Z Yeah I get that. I know the developer reviews each app to make sure it is safe, but Accrescent is still in alpha and the review process is certainly going to change from the way it works now, although apps would still be vetted. I just don’t fully understand how that process works. I do know there is somewhat strict requirements for what permissions are asked for but beyond that I am not sure. As for the sudden increase in funds needed, I do not believe it is actually that. From my understanding it seems to be more that the developer decided to “fish or cut bait,” as in it’s either going to become a more full-time project for him with payment being the funding, or he’s going to drop all but maintenance on it and not work on more features. As of right now he’s been trying to work out of his own pocket, and he likely realized that it was increasingly difficult. As for never hearing about it before, I searched through this forum and found a couple posts about it I thought we’re interesting from when it first became a thing: [Accrescent](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/accrescent/12410) This one for example. Maybe she’s more light on it. Plus the website seems to have good information as well. --- ## Post 22 by @anon49494703 — 2025-08-06T09:21:21Z I love the work Accrescent is doing, but getting up to $5,800/month in two months seems very unlikely just from donations. Maybe this is uncalled for, but could Accrescent get a grant from FUTO for the time being? I know they have supported other FOSS projects with grants. FUTO is also building an app store of their own. If developer values and interests align, this might be a good opportunity for some collaboration? There are some differing opinions on FUTO, but their stance on small developers needing to get paid for their work or having some way to sustainably fund their projects absolutely applies here. We have lost some great software projects just due to developers not being able to support themselves long term with only donations here and there. --- ## Post 23 by @moonwriting — 2025-08-06T10:18:33Z There has been an update to the situation: > We recently discovered that an unprecedented Monero donation of ~$16,062.50 was received in the short time after we totaled the latest values for this article but before it was posted. We’ve updated the above section to reflect that its values were totaled on July 25th for clarity and added this note for transparency since it was previously implied that the above values were up-to-date as of this article’s publication. We apologize for the inaccuracy. > > Because this is a significant donation, we will be posting an update on our social media accounts soon about what this means for the project. Thank you for your support! --- ## Post 24 by @Chess — 2025-08-06T11:04:57Z I believe there were some grants being looked into as options but not sure on the details. They were discussed anyway --- ## Post 26 by @KevPham — 2025-08-06T15:40:44Z Although that amount can fund their hosting costs for years, that is only around 3-4 months or full-time funding for a developer. Most of their anticipated funding may be sourced from grants and large-scale anonymous donations like these. I don’t know if a crowdsourced fundraising campaign can beat that in the long run. if the developers don’t mind working part-time or on a volunteer basis, they are pretty much set. It is much harder to fund full-time developers, which sets the bar even higher. --- ## Post 27 by @anonymous378 — 2025-08-06T18:56:32Z > [@jonah](#): > > It sounds like what they need is an actual business model. > [@moonwriting](#): > > We recently discovered that an unprecedented Monero donation of ~$16,062.50 I guess a business model can wait if your users are dropping $16k donations. :sweat_smile: and here I thought the PG user whose github project is a program turning controlers into vibrating…toys…would be the craziest thing I saw today. --- ## Post 28 by @Smee — 2025-08-09T21:02:48Z Which apps from their repo/app store do you use? Are these apps something that you were unable to find elsewhere that suited your needs? They must be working alright for you if your still using them and going to throw a few duckets their way. Seems the community has came together and piled quite the stack. If that’s going to be sustainable or not though. One time push to save a ship that’s taking on water and will eventually be in the same situation in the future possibly in need of another push to save er again. I am curious as to which apps users have found useful!! --- ## Post 29 by @Smee — 2025-08-09T21:04:11Z What project is that? (asking for a friend) :wink: --- ## Post 30 by @Viper — 2025-08-10T10:14:27Z RIP Accrescent time to uninstall and the 2 apps I had installed. let’s light a candle for another open source project gone :candle: --- ## Post 31 by @anonfox — 2025-08-10T10:52:40Z It’s not gone --- ## Post 32 by @Chess — 2025-08-10T13:17:53Z The apps that are on Accrescent are generally speaking not there exclusively, but can be found elsewhere. For example, Molly, IVPN, Cryptomator, and Cakewallet are probably the most well-known apps there. There are also Aves gallery, Arcticons icon packs, Auxio, and a couple other more well know ones, and several random ones thrown in too. There is incentive to install the apps specifically from Accrescent if available though. The reason to install them from Accrescent vs other app stores is stronger for GrapheneOS users: for them, the chain of trust for installing an app is completely unbroken. This is because the GrapheneOS App store has Accrescent, so they can be 100% sure they’re getting the real thing. Then, any app uploaded to Accrescent is signed by the developer himself so you can be sure the app you downloaded is the real one, and so on and so on. I will also add a sidenote that I have found Accrescent’s app auto-update to be a lot more reliable than different front ends I’ve tried for F-droid, and even better than Google play. --- ## Post 33 by @Ganther — 2025-08-10T14:10:39Z But… why? They’ve literally just announced that they received a lot more money than they expected. --- ## Post 34 by @Smee — 2025-08-10T19:47:27Z I might be missing something here and please don’t take anything I say the wrong way because I’m just shooting the shit for conversation sake and nothing more but what’s the benefit to using this app store? A dev being able to sign their apps with their own key is a good way to do things but that doesn’t make the app safer in retrospect an app developer writing a malicious program and signing it with their key or a random key. That system works great once a developer and/or an app has established themselves. Verifying that the app is signed by the developer is a good way to make sure someone hasn’t changed the app. Even tho it seems like such common practice these days for there to be multiple key signers or the app store runs it so they are the ones signing the app. Either way, it’s trusting someone else. It might even be better looking at it from the perspective that maybe it’s better if there is a small group of devs that sign all of the apps for the app store. I guess it depends on the way you look at it and each situation has its positives and it’s negatives. But back to this particular app store I just think that its going to be tough for this app store to survive giving the huge cost increase. Especially if the apps are already available on other stores, even more so if it’s an established app/developer then I think it makes it even tougher for these guys to be able to continue after they go through this cash influx and will eventually need to rally everyone together again for another dono push. I don’t know shit tho and maybe this becomes the next go to app store!! --- ## Post 35 by @Chess — 2025-08-10T21:24:02Z Haha yeah no you’re good. I’m not 100% fluent at what the devs do to ensure the safety of apps on the store, so I’ll refer you to Accrescent’s website: [Publishing requirements - Accrescent Documentation](https://accrescent.app/docs/guide/appendix/requirements.html) I found it somewhat easy to read at least to glace over. I’m not super technically inclined so I don’t fully understand what everything is but I get the gist of it haha. The reason for having the devs sign their own apps is to strictly keep Android’s trust model intact. If the app store devs were to sign it, it would place trust in the app store as well as in the developers, thus making 2 point of trust. When developers sign their own apps, it removes that second trust link and puts it all back on the developer, who you have to trust anyway since they are programming the app (unless it’s open source, but even that doesn’t mean it’s safe). As of right now, there aren’t really any app stores that follow Android’s trust model to this degree, as well as having the privacy of no account, and minimal telemetry. There are some that are more private but break the security model, and there’s Google Play that is generally quite secure but privacy is essentially non-existent. --- ## Post 36 by @anon83861552 — 2025-08-11T16:16:13Z I will not quote anything to prevent spoilers, but there are news about short and long term roadmaps on the blog: [Progress Update and Roadmap - Accrescent Blog](https://blog.accrescent.app/posts/progress-update-and-roadmap/) --- ## Post 37 by @anon94117004 — 2025-08-11T17:09:02Z Because they didn’t spell it out, I will. Their new directory service calculates app compatibility server side, which relies on sending a plethora of device information to their servers for processing. This allows them to calculate both general analytics as well as potentially create fingerprints of users when paired with other identifiers such as IP addresses and apps requests. This is in direct opposition to alternatives such as F-Droid where all calculations are done client side and many mechanisms are in-place to reduce server side tracking, such as E-Tag minimization and processing of requests by mirrors to prevent centralized collection. --- ## Post 38 by @gregandcin — 2025-08-11T18:14:32Z I get Transcribro, IronFox, and Inter Profile Sharing from Accrecsent. Its just easier for me to get them from there since all I need to do is install Accresent from the GrapheneOS store, open Accrescent, and boom app install. I could install them from somewhere else, but I don’t have a reason to right now --- ## Post 39 by @HackOrSwim — 2025-08-11T21:27:44Z > [@anon94117004](#): > > Their new directory service calculates app compatibility server side, which relies on sending a plethora of device information to their servers for processing. This might be jumping to conclusions. The way they phrased it in the blog post just makes me think they now can provide the necessary metadata to Accrescent clients for them to determine app compatibility, and to also pick things like localized descriptions. It does feel a bit sparse on details on how exactly this is done, which I hope they substantiate in the future. From the [blog post](https://blog.accrescent.app/posts/progress-update-and-roadmap/#how-it-works): > Accrescent requests all app metadata from the directory service. This includes: > > - Which apps are available in the store > > - Whether an app is compatible with the device > > - App descriptions and icons > > - How large an app is > > - Whether updates are available > > - Where to download an app’s APKs > > - etc. > > Accrescent can then download an app’s files from the app repository as before. The key difference from our previous architecture is that app metadata is _dynamic_. Thus, it can adapt to users’ different devices and languages on-demand. --- ## Post 40 by @anon94117004 — 2025-08-11T21:34:55Z > [@HackOrSwim](#): > > This might be jumping to conclusions. The way they phrased it in the blog post just makes me think they now can provide the necessary metadata to Accrescent clients for them to determine app compatibility The code is literally right here: > at least some of it, it feels like a chunk of the directory source is actually missing here is even more code which lets them track when an app is _viewed_: > as you can see this is server side processing and collection, I did not jump to conclusions. --- ## Post 41 by @HackOrSwim — 2025-08-11T21:46:36Z Thank you for this. It does seem like it could potentially be used for fingerprinting, a bit disappointing. But we have to wait and see what ends up in production, I guess. Apologies if I came across as harsh, was just curious, is all. --- ## Post 42 by @Chess — 2025-08-12T03:32:25Z So the dev was talking about this in Accrescent’s Matrix server. He acknowledged there being privacy concerns, and said that while there will always be some information that could be gathered even implicitly when downloading split apks, he said that he’s looking into ways to make fingerprinting more difficult. He gave the example of having the client check for app updates irregularly for different apps, so it would be less apparent that it’s the same client requesting the update and this would be harder to profile based on installed apps. He also said that practically speaking, the device identifiers were typically the same across the same device+OS combo, so even if there are a lot of identifiers they don’t necessarily make a unique fingerprint all of themselves. Keep in mind I’m paraphrasing greatly and that’s just what I understood of it all haha. --- ## Post 43 by @Chess — 2025-08-13T03:09:57Z [Accrescent: "Since we published our blog post on the future of…" - Infosec Exchange](https://infosec.exchange/@accrescent/115017014486468426) another announcement --- ## Post 44 by @WhinyHamletPayer — 2025-08-13T06:49:18Z I was never a big fan of the project because people over on GOS would promote it so hard when they had less than a dozen apps. Now after four years or so they have a measley couple dozen apps. Also the apps are not exclusively available on Accressent. Why would I deal with another platform to install my apps when I can get them all from GitHub? All they’re doing is further fragmenting the app installation sphere. Plus, the premise was just faulty from the start - not every developer is going to care about security, so making their app available on yet another platform was just more work they don’t want to deal with. The folks behind the project are overly obsessed with security. GitHub, F-Droid, Gitlab are perfectly fine and their concerns with these platforms are just exaggerated. --- ## Post 45 by @Pragmatic — 2025-08-13T08:51:59Z The aim of this project is to be a real alternative to the Play Store, secure, reliable, with no need for an account and no arbitrary decision-making, with applications that are open source as well as not, including Signal and Whatsapp, not a non-secure store like F-Droid, which only has open source software, or Github/Gitlab, which is what we need. --- ## Post 46 by @baby_bat — 2025-08-13T13:56:40Z Experienced users and enthusiasts like us are fine using github/gitlab but most users are far more familiar with app store interfaces. Accrescent only has a handful of apps in its infancy but long term with more apps becoming available it’d allow more people an alternative to wean themselves off dependency on the play store if they wish. Just because f-droid is available to fill a need doesn’t mean accrescent can’t coexist alongside it as another option for users. --- ## Post 47 by @WhinyHamletPayer — 2025-08-13T15:56:11Z > [@Pragmatic](#): > > with applications that are open source as well as not, Ok I was not aware they would be open to proprietary apps as well. It’s going to be challenging to gain the interest of any company. > [@baby_bat](#): > > Experienced users and enthusiasts like us are fine using github/gitlab but most users are far more familiar with app store interfaces. This could easily be resolved with an app like Obtanium. > [@baby_bat](#): > > Accrescent only has a handful of apps in its infancy but long term with more apps becoming available it’d allow more people an alternative to wean themselves off dependency on the play store if they wish. They’ve been saying this for years. That’s my whole point that I mentioned - most developers don’t have any interest in security. --- ## Post 48 by @anon94117004 — 2025-08-13T19:27:43Z They still haven’t addressed the privacy concerns of the server side processing. The only reason they’re doing that is so they can handle analytics/tracking, accounts, payments, age/ID/region restrictions, and alpha/beta testing ala Apple TestFlight. And if they claim they have no intention of doing that then they would’ve chosen a static system like F-Droid, which would be dramatically cheaper to run since it’d only require a static web server as opposed to a high availability API with database powered by many servers. --- ## Post 49 by @Chess — 2025-08-13T23:33:32Z The reason the dev gave for the directory service was for split apks. --- ## Post 50 by @anon94117004 — 2025-08-13T23:51:45Z > [@Chess](#): > > directory service was for split apks. That is complete nonsense. Split APKs can 100% be handled client side. Proof: The GrapheneOS App Store works using static metadata and fully supports split APKs. --- ## Post 51 by @Chess — 2025-08-14T00:00:44Z Sorry about that, I misread what the dev said. I was probably thinking of delta updates, which are one of the many reasons for it listed in the Aug 11 blog post. --- ## Post 52 by @anon94117004 — 2025-08-14T00:01:08Z > [@Chess](#): > > delta updates Delta updates can also be handled using static metadata. Examples of this are the GrapheneOS OS updater as well as the Fedora Delta RPM system. I don’t want any more uninformed responses to my posts. I already accurately quantified all the actual use cases of a dynamic update metadata server in my post above. --- ## Post 53 by @HackOrSwim — 2025-08-14T01:00:24Z Yeah, hoping they can change things to use static metadata instead. It would be leagues better than the current planned implementation when it comes to privacy. --- ## Post 54 by @Smee — 2025-08-22T21:29:45Z I completely agree and this is what I was saying earlier when i asked another user that said they used a couple of apps from the app store. I asked which apps just out of curiosity and they listed off a few and said that they are available in other app stores also. I really see no value in using this app store what so ever. The fact that i know have to add another app just to add apps from which I still need to trust that the devs of said apps are trust worthy. Well I can go to GitHub to get the app and it’s the same thing. Trusting the developer. Throw in the fact that there was a giant ask for a significant amount of funding. Which went from next to nothing to a good chunk of money. Which will eventually put this app store back in the exact same position once these funds dry up and they will be rallying donations again probably with even more increased costs. I feel bad for making judgement on a project that i really don’t know all that much about but from what I’ve heard and seen, it’s a polite pass from me. --- ## Post 55 by @Pragmatic — 2025-08-22T21:43:11Z Accrescent’s aim is to be an alternative to the Play Store, not an alternative to Obtainium which isn’t the most practical and F-Droid which only has open source applications and which has security problems. In the medium to long term, the aim of this project is to host both open source and non-open source applications, including Signal and Whatsapp, in addition to security, privacy, transparency and, above all, without the censorship and arbitrary decisions that are common to the Play Store. --- ## Post 56 by @yes — 2025-11-11T20:26:44Z > **[A Road Behind, A Road Ahead](https://blog.accrescent.app/posts/road-behind-road-ahead/)** > > Three months ago, we published an update on our development progress as well as our roadmap for the next three months and beyond. Now that those three months are over, we want to share the development progress we’ve made in that time, the impact it... --- ## Post 57 by @User53 — 2025-11-11T20:49:26Z > [@jonah](#): > > This is exactly one of the many reasons I always wanted them to position themselves as a true F-Droid replacement with support for external app repos.) Maybe it would be better if they just forked F-Droid to patch the security issues instead of building an new app store from scratch. --- ## Post 58 by @anonymous472 — 2025-11-11T20:55:07Z I kind of wish this project had a progress bar for their donations to give people more of an idea if the project has become more sustainable. Every time I see an update I am assuming at some point one will be “hey uhhh that one massive $16k donation that saved our butt last time is gone, we once again need $12k in 3 months” --- ## Post 59 by @Encounter5729 — 2025-11-11T20:57:27Z > [@User53](#): > > Maybe it would be better if they just forked F-Droid to patch the security issues instead of building an new app store from scratch. Forking is really hard honestly. I think sometime it’s easier to just start from scratch. --- ## Post 60 by @HackOrSwim — 2025-11-11T20:59:55Z > [@anonymous472](#): > > I kind of wish this project had a progress bar for their donations to give people more of an idea if the project has become more sustainable. Well, since they currently only have recurring donations setup on [GitHub Sponsors](https://github.com/sponsors/accrescent), you can track it there. --- ## Post 61 by @anonymous472 — 2025-11-11T21:02:07Z Yeah that’s exactly what I was looking for. I figured that info would be on their [actual donation page](https://accrescent.app/donate)… ![image](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/2X/e/e1f9cdf836d0c15c9b88d82ac8a02e8904c49521.png) Looks like they have ~$812/$5800 for the month :grimacing: --- ## Post 62 by @shadowwwind — 2025-11-12T18:23:29Z They received a very big donation over Monero that isn’t included there --- ## Post 63 by @anonymous472 — 2025-11-12T18:49:18Z A new one or are you referring to the $16k one in August? Obviously the August one would not count towards their November goal. --- ## Post 64 by @User53 — 2025-11-20T16:14:05Z > [@Encounter5729](#): > > Forking is really hard honestly. I think sometime it’s easier to just start from scratch. How is it more easy to rewrite all the code then to just clone the code and make the 3 changes you want to make? --- ## Post 65 by @Encounter5729 — 2025-11-20T17:36:58Z If you already forked a project, you know what I mean. Understanding the project, structure, code logic, etc. --- ## Post 66 by @User53 — 2025-11-20T18:55:47Z If the code is not documented well this can take soem time. But not so long as building everything from scratch. And often you don’t need to exactly udnerstand evvery line to make additions or fix particular bugs --- ## Post 67 by @Encounter5729 — 2025-11-21T00:22:32Z Did you try forking a project before? I did and it’s really a lot of pain, especially for complex projects. --- ## Post 68 by @User53 — 2025-11-21T15:54:04Z I forked/cloned to make additions, but I didn’t fork to replace or compete against a project. But if its just about security patches that F-Droid didn’t make it should be possible to make them in a fork. ANd because F-Droid probably isn’t malicously ignoring them, they will merge them anyway, so maintaining a fork isn’t neccessary. --- ## Post 69 by @CrypticWorm — 2026-09-30T22:40:30Z New Accrescent blog post, the first in a short series detailing the server-side work that’s been ongoing since the last update. > **[A Tale of Too Many Protocols - Accrescent](https://accrescent.app/blog/posts/a-tale-of-too-many-protocols/)** > > Our journey through protobuf, gRPC, OpenAPI, and more to create a single source of truth for the Accrescent console API. --- ## Post 70 by @Anon46442 — 2026-10-03T00:51:25Z When will they add a search function and basic information like license, size, permissions