Bitcoin Forum

https://altdroid.com/assets/img/item/home.png

Hi guys,

I am happy to announce the BETA for altdroid. We are currently looking for Android app developers with published apps to provide feedback on the platform. Please PM me if you are interested or contact us on Twitter. More general info to come in the next few weeks!

What is altdroid?

altdroid is an alternative Android app store for free and paid apps that offers a global platform for users to discover apps without restrictions and app developers monetize their apps for Bitcoins.

Why altdroid?

• For users: Find the apps you want, including apps that wouldn't be allowed on mainstream app stores. Pay for apps and games securely and more privately with Bitcoins!
• For developers: Offer your existing apps to a truly global audience — no country restrictions for developers or users. Accepting Bitcoin for your apps offers an entirely new revenue stream for your paid apps.
• For all: Apps are more than apps; apps are human ideas. We want to enable developers and artists alike in the world to create and share their projects without geopolitical barriers.

The links
https://altdroid.com (https://altdroid.com)
https://twitter.com/altdroid (https://twitter.com/altdroid)

Looks nice. I have some questions.
So, this app likened crypto app store? Which the target audience is cry to enthusiasm? And it's can available worldwide?

What the different than play store?
How it's checking the app which have store on your app is clean?

It is available globally right now, yes. Currently only an English language translation is provided, however the app and site will be internationalized once out of beta.


How about the fact you will be able to buy apps with Bitcoins?  ;) Also by intentionally *not* accepting foreign currencies, it frees up many tax and licensing issues and enables app developers to sell their apps to anyone in any country on Earth.


Right now we manually run new apps through a basic security test. We expect this process to get more sophisticated and automated as we grow. However, just like on any app store, users should use high levels of caution installing any new app, and should research ahead of time whether an app is legitimate or not.

Wow, good to hear about apps like Google Play Store which accept bitcoin, to buy something will download it and test it, nice interface, good job congrats

You came up with a very good idea. It will be helpful for app users who want to have paid apps and developers who want to publish their apps using/for bitcoin. I visited your site and it looks good, mobile friendly too. I was searching for more info though. Are you planning to have a developer console too on your site, just like in Google Playstore?  Or maybe something like that so that developers who want to publish an app in the future can just go there. I also installed the app and it seems to be a good start. I know it's in beta and there will be more content soon.

Can I help with translation to Spanish, please? (hey, you're talking with native speaker  ;)) I think your project is awesome. For me, no way I'm going to pay that tax to enter Google Play Store, I'll publish my apps in your store - and at the time promoting your app and Bitcoin currency. I'll be glad to collaborate with you, so don't need to pay me (ok, yes, but not very much). So, please count with me. Thanks.

  _{(very first post in this forum, how exciting!!!!! ;D)}

PD: Or at least your website. You'll also need to translate that.

Cool idea. I'd love to buy some apps using bitcoins especially because its hard to get access to international visa cards in my country. :D
Hope you take this far.
Maybe i'll publish an app here myself :D

P.S. That js library u used on your website background is awesome right? I used that in one of my projects too XD recognized it right away :P

Dude you have a bad ass website  ;D ;D ;D Will have to try this out your app looks great too.

Would like to get access to the dev console for my dev team with nearly 1.000.000 users.

It's sound will be nice project. But, there is need big organize like relationship with many developer in the world. And i suggest you to make contract with google app developer, apple developer and nokia developer to realize your project. It'll make many investor believe with your project as well.  ;)

Thanks all for the positive feedback :)! We are very excited about the future of altdroid and think it will fill a big gap in the current Bitcoin service offering.


Yes, we already have a simple developer console that will let devs upload and manage their apps. This is where we need feedback the most right now.


Of course. Everything is still under heavy development, but once we have more of the core features in place we will drop a note asking for translation assistance.

Oh, I saw a Dev Console Tab already on the site, but it's not working yet ("Cannot read property 'username' of undefined"). Anyway, good luck! I can't help with that as of now, but I have a goal of doing an android app someday and if altdroid will be a success, I will surely try publishing my app there.

Should be fixed now...  thanks for the heads up!

I have two accounts (one for my team and one for my own projects). Both throw an unauthorized error on login

Anyway, why are you not just make coin to purchase all off item in app market. It would be better to get many consumer for this.  ;)

We blew away the caches, so try again now... It should be working, however. Your username is your email, password is case sensitive etc. PM me git us up on Twitter if you still have problems.

I will try to use your app. If you have feedback on how I'll let you know. ;) ;) ;) ;)

I am the user from Thailand. I search your app in play store but i can't find. Please, fix it to me.

I think it's not published on playstore. You can visit their site and download the apk directly (https://altdroid.com) to try the app. It's still in BETA

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@xane, as a user how can I be sure that it is secure to download and install apps from altdroid app? Are you having some sort of security testing first before finally publishing an app and show it to users?

While I love the idea of providing access to less known/officially declined apps but there is also a huge problem with this approach.
How will you check and make sure that apps in your store are legit and harmless? I feel like your appstore may become nest for malicious apps very fast.
I mean, there is history of malicious apps found in official google store so with your unofficial store number of problematic apps might skyrocket.

App safety (let's call it) is a valid concern but is actually much easier to achieve than one might think. Firstly, though, although a malicious app story makes good linkbait for mainstream media outlets, the threat is actually very uncommon compared to the number of non-malicious apps. I think the Google play store is a testament to that if you look at the billions of downloads of safe and legitimate apps compared to the number of reported or suspected attacks. Still, it's inevitable there will be some attempts.

We employ basically the same approaches Google employs but at a potentially even higher level. First we run automated sophisticated analysis tools against the apps to detect any obvious concerns. Things like SMS capabilities in a calculator app or root access attempts in a social media app. It will also tell us if a previously released app is now suddenly requesting premium SMS, camera, microphone, and location permissions when it previously only had Internet access, for example. The second stage is a general developer verification process to prevent imposters. This is so someone can't pose as the author to an app they don't actually own, for example. The final stage which will be implemented in the near future will be the peer/user flagging ability, so users who have concerns about an app will have a mechanism for us to impose an additional review process.

When you add up all these strategies and combine them with Android's own security model, the net effect is that apps from any app store including altdroid are statistically very safe. And when you compare this to the alternative (say, sideloading an APK from the developer's website directly), our process is an immense security enhancement. Still, there's no way for any app store to guarantee 100% that every app is completely benign. Thus users should always use extreme caution when installing any new app from any source and employ common sense by reviewing app permissions and avoiding any app that raises any doubt.