Accrescent

Accrescent describes itself as “A novel Android app store focused on security, privacy, and usability.” Its README adds: “Currently in early alpha.” Its lead developer is Logan Magee, and it is the store that the IronFox browser’s developers recommend for installing it. It is a different kind of store from F-Droid: developers build, sign and upload their apps themselves, and Accrescent doesn’t sign anything. “Accrescent doesn’t sign apps itself.”

How it checks apps

From Accrescent’s features page and the code of this version:

• Signed app list. The list of apps, with each app’s details, is signed with a key built into Accrescent, “to protect against tampering of sensitive information in the event the server is compromised”. A list older than the one Accrescent last saw is rejected.
• Each app’s signing key is pinned. When a developer adds an app, the hash of its signing key goes into the signed list, and Accrescent checks every download against it. Android itself trusts whatever key an app is first installed with; as Accrescent puts it, “pinning the certificate in signed metadata ensures that even the first installation is legitimate.”
• Minimum versions. The list records a minimum version for each app, and Accrescent refuses to install anything older.
• No account. “Accrescent doesn’t have user accounts. Users can simply install the store and use it.”

Updates in the background

• Automatic updates are on by default. Every 8 hours Accrescent checks the apps it installed, and itself, for updates, and installs them. On Android 12 and later this happens without a prompt; on Android 10 and 11 each update needs your confirmation. Turned off, it only shows a notification.
• Wi-Fi only by default. Updates and the refresh of the app list, every 4 hours, wait for an unmetered network; the setting also offers any connection or no roaming.
• What it sends. Update and download requests go to Accrescent’s own servers and include a description of your phone, so the server can pick the right files: its processor types, languages, features, graphics extensions, screen density, Android version, memory, brand and device name, and on Android 12 and later its chip. We found no account or installation ID in that description. The developer says: “Accrescent doesn’t connect to any third-party sites.”
• Accrescent updates itself from its own server, also when installed from this file.

About this file

• This is the official GitHub release 0.28.1, from 10 November 2025, which fixes app updates started by hand not being installed straight away. 0.28.0 made automatic updates gentler and every 8 hours, and changed the licence to Apache 2.0. There has been no release since; the project’s recent work has been on its server, “laying the groundwork for app developer-facing features like an app publishing API”, according to its blog in September 2026.
• It is signed by Logan Magee. The certificate hash, 067a40c4…c071, matches the one in Accrescent’s README and FAQ, which advise: “You should check the certificate hash from a different source than you got the app from.”
• Accrescent isn’t on Google Play or F-Droid; its official sources are GitHub and the GrapheneOS App Store. Accrescent says it has registered in Google’s Android developer verification program “so that it continues to work on certified Android devices in September 2026 and beyond without any additional installation warnings”.
• The 7.0 MB file runs on ARM and x86, 32- and 64-bit, and needs Android 10 or later. It declares 13 permissions, among them installing apps and updating them without your action. Our scan found no trackers.
• The code is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. The logo is not: its files are marked “All rights reserved.”, and the README calls the name and logo trademarks of the project.
• Known problems: some DNS filters and VPNs block Accrescent from reaching its server, and updates fail on some Redmi phones (issue #803, open).
• There are no current official screenshots, so this page has none.

CPU types in this build: arm64-v8a (64-bit ARM, almost every phone since 2017); armeabi-v7a (32-bit ARM, older and budget phones); x86 (32-bit Intel, emulators); x86_64 (64-bit Intel, emulators and Chromebooks).

Recent releases on the project’s GitHub. We host and check only the newest one. Full changelog.