I feel a lot of people are having misunderstandings about their phones.

Whether apple or android, you are being tracked in MANY ways. They know what apps you have (doesn't matter where you installed them from), when you use them, where you use them, they know where you are based on GPS, they know where you are based on WiFi around you, they know where you are based on bluetooth beacons of phones and other devices around you, they know who you associate with (other phones and devices frequently around you), they know when you sleep, they know when you go to work, they know who your friends are, I honestly could keep going for ages on this...

And they have multiple ways of gathering those details. And old school counter-measures do not work. When you turn wifi off, it just stops the outbound data stream. Modern phones still listen and catalog the wifi signals around you passively. Same with Bluetooth.

Unless you have fully degoogled your phone, your reservations about downloading Truth Social via the app store are futile. Fully de-googling your phone is not easy or for the faint of heart, although it is easier than it used to be. There are also a few places where you can buy a ready to go de-googled phone (only one that I personally trust).

Even then, you need to be very careful about the apps you install. You'll also be giving up a lot of convenience items. For example, if you use location services on a particular app, its most likely not reading and interpreting the GPS data directly. Its most likely hitting the google maps API on your phone and google maps will not be on a degoogled phone.

So unless you have done that, there is no point in getting upset there is no direct APK to sideload. It would make ZERO difference. If you have done all that, you'd already know there are ways of pinching things off the official playstore anonymously.

I'm just putting this out there for my fellow anons to let them know they might not be as anon as they think they are.