Downloading apps on Android is a pretty straightforward process. You just open the Google Play Store on your phone, search for the app, and click on install. Alternatively, you can also install the app using the Google Play Store website and select the device where you want to install the app. However, there are times when you want to download the app, which is not available in your region or the app might be delisted from the Google Play Store or the app developer might have taken down the app from Google Play Store.
In such times, you will have to rely on third-party websites or apps to download and install the app. While there are a bunch of alternatives to download the apk on the phones, not all of them are safe and secure. Some sites are filled with so many ads that you won’t be able to find the proper download button itself. This is where a good android apk download website comes in handy and in this guide, we will take a look at the five best android apk download sites and apps. We have included four websites to download the app and one extremely popular open-source Google Play Store Alternative.
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What is an APK?
APK stands for Android Package and all the Android apps have this .apk file extension. On Android, all apps come with this extension. An APK file will have all code of the app, resources (images, videos), resources, assets, certificates, and manifest file.
Things to Consider before Downloading Android APK from Different Websites
Google Play Store comes with Google Play Protect, which runs a safety check on apps before you download them. It also checks your device for potentially harmful apps from other sources 一 which eliminates the phone from getting attacked by any malware.
However, while you are downloading apk from different websites or apps, you have to be careful and make sure the site is legit and not bundling some malware apps instead of the actual apk. Downloading an apk from an untrustworthy site can cause some serious threat to the phone. And, so we recommend you to download apk from the sites we have mentioned below, which are safe, secure and we have personally tested these websites for a few months now and we can recommend these sites to anyone who’s looking for the best android APK download site.
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Best Android APK Download Sites
- APK Mirror
- APK Pure
- Aptoide
- Softpedia
- F-Droid
- APK Downloader
- APKMonk
APK Mirror
One of the most trusted sites to download APK, APK Mirror is founded by the same person who is also the founder of the Android Police, a popular news and review website globally. The website comes with a very easy to use and easy to understand download with a bunch of options to download the APK. On the home screen, you get the latest uploaded APK on the site and you can also manually search for the app you want or select the app based on category.
Further, as for the security of the APKs, APK Mirror verifies all the APKs uploaded to the website before adding it to the list. The website matches signatures for new versions of apps with previous versions to ensure that the app belongs to the right place and the actual developers signed them. In case you want an older version of the app, you can do that as well as all APK versions come with a date and version number.
It is worth mentioning that, on APK Mirror, you get all apps that are available for free to download on Google Play and not any paid apps for free or modded apps. Overall, this is the best site to download APK for Android and we highly recommend this website.
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APK Pure
APK Pure is another good alternative to download APK on Android. This website provides a safer and more secure way to download any app you want from the website. Like APK Mirror, this also offers all the free apps and games without adding any patches or mods. There is also an option to download the previous version of the app, which can come in handy at times. The website also verifies the app’s legitimacy before listing by using SHA, which ensures the certificate is safe and the app won’t cause any harm. If they find any apps to be harmful, the company will not push it to the site. Additionally, the website also shows you the screenshots, tags, developer and requirements, just like the Play Store.
Aptoide
Aptoid is one of the OG websites to download APKs. The site has over 300 million users worldwide and has achieved over 7 billion downloads. This website, unlike the two sites mentioned above, comes with unrestricted content and an opportunity for users to create and share their own store, which in turn lets users add modded APKs to the site as well. This is also not a unique and centralized store, instead, each user manages their own store.
The site also offers something called AppCoins, which allows developers to gain more revenue share. This is built on blockchain technology. We recommend you to go ahead to this website only if whatever you’re looking for is not available on APK Mirror and APK Pure sites, just to be safe.
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Softpedia
Softpedia is a website that’s based out of Romania that deals with software and tech news. The site hosts various software for Windows, Drivers of PCs, Games, Mac, Linux, and Android apps. It has a clean UI and easy to navigate menus. You will get a list of apps with name, version, updated time, compatible devices, size of the APK and size of the APK. However, the number of apps on this site might feel less compared to the others on the list, also the website might feel slightly outdated at times on some pages.
F-droid
The last one on our list is F-droid. This is an app, which is a great alternative to the Google Play Store. It is an open-source app, which means it will keep regular updates and get better with each update. Unlike Google Play Store, you don’t need to sign in to install apk here. You can open the app for the first time, search and directly install the apk on your phone. This is one of the oldest and most trusted app stores in the Android community as well.
On an F-Droid app, you won’t find all the games and games that you usually get on the Google Play Store, instead, you’ll find a lot of open source apps, which are mostly not available on Google Play. The app has a pretty sleep UI. In case you feel like donating some money to the F-Droid, the donations will be used for the maintenance of the app like servers, admin work, and more.
These were our top 5 picks for the best android APK download sites. These apps allow you to safely download APKs from third-party websites securely. Which one would you prefer? Let us know in the comments section.
APK Downloader
APK Downloader is yet another interesting website that can be used to download all the latest apk files. The website claims that it offers all the free apps available on the Google Play Store. It offers an intuitive design that separates the apps based on the genre. One of the site’s standout features is the ability for users to search for their favourite applications using a Play Store URL. Simply copy the app’s link from the Play Store and paste it into the website’s search field, and it will lead to the APK download page.
APKmonk
APKmonk is yet another website to download Android applications. The website is focused more on gaming applications and offers all the latest apps that are available on Google Play Store. The website also runs a malware check before allowing you to download the apk file. Whenever you click an application, you will get a detailed view of the application, screenshots, description, and all the previous versions.
