I wonder if this is considered piracy, considering that the application has been discontinued. I've been looking for Kanji No Owari at playstore. But it is no longer there. Sekai Project also removed this app from their website according to one redditor's testimony. I feel kind of nostalgic playing this game, but it is only available at unofficial market like apkpure, which is rather dodgy. I wonder if it is safe to install?
It's safe to install, but I doubt you can get into the game unless it was playable in offline mode, since their servers are probably down.
Sometimes those apps in apkpure contain spyware. You can set up a virtual machine in pc then install that app there.
You can only give it permission to your files and if you are on android 10, Then you can also restrict its internet connection.
Spyware is one thing. A virus is something else entirely. If you want to talk about how much of our personal data apps have access to, that's a legitimate conversation for a different thread. For the purposes of this thread, installing an APK from an unknown source isn't wise. If you happen to know the checksum for a known good version of the APK, you can compare your version to that to see if it's been modified. Beyond that, I'd stray away from installing APKs from an unknown source just because there's so much on your phone and so much it can do to screw up your life if you let a malicious APK onto it. A malicious APK will attempt to break out of the app sandbox and gain kernel access. If it's able to this, it can gain access to your credit cards and bank accounts through your banking apps. It can access your camera and microphone to send audio and video back to the virus's creator. It can blast text messages to everyone in your contacts trying to get them to download a malicious app. It can use your phone as part of a botnet or to mine cryptocurrency, which can drain your phone's battery and use extra data. The worst part is that some viruses can persist even after you wipe your phone. In short, there's no such thing as safely sideloading an app from an unknown source. If it's not directly from the publisher or developer, don't install it.
Define "discontinued". Just because a publisher isn't releasing their game anymore doesn't mean they lost the rights to it. It all boils down to how the game was originally distributed. If it was a free thing, then since it was distributed as such then it should be okayish-ish. If it was paid, then unless you have a license, license holder made it public domain(or some other similar license), copyright expired, or they went bankrupt and no one bought them. It would still be piracy. Just often the case, no one bothers enforcing copyright on abandonware. As mentioned, many of these are loaded with shady stuff. If you have to, use an emulator. But also as mentioned, many apps ping home, even when they don't need it. And if server is gone, you are out of luck.