Andriod emulator that isn't malware?

[OCCiera]

Hey all,

I've been looking into emulators so that I can play GFL: NC ony desktop. I used to use Bluestacks, and while it works fine, research has led me to not quite trust it as much, a little too many anecdotes of it being a cloaked crypto miner for my liking.

However, the issue is that I can't seem to find one with a decent userbase that doesn't have some kind of dubious claims around it, whether it being CCP spyware, crypto miners, or similar. So I ask, what do YOU use? My last resort would be running BlissOS in a VM, but I would like a program I can run natively in Windows if possible.

Thanks!

[Duke]

The lightest and safest solution I've found is to run Android AOSP in a VirtualBox VM.
Information and ISOs downloads can be found here: https://www.android-x86.org
Or here in VirtualBox VDI format: https://www.osboxes.org/android-x86/

[K4sum1]

Yeah, but VirtualBox kinda sucks as some applications are only made for ARM(64) or require more 3D acceleration than VirtualBox can provide.

[Jevil7452]

Android Studio offers an Android emulator, however I don't know if it's good for playing games or not.

[DoNotThrowOldPCsAway]

I have personally never tried it, but I have heard good things about MEmu and also not good things like that it includes bundleware you have to decline during installation.

You could also try official Google's solution.

[Darth Agnon]

You're best off using Bluestacks with the tweaking tool "BSTweaker". Using that, you can root it and block most of the ads. Bluestacks is the OG Android emulator. I've been using it since 2015.

If you want to emulate old Android games, use Bluestacks 3. Bluestacks 4 (CEF) still works pretty well; I preferred a slightly older release 4.200.0.5201. Newer versions of Bluestacks 5 (QtWebEngine) come with adware, so you might want to use an older build (e.g. I've got 5.3.86.1001) and definitely a custom launcher. No-one is really tracking their version history any more though

Offline installer of Bluestacks 5: https://support.bluestacks.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402611273485-BlueStacks-5-offline-installer

For Android emulation, you need something that will do ARM translation, so a regular VM like VirtualBox won't work. QEMU, maybe, but then you should be writing this info, not me, as that is really advanced and complicated to use. Android x86 will only use x86 binaries, but most Android apps are Armv6 or Armv7 or Armv8, and don't include x86 binaries. You will also struggle with the touch controls for apps, games and system navigation, which all the random Android emulators provide.

Bluestacks is/was American-made iirc, vs. the rest being Chinese software or outdated abandonware.