I gave up when aurora stopped working one or two years ago. I just get 99% apps from fdroid. Hence, Google has little power on my device. That's enough for me.

sadly i know of none other than aurora store. i usually use aurora, apkmirror and apkpure. do note that apkpure recently had a malicious telegram apk

I've tried getting the Aurora Store to work, but to no avail. I may need to source apk files on the apps that need updating.

I don't have a good answer, I recently switched back to the Play Store. Sometimes apps you wouldn't expect are open source and you can update via Obtanium so it doesn't hurt to check.