You’re missing a pretty key fact; any good repack is going to disable everything trying to connect outwards. Otherwise the methods for pirating that content will be easier to detect and block.
It’s also really easy to just check for yourself when a program is phoning home. https://superuser.com/questions/99039/any-good-utility-to-track-outgoing-traffic-and-requests-from-win-pc
since there’s pretty much no useful content on TikTok
Just like any other major social platform, it has been used to pretty good effect in organizing protests against various issues. https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/nation/2023/12/14/starbucks-why-everyone-boycotting-controversies-explained/71885557007/
I don’t personally use it though. Too scared i wont be able to put it down.
Automatic updates were added about six months ago. https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore/-/issues/719
They’ve been working well enough for me.