Unfortunately there is no way to interact with other players (as far as I know) than getting the official app. The one upside is Nintendo doesn't make money of selling user data so from a privacy standpoint it's better than most mobile games.
If you are looking to get around adds and data collection for other games (https://apkmody.io/#) works fairly well.
If you like a little bit of horror and the supernatural thrown in the Detective Pendergast books are great.