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F-Droid 2.0: A New Chapter for Android Freedom

259 points daveoc64 1 hour ago 66 comments

zephiel7 1 hour ago | parent

This is very good to see. Classic F-Droid always seemed to fail at updating repos at least every week or so.

RicoElectrico 1 hour ago | parent

Repo timestamp expected blah blah... toast coming out of nowhere is such a bad design. Really, the architecture in which you absolutely have to download the multi-MB index is as well.

Scene_Cast2 1 hour ago | parent

The official page still downloads 1.23.2. I wonder when this will go live, and if the old app will auto-update.

szszrk 57 minutes ago | parent

Try F-Droid basic, it has this for a few weeks.

cf100clunk 1 hour ago | parent

That page uses the term ''repository''' singular. Can additional repos be added in the way Neo Store allows?

szszrk 1 hour ago | parent

Yes. F-droid allows that, you can have multiple repositories and ... a few of those even exist :)

I'm using that with 2.0 (or rather with F-droid Basic, but I noticed Basic was updated to the same that is described in article, but a while ago). It works just fine.

reddalo 1 hour ago | parent

It's always been possible on F-Droid, I doubt they would change something like that.

outadoc 1 hour ago | parent

Very cool, the visual redesign was very much needed and I had been using Droid-ify for a while because of this. I'll switch back to the official app, congrats to the contributors!

zb3 1 hour ago | parent

> All new code in this effort uses modern Android code standards and designs. This gives us a codebase that is easier to maintain, test, and easier to extend with new features in the future.

No, this increases the overall complexity of the system. Android will hopefully eventually collapse under its own weight.

OutOfHere 15 minutes ago | parent

Once GrapheneOS ships on devices, it and Samsung can in time pick up where Android stops.

renszarv 1 hour ago | parent

If only they improve the AndroidTV experience a bit

juiceland 1 hour ago | parent

For people who are die-hard F Droid users, do you get all your apps from it? I have tried in the past but it seemed like even when I restricted my use to basics it was missing things I needed to make my phone feel useful. Wonder if it has gotten better.

demo4567 1 hour ago | parent

I do, but then there is aurora store on f-droid for the gplay only apps.

mzajc 1 hour ago | parent

Yes, essentially. I do have the Guardian Project repository and I get a handful of applications from the Play Store (via Aurora Store), but everything else comes from F-Droid. If you want even more, you can add the IzzyOnDroid repository[0], but bear in mind that unlike F-Droid, applications are built by developers themselves, and the rules on FOSS-only licensing are less strict.

[0]: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/

lanfeust6 54 minutes ago | parent

does Aurora still work? Last few times I tried, I couldn't install anything.

tukunjil 34 minutes ago | parent

Last used yesterday found no problem to install random application.

Wicher 19 minutes ago | parent

It did yesterday, for me. Sometimes it doesn't work for a while and the dev needs some time catching up to what Google deliberately or inadvertently or indifferently put in the way of access to the place where apps are published (and they are published there, not because app creators deliberately chose Google out of many app distributors in some healthy competitive market; there is no choice).

The Aurora project accepts donations, if you want to hurry things along some time! And they have a donation button right there in the app listing, try doing that for yourapp in the PlayStore and see who comes knocking in 3...2..1 to make you a non-person.

NoboruWataya 1 hour ago | parent

What do you find is missing? The main apps I need Google Play for are apps that are tied to a specific company or government service (eg, banking apps, or HMRC). For pretty much all basic functions I think F-Droid does the job.

sandreas 1 hour ago | parent

No... I use a combination of Aurora, Obtainium and F-Droid.

Unfortunately there are APP providers actively preventing their apps to work on graphene OS, so i own an extra use@home cheap broken glass iphone for these mandatory but non-graphene apps.

It is a pain and it is getting worse... I'm really tempted to get back to the Apple ecosystem for less shens but currently i cannot do this yet... It just feels wrong but the pain is real. I'm Lösung the fight of investing too mich of my time in things that just should work.

drnick1 1 hour ago | parent

I wouldn't use F-Droid exclusively. Many apps can simply be downloaded from their respective webpages. GrapheneOS also has also its own very basic app store.

rhamzeh 55 minutes ago | parent

FDroid offers the guarantee that the apk was built from source, and at least some marginal safety in terms of having passed their security and analytics/ads checkers.

You lose all that if you go directly to source.

QuantumNomad_ 1 hour ago | parent

I have a slow, crappy tablet I bought on Temu.

It is not my main device, nor even my secondary device. It’s basically just a device I bought for cheap hoping that maybe I was lucky and it was actually pretty snappy. It’s not snappy :(

I occasionally watch a couple of YouTube videos on it and read a couple of HN posts on it, when my phone is out of battery or when I’m doing a backup of my phone and have left the phone on the table for that.

Anyway, aside from YouTube the other apps I have installed on it myself are all from F-Droid, including the DuckDuckGo browser that I use on it. I also have Signal on it, which I don’t remember if I installed from F-Droid or from Google Play.

My main device that I actually use a lot is an iPhone. And like I said I basically only use the tablet like a couple of hours a week and only to watch a couple of YouTube videos and read a couple HN threads, when I am not able to use my phone for those things.

miloignis 1 hour ago | parent

Most of them, yeah. My main non-F-Droid apps are YT-Music, Google Maps, Duo auth, Bible, and my bank app. Firefox, podcasts, local music player, ebook reader, RSS reader, email client, Matrix client, XMPP client, audiobook player, calendar sync, KeePassDX, SyncThing, Nix terminal, etc are all F-Droid.

silverbluep 1 hour ago | parent

I use droid-ify as frontend; and it's been fine to use f-droid repos for most of my needs. I try to install my apps from there in general. Biggest issue for me is android auto capability usually requires the app to be installed from play store (CoMaps) and my music player app (GoneMAD) has a companion unlocker that is from paid app store.

I need banking and bunch of vendor related apps. I need play store for them; so not full on f-droid repos. But close-ish when it comes to phone functionality.

vrganj 1 hour ago | parent

When I need some category of app - say a note app or an audiobook player - I generally check F-Droid first.

If there's a good enough app on there, I generally stick with that as opposed to trying what Google Play has to offer.

I like having that prefiltering, knowing that the app will be open source, not trying to pull anything shady and not have ads or sell my data. On the Play Store, more often than not, at least one of those is not true.

rurp 48 minutes ago | parent

Similar experience for me. I find f-droid a great supplement store but cutting out the default store entirely has felt like more of a commitment than I'm interested in so far.

fghkjlhb 47 minutes ago | parent

No I have Obtainium side by side with F-Droid. There are some closed source apps or apps that are not published on F-Droid (like Wireguard) that unfortunately I need. Obtainium is great for that.

mzajc 1 hour ago | parent

> Also, F-Droid Privileged Extension (FPE) is not currently supported by 2.0. That means even if FPE is installed, F-Droid 2.0 won’t use it. This overhaul focused on full featured support for the Android “session” installer. That lets F-Droid run background updates on any recent Android version without requiring FPE. Like with any of the changes here, we welcome feedback.

This is a shame. Is the privileged extension a large maintenance burden?

NewJazz 1 hour ago | parent

Are you stuck on an older android version?

silverbluep 1 hour ago | parent

I have been using droid-ify on GrapheneOS for a few years now; because F-Droid ui is terrible, and the privilege extention has been such a pain to configure and get working without issues on my previous lineageOS phone. Happy to see this major overhaul; and i'm glad the FPE is being phased out.

PorciiVorbesc 57 minutes ago | parent

>I have been using droid-ify

After 10 years of F-droid, I'm bummed I only found droid-ify a couple of months ago. Sooo much better than F-droid.

aorth 1 hour ago | parent

Cool! Unfortunately I switched to Obtanium a year or so ago. I get all my apps from GitHub releases straight from the developers now.

pkal 1 hour ago | parent

What do you do for apps that don't have GitHub releases?

asdfqwertzxcv 52 minutes ago | parent

You can use it with non-github releases too, but it's super rare when one isn't available. In the case when Obtanium doesn't work, I just use F-Droid.

szszrk 58 minutes ago | parent

Do you use a lot of apps with that?

I tried it with 3 random apps for a while, but instantly got into issues. Two stopped updating due to Obtanium falling behind how app releases - for instance, developer changed version numbering scheme but Obtanium didn't expect that, so an outdated version was always presented. It wasn't fixed for quite a while.

zeandcode 58 minutes ago | parent

Didnt know this! Thanks for sharing !!

lanfeust6 56 minutes ago | parent

The update turnover is so fast for certain apps that I switched back to Fdroid.

asdfqwertzxcv 54 minutes ago | parent

Same for me. I typically search on F-Droid to find the apps and then add the github to Obtanium.

fghkjlhb 49 minutes ago | parent

I tried Obtainium a while back and didn't like it too much, finding apps seemed difficult.

Then I discovered https://apps.obtainium.imranr.dev/ which makes it very easy. I feel like Obtainium should make this more obvious. It would help adoption a lot.

OutOfHere 24 minutes ago | parent

Fwiw, that link is documented in the readme at https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium so it's not hard for someone to find again.

yjftsjthsd-h 48 minutes ago | parent

I use F-Droid precisely because I don't want that. When https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38505229 happened - and when the same thing happens again in the future, because it will - I explicitly want F-Droid doing some basic due diligence on updates before shipping them to me. Cutting out the middleman is the opposite of what I want.

greeniskool 22 minutes ago | parent

Counterpoint: I use NewPipe pretty much daily for watching YouTube. One day, YT introduced an API change that broke NewPipe, and so I patiently waited for an update.

A few days passed, and I eventually get a notification from NewPipe prompting for an update. But I can't install it just yet, because of mismatching signatures between the F-Droid and GitHub versions (yes, that's the point, I know...). The F-Droid build took so long to release, that in the meantime, another version of NewPipe came out...

yjftsjthsd-h 15 minutes ago | parent

True. And especially for that use, I can imagine that the slow return around is actually a breaking problem. I think there are relatively few apps that need that kind of quick update, and I'm more concerned with malicious authors than that, but it would depend on precisely what you need out of your apps.

deng 5 minutes ago | parent

Have you added the NewPipe repo in F-Droid? I get updates this way pretty quickly.

https://newpipe.net/FAQ/tutorials/install-add-fdroid-repo/

lawn 15 minutes ago | parent

Same, Obtanium is great.

cyberax 58 minutes ago | parent

Dear F-Droud, please stop redirecting me to the Mandarin version automatically without an option to read the original message. Just because I have a Chinese keyboard layout available.

jjice 58 minutes ago | parent

What does the future of something like F-Droid look like once Google does their lock down next year?

pritambaral 43 minutes ago | parent

Since F-Droid (i.e., the repositories, not the app) builds all apps, a practical solution would be for the repositories (i.e., their signing keys) to be recognized by El Goog. Whether and how much help / obstacle the "maybe we do evil" company puts up for / against this is a different question.

trinsic2 25 minutes ago | parent

It seems to me this is a blocker to use if google can restrict sideloading like this. Its not going to end with just get people requiring to register their app with an identity. Wont they be able to put presser on f-droid devs to lock out software they consider a threat to some business model?

wongarsu 4 minutes ago | parent

If the issue Google has with sideloading is really just the rampant app piracy (and the malware that comes with cracked apps) that might be something F-Droid can accomodate.

OutOfHere 30 minutes ago | parent

Isn't it possible, however complicated, for users to undo the lockdown to install an app? The required 9 steps are noted at https://keepandroidopen.org/ for devices that use Google Play Services.

jjice 7 minutes ago | parent

Ah this is good to know. Awful it's required, but glad there is a work around.

magnat 57 minutes ago | parent

And still no popularity rating, download count or any user review system whatsoever.

echelon 55 minutes ago | parent

Because nobody uses it except a handful of uber-nerds who can put up with wasting hours of time for "altruism".

The answer to freedom isn't another marketplace. It's legislation that requires Google and Apple to allow web installs without scare walls or deeply hidden permission toggles.

You should be able to just download an app. And Grandma should be able to do it.

There's nothing insecure about it in a world of sandboxing, permissions, scanning, blacklisting, etc. When the tech giants are more than happy to sell ads to malware, you know their "safety" stance is just economic moat protectionism.

---

Edit because of rate limits:

F-droid fans are cheering a small victory, yet losing the entire war.

This f-droid nonsense isn't the point. The point is the app store monopoly. That there are only two platforms and that both are almost completely locked down.

F-droid users don't even see that Google is purposefully allowing this as an antitrust sponge calculus. The minute they can convert more freedoms into dollars, they will.

rpdillon 50 minutes ago | parent

> Because nobody uses it except a handful of uber-nerds who can put up with wasting hours of time for "altruism".

This seems weirdly derogatory towards people that use F-Droid.

nazgulsenpai 48 minutes ago | parent

As an F-Droid user for idk how many years now, I'd say it's spot on!

yjftsjthsd-h 40 minutes ago | parent

> Because nobody uses it except a handful of uber-nerds who can put up with wasting hours of time for "altruism".

What? I'm not sure how you would manage to waste hours installing a single app and then using it to install other apps, and I'm not using it because of "altruism" (what does that even mean?), I'm using it because it's the best way to get apps.

> You should be able to just download an app. And Grandma should be able to do it.

> There's nothing insecure about it in a world of sandboxing, permissions, scanning, blacklisting, etc. When the tech giants are more than happy to sell ads to malware, you know their "safety" stance is just economic moat protectionism.

Even if you 100% trust Android's sandboxing and permissions, which is... not a choice I would personally make, I like it when my apps don't have scams or ads internally, either. I'm not worried about Grandma downloading any app off F-Droid; I am a little concerned about what happens if she can download any app being pushed by any random website.

OutOfHere 18 minutes ago | parent

Can't you at least see and file issues and discussions on the respective app's code repo site? This is often although not always sufficient, as the repo owner can censor issues and discussions.

Google has for years censored app reviews anyway on its Play Store, and also allowed too many low-value reviews which drown out useful reviews.

Velocifyer 8 minutes ago | parent

Except the 2.0 does have a most popular apps section.

rom1v 56 minutes ago | parent

In addition to F-Droid on the device, I'd love an F-Droid "package manager client" on a computer, that allows installing apps on an Android device via adb:

    # update repo lists
    fdr update
    
    # upgrade all apps on the connected device
    fdr upgrade
    
    # search packages
    fdr search vlc  # lists org.videolan.vlc
    
    # install on the device
    fdr install org.mozilla.firefox
    
    # download the apk
    fdr download org.mozilla.firefox
    
    # uninstall
    fdr uninstall org.mozilla.firefox
Of course, all operations would verify the signatures first.

yjftsjthsd-h 51 minutes ago | parent

Like https://github.com/Hoverth/fdroidcl ? :)

prima-facie 49 minutes ago | parent

Amazing news! I mainly use the F-droid Basic version which does automatic updating of apps. The regular one needs user confirmation for updates if I remember correctly.

imzadi 35 minutes ago | parent

I wish they would add ratings or even just comments

Telaneo 27 minutes ago | parent

It's nice to see F-Droid going places.

kmarc 5 minutes ago | parent

Great visual and usability update.

Even greater HN conversation about all the to-me-unknown alternatives. I used neostore as a replacement, but maybe time to try f-Droid again