4 ms·

I want to love F-Droid I really do. Finding apps is just miserable because whatever CDN they use, if any, does not play well with New Zealand and scrolling thou

I want to love F-Droid I really do. Finding apps is just miserable because whatever CDN they use, if any, does not play well with New Zealand and scrolling though apps just shows blank icons. Eventually they load but scrolling back up they are blank again, there is no caching. Same with screen shots, it can take 15+ seconds for screenshot thumbnails or full screen shots to load. It is like being on dial up. I know it is open source and I should not complain.

lucb1e 7y ago
Same here in western Europe though, the screenshots take forever (they often never load) and icon caching would be welcome as well. Personally I just look for apps elsewhere and install them through F-Droid when available (like Telegram, Firefox (fennec), piggybudget, OsmAnd, reddit reader, Öffi, K-9 mail, Newpipe, ssh connectbot, wifi analyzer, simple file manager & gallery, QR code scanner, muPDF viewer, etc. I all have through f-droid instead of the google ecosystem). The only exception is the "new" section that opens by default when you launch the F-Droid app: there I browse when there is new stuff.
simlevesque 7y ago
Same in Canada... It just does not work well.
- jtl999 7y ago
  Ditto. Seems less of a location problem at this point.
dessant 7y ago
Aurora Droid and Aurora Store are sleek alternatives for the F-Droid and Google Play clients. They use the same sources for content, but the apps feel much snappier and look pleasant. [1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.adroid/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.adroid/ [2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/
- DarthGhandi 7y ago
  Not sure about Aurora Droid but the Aurora store wont have the same build guarantees that come with using fdroid. Something to note. Installing malware through a proxy is still installing malware.
  - dessant 7y ago
    Aurora Droid comes with a customizable list of package repositories, including an F-Droid repository mirror. Aurora Store fetches packages from the same source as the Google Play client. There's a legitimate benefit to having access to the Google Play catalog without depending on Google Play Services or owning a Google account, and not all apps on Google Play are malware.
    - DarthGhandi 7y ago
      > There's a legitimate benefit to having access to the Google Play catalog without depending on Google Play Services or owning a Google account Definitely agree, use store personally, have done all that is possible to degoogle my phone but the reality is that certain play store apps are essential for modern living. Yalp was once good but find it unusable now. Aurora store has good UI and seems to handle the proxy accounts better, or at least they are not being banned so quick.
  - bubblethink 7y ago
    Are you using some Stallmanesque definition of malware ? Because otherwise, it's not clear what you are trying to say. Aurora droid/store are frontends to f-droid/gplay. They are open source themselves and don't do anything in the malware dept.
qqii 7y ago
I haven't investigated too much but it might be/have been an issue with the app itself, alternative clients such as G-Droid[0] don't have this issue at all and I've experienced this issue inconsistency. Looking at their bug reports the issue may have been fixed, and anecdotally I haven't had any issues recently. [0]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.gdroid.gdroid/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.gdroid.gdroid/ [1]: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=all&search=Icon https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/issues?scope=all&utf8...
- teruakohatu 7y ago
  I used to have the issue with icons refusing to load at all, but now they are loading, it is just very slow.
  - qqii 7y ago
    What's your experience with the third party clients that you've been linked? It may be worth submitting another bug report if they don't have these issues.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Evidlo 7y ago
Same in the US.
duckMuppet 7y ago
If you look at the older versions of FDroid before they made it "modern", it is much better at categorizing and being able to find apps. versions after 0.102.3 were just terrible and i reverted immediately. Of course a lot of folks don't seem to mind the modern view but I find itv extremely unusable. Supposedly a clone called GDroid shows ratings and such as well.
ekianjo 7y ago
Other than the speed, I have problems with the interface. Search is virtually useless (sometimes returns nothing, sometimes too many results in a somewhat random order), and the information for every app is usually lacking. No reviews or rating system either so you just have to install things first to check out if it's really for you or not. There is not even a popularity indicator... All in all, it's far cry from what a "best in class" app store could be.
bubblethink 7y ago
>whatever CDN they use They don't use one AFAIK. They have mirrors, but the way stuff works is that their main server is still the bottleneck. This has been raised before (https://forum.f-droid.org/t/why-is-fdroid-down-all-the-time/5028 https://forum.f-droid.org/t/why-is-fdroid-down-all-the-time/... and a few other threads on the forum) without a satisfactory resolution. As an outsider, to me it appears that f-droid's user base is mostly European, and it works well enough for people in Europe.
- franga2000 7y ago
  Central European here: the browsing experience in the app is absolutely miserable here too. I don't remember the last time I saw an app icon in the official client.
twblalock 7y ago
> I know it is open source and I should not complain. Nah, you should complain. Open source is not an excuse for broken functionality.
- DarthGhandi 7y ago
  It's an opportunity to actually improve it.
burundi_coffee 7y ago
Wait, there are screenshots?
3xblah 7y ago
F-Droid makes its metadata human-readable: https://f-droid.org/en/2019/09/11/yaml-metadata.html https://f-droid.org/en/2019/09/11/yaml-metadata.html To help find apps here is a 3-line script to produce a tab-separated list of apks with one line descriptions curl -4o name https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/raw/master/stats/known_apks.txt curl https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/archive/master/fdroiddata-master.tar.bz2?path=metadata| bzip2 -dc|tar xOf - --wildcards *en-US/summary.txt|sed '/^In the list of classes/d' > desc paste name desc|cut -d / -f3,5|less This one-line script outputs a 1.4M list of longer descriptions found in the YAML files curl https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/archive/master/fdroiddata-master.tar.bz2?path=metadata| bzip2 -dc|tar xOf - --wildcards *.yml|sed -n '/AutoName:/p;/./{/Description:/,/versionCode:/{/^ /p;#thats 3 spaces;};}'|less This outputs list of latest apks curl https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/stats/latestapps.txt Because the website has always been so slow, almost unsuable for search or browsing, I download text and make lists of the F-Droid apks with descriptions and other metadata. Then I can browse and search through these text files to find apps using less(1), grep(1), etc., instead of using the website or F-Droid app. Then when I know what I want I download the source or .apk file from the website. It's a slow website but it's a good project otherwise. Appears they are funded by same organization that wrote libldns, nsd, unbound, drill, etc.
richard78459 7y ago
I use it from India and it works smoothly.
eighthave 7y ago
If you're not getting icons and screenshots, that most likely because your data/wifi settings are set to not download them. For example, if you never/rarely use WiFi, and your data/wifi settings are set to only allow downloading over WiFi, it won't download the icons or screenshots. Originally, we had same defaults for everyone, then we updated it so that if you started F-Droid without WiFi on, then it would always allow downloads over data. That said, yes, the official client could be improved, and we welcome contributions. The security side of F-Droid is quite solid, that's the problem with the various forks. They focus on UX, without the careful attention needed for security. The ideal world would be that the core of the official F-Droid client would be a standalone library, so that the forks can have the same solid base. We welcome contributions there.

lucb1e 7y ago

Same here in western Europe though, the screenshots take forever (they often never load) and icon caching would be welcome as well. Personally I just look for apps elsewhere and install them through F-Droid when available (like Telegram, Firefox (fennec), piggybudget, OsmAnd, reddit reader, Öffi, K-9 mail, Newpipe, ssh connectbot, wifi analyzer, simple file manager & gallery, QR code scanner, muPDF viewer, etc. I all have through f-droid instead of the google ecosystem). The only exception is the "new" section that opens by default when you launch the F-Droid app: there I browse when there is new stuff.

simlevesque 7y ago

Same in Canada... It just does not work well.

jtl999 7y ago
Ditto. Seems less of a location problem at this point.

dessant 7y ago

Aurora Droid and Aurora Store are sleek alternatives for the F-Droid and Google Play clients. They use the same sources for content, but the apps feel much snappier and look pleasant. [1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.adroid/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.adroid/ [2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/

DarthGhandi 7y ago
Not sure about Aurora Droid but the Aurora store wont have the same build guarantees that come with using fdroid. Something to note. Installing malware through a proxy is still installing malware.
- dessant 7y ago
  Aurora Droid comes with a customizable list of package repositories, including an F-Droid repository mirror. Aurora Store fetches packages from the same source as the Google Play client. There's a legitimate benefit to having access to the Google Play catalog without depending on Google Play Services or owning a Google account, and not all apps on Google Play are malware.
  - DarthGhandi 7y ago
    > There's a legitimate benefit to having access to the Google Play catalog without depending on Google Play Services or owning a Google account Definitely agree, use store personally, have done all that is possible to degoogle my phone but the reality is that certain play store apps are essential for modern living. Yalp was once good but find it unusable now. Aurora store has good UI and seems to handle the proxy accounts better, or at least they are not being banned so quick.
- bubblethink 7y ago
  Are you using some Stallmanesque definition of malware ? Because otherwise, it's not clear what you are trying to say. Aurora droid/store are frontends to f-droid/gplay. They are open source themselves and don't do anything in the malware dept.

qqii 7y ago

I haven't investigated too much but it might be/have been an issue with the app itself, alternative clients such as G-Droid[0] don't have this issue at all and I've experienced this issue inconsistency. Looking at their bug reports the issue may have been fixed, and anecdotally I haven't had any issues recently. [0]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.gdroid.gdroid/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.gdroid.gdroid/ [1]: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=all&search=Icon https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/issues?scope=all&utf8...

teruakohatu 7y ago
I used to have the issue with icons refusing to load at all, but now they are loading, it is just very slow.
- qqii 7y ago
  What's your experience with the third party clients that you've been linked? It may be worth submitting another bug report if they don't have these issues.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Evidlo 7y ago

Same in the US.

duckMuppet 7y ago

If you look at the older versions of FDroid before they made it "modern", it is much better at categorizing and being able to find apps. versions after 0.102.3 were just terrible and i reverted immediately. Of course a lot of folks don't seem to mind the modern view but I find itv extremely unusable. Supposedly a clone called GDroid shows ratings and such as well.

ekianjo 7y ago

Other than the speed, I have problems with the interface. Search is virtually useless (sometimes returns nothing, sometimes too many results in a somewhat random order), and the information for every app is usually lacking. No reviews or rating system either so you just have to install things first to check out if it's really for you or not. There is not even a popularity indicator... All in all, it's far cry from what a "best in class" app store could be.

bubblethink 7y ago

>whatever CDN they use They don't use one AFAIK. They have mirrors, but the way stuff works is that their main server is still the bottleneck. This has been raised before (https://forum.f-droid.org/t/why-is-fdroid-down-all-the-time/5028 https://forum.f-droid.org/t/why-is-fdroid-down-all-the-time/... and a few other threads on the forum) without a satisfactory resolution. As an outsider, to me it appears that f-droid's user base is mostly European, and it works well enough for people in Europe.

franga2000 7y ago
Central European here: the browsing experience in the app is absolutely miserable here too. I don't remember the last time I saw an app icon in the official client.

twblalock 7y ago

> I know it is open source and I should not complain. Nah, you should complain. Open source is not an excuse for broken functionality.

DarthGhandi 7y ago
It's an opportunity to actually improve it.

burundi_coffee 7y ago

Wait, there are screenshots?

3xblah 7y ago

F-Droid makes its metadata human-readable: https://f-droid.org/en/2019/09/11/yaml-metadata.html https://f-droid.org/en/2019/09/11/yaml-metadata.html To help find apps here is a 3-line script to produce a tab-separated list of apks with one line descriptions curl -4o name https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/raw/master/stats/known_apks.txt curl https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/archive/master/fdroiddata-master.tar.bz2?path=metadata| bzip2 -dc|tar xOf - --wildcards *en-US/summary.txt|sed '/^In the list of classes/d' > desc paste name desc|cut -d / -f3,5|less This one-line script outputs a 1.4M list of longer descriptions found in the YAML files curl https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/archive/master/fdroiddata-master.tar.bz2?path=metadata| bzip2 -dc|tar xOf - --wildcards *.yml|sed -n '/AutoName:/p;/./{/Description:/,/versionCode:/{/^ /p;#thats 3 spaces;};}'|less This outputs list of latest apks curl https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/stats/latestapps.txt Because the website has always been so slow, almost unsuable for search or browsing, I download text and make lists of the F-Droid apks with descriptions and other metadata. Then I can browse and search through these text files to find apps using less(1), grep(1), etc., instead of using the website or F-Droid app. Then when I know what I want I download the source or .apk file from the website. It's a slow website but it's a good project otherwise. Appears they are funded by same organization that wrote libldns, nsd, unbound, drill, etc.

richard78459 7y ago

I use it from India and it works smoothly.

eighthave 7y ago

If you're not getting icons and screenshots, that most likely because your data/wifi settings are set to not download them. For example, if you never/rarely use WiFi, and your data/wifi settings are set to only allow downloading over WiFi, it won't download the icons or screenshots. Originally, we had same defaults for everyone, then we updated it so that if you started F-Droid without WiFi on, then it would always allow downloads over data. That said, yes, the official client could be improved, and we welcome contributions. The security side of F-Droid is quite solid, that's the problem with the various forks. They focus on UX, without the careful attention needed for security. The ideal world would be that the core of the official F-Droid client would be a standalone library, so that the forks can have the same solid base. We welcome contributions there.