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F-Droid: Android FOSS app store
- WD40forRust 3y agoI LOVE F-DROID! I recommend adding the IzzyOnDroid repository to F-Droid, and then getting NewPipe x SponsorBlock. No really... Enjoy!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jqpabc123 3y agoMy only complaint is that F-Droid is often slow to add new software releases.
- nani8ot 3y agoThat's usually because of the slow review process. F-Droid apps have to be built on F-Droid servers. Some projects like NewPipe have their own repository which has to be added manually. It's annoying but mostly not a problem.
- sigmar 3y agoIt's been a while since I've published on fdroid, does it still take 24-48 hrs before updates get pushed after tagging a new release version?
- sureglymop 3y agoThat seems amazingly quick for such a project to be honest.
- fenesiistvan 3y agoWhat is the problem with 1-2 days delay?
- carstenhag 3y agoAccidents happen, especially without a QA. I published a broken version of an app that I thought that noone used, but I got 5 mails in a day. Then it took a week to show up at F-Droid. Less than 4 hours on the Play Store.
- jqpabc123 3y agoI've seen it take much longer --- a week or more after the update is available elsewhere.
- csdvrx 3y agoI use exclusively Chinese devices, without google store. F-Droid has everything I need, and conveniently provides direct apk download if I want to restore the device without going online.
- ZeroCooly 3y agoI'm interested in knowing what makes you use exclusively Chinese devices.
- benatkin 3y agoLack of allegiance to Google.
- uoaei 3y agoAllying with the CCP instead is an interesting choice.
- bt4u 3y ago[dead]
- csdvrx 3y ago> Allying with the CCP instead is an interesting choice. I'm not here to talk politics, especially for such a loaded statement. "allying"? I "ally" with no one. Also, my choice is not political but technical: I have a color eink device android where I do everything in the console with tmux and a Lenovo Bluetooth keyboard. I have root, the device is degoogled, and I have removed from flash (mtd) what I didn't like. I use it mostly offline, but it's firewalled (with iptables) when I need to use ssh for example. Best of all: it came ready to be hacked! Maybe you believe your google device is more "protected", but I have a different opinion. Given the amount of effort companies like google put into trying to insert themselves into our lives, I suggest a healthy skepticism to their claims of "privacy" or "protection".
- 3y ago
- athorax 3y agoMy favorite HN android app, glider, is on fdroid https://github.com/Mosc/Glider https://github.com/Mosc/Glider
- Aisen8010 3y agoThe app Hacki is a good one too. https://f-droid.org/pt_BR/packages/com.jiaqifeng.hacki/ https://f-droid.org/pt_BR/packages/com.jiaqifeng.hacki/
- hellotheretoday 3y agoHacki is also available for iOS and is quite good
- titaniumtown 3y agoI've always used Hacki
- xerxesaa 3y agoWow thank you for suggesting this. I've tried so many apps and nothing has really hit the sweet spot for me. But I just downloaded this upon reading your suggestion and it literally checks all the boxes for me. Amazing find!
- jersa 3y agoAnd I just discovered another one today: Harmonic. https://github.com/SimonHalvdansson/Harmonic-HN https://github.com/SimonHalvdansson/Harmonic-HN I'm still searching for "just right". And while I know that posting comments is an experimental feature in Glider, I was pretty miffed today when I lost a somewhat lengthy reply that I had spent the previous thirty minutes drafting. Nevertheless, I know better than to blame anyone but myself for the loss. I should have been copying my progress to a safer location the entire time, and the source is right there, waiting for my patch. As always, the joys of free software abound.
- gausswho 3y agoHarmonic is my vehicle for HN going on three years now. Highly recommend.
- greentea23 3y agoI like this app for interfacing with fdroid: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.machiav3lli.fdroid/ https://f-droid.org/packages/com.machiav3lli.fdroid/ I also like this CLI for bulk downloading apks for initializing a new device over adb: https://github.com/mvdan/fdroidcl https://github.com/mvdan/fdroidcl To get releases faster there is obtanium: https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium
- riedel 3y agoI prefer https://github.com/Droid-ify/client https://github.com/Droid-ify/client as a client
- cf100clunk 3y agoI second your NeoStore recommendation but I'm always open to trying others. AuroraDroid fell out of usefulness although I still use AuroraStore for play store stuff.
- jhoho 3y agoThere's also F-Droid Basic which targets Android 13 and therefore allows unattended updates without root: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fdroid.basic https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fdroid.basic
- callahad 3y agoUnattended updates will also come to the next release (1.19) of the main client.
- tangus 3y agoI just installed Neo Store, and as soon I updated the repository data, it started downloading and trying to install all apps that weren't on the latest version. Just a heads up.
- c420 3y agoApp Manager on f-droid allows to to freeze bloatware without root. You just need to enable adb mode via USB or wireless debugging, both explained in the manual.
- sphars 3y agoF-Droid is one of the first apps I install when I get a new phone. That said, I usually just use the F-Droid app to install an alternate client (yes, I could download clients manually...). There's Neo Store[0] which is a fork of Droid-ify[1] which itself is a fork of Foxy Droid[2] (no longer updated). Personally I use Neo Store, includes more repos by default and can auto update apps. [0]: https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Store https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Store [1]: https://github.com/Droid-ify/client https://github.com/Droid-ify/client [2]: https://github.com/kitsunyan/foxy-droid https://github.com/kitsunyan/foxy-droid
- mackrevinack 3y agonice. i like that neo store let's you bookmark things
- privacyking 3y agoWhat makes neostore better than droidify? I used to use the former but switched to the latter a year ago.
- sphars 3y agoI've personally found the notifications that updates are available to be more consistent with Neo Store over Droid-ify. (I've had both installed at the same time, Neo always showed up first, despite the same settings). I was a user of the latter initially when it started as a fork of Foxy Droid. At one point development slowed down and Neo Store was created and had active development, and I've used that ever since. Both are still actively developed as far as I know.
- unstuck3958 3y ago> What makes neostore better than droidify? My experience has been the opposite: droidify has been more "stable" than neostore for me.
- szszrk 3y agoThere is F-droid Basic, which lacks a few less popular functions but contains a rework of app installation. It can install apps in background as well. It's very smooth in my case, works pretty much like auto updating on play store. You can get it through... regular fdroid!
- hardcopy 3y agoI wish F-droid would show whether an app has reproducible builds enabled or not. Otherwise, I love it!
- crote 3y agoI wish F-Droid showed usage stats. Sorting by "last updated" doesn't really tell you anything about the app's quality, and I really do not want to install and try 30 different apps solving the same problem just to see which one is better. Plenty of people have done so before me, so just tell me which one is the most popular!
- em3rgent0rdr 3y agoMandatory reporting of usage statistics runs contrary to one of the freedoms inherent to FOSS, that the software is for the user's freedom. But surely there should be a way to reconcile no-spying with usage reporting through some voluntary means. For example, Debian allows users to install the popularity-contest package.
- hutzlibu 3y ago"Mandatory reporting of usage statistics runs contrary to one of the freedoms inherent to FOSS, that the software is for the user's freedom." Why? You don't need to do tracking, just have a counter on the server that increases every time someone downloads the repository. What does this have to do with FOSS?
- blntechie 3y agoThat's how Google Analytics started.
- hutzlibu 3y agoNo it is not. A counter on the website was a gimmick from the early web days and google analytics had a very different purpose from the beginning.
- em3rgent0rdr 3y agoSuch a download counter is not an accurate measure of usage.
- 3y ago
- trollitarantula 3y agoF-Droid is a graveyard. So many apps haven't been updated for 3-7 years.
- walteweiss 3y agoJust yesterday’s evening I was casually browsing through new apps in f-droid (sometimes I do) and found there ‘f-droid lite’ version, or whatever its called. I cannot quickly find it from my iPhone unfortunately. If anyone knows and can elaborate on that very version, I would like to know more. I installed it, and it looks better to me. It claims it can update the apps without root, but it also states that it’s targeted towards Android 13. So I’m not sure whether to use it with Android 8 device.
- sphars 3y agoYou must be talking about F-Droid Basic? The notable difference is: > The Basic version of F-Droid Client has a reduced feature set (e.g. no nearby share and no panic feature). It targets Android 13 and can do unattended updates without privileged extension or root. https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.basic/ https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.basic/
- walteweiss 3y agoThanks! I was. It’s Android 13 that made me unsure, as the device I was checking it with, it has Android 8.
- easyKL 3y agoAnother app to interact with HN is Materialistic. It's old, but it does the trick. The widget to show the top stories is its best feature. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/io.github.hidroh.materialistic/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/io.github.hidroh.materialist...
- psalminen 3y ago+1 to this. I've been using Materialistic for years. It's a much nicer interface for HN on mobile Written from the aforementioned app.
- hulitu 3y agoIt lacks some features (downvoting ?), it has issues with slow networks and with some gray on gray, but all in all is a better experience on mobile.
- davidgerard 3y agoA nice thing about F-Droid is that there's a lot of open source apps that on Google Play have an ad-supported free version and a no-ads paid version - but on F-Droid the no-ads version is freely available.
- netfortius 3y agoAurora Store is still a must, for global traveling and country specific apps, which are not available anywhere else.
- dvh 3y agoWow, when I search app by its name it actually finds the app. Google should copy this technology and add it to the play store.
- doppio19 3y agoSorry for the naïve question, but why would I need this when most apps are distributed on Google Play? Are a lot of FOSS developers publishing on F-Droid instead of Google Play because of disagreements about Google's TOS?
- carstenhag 3y agoSome apps don't use Google services on the f-droid variant. I guess most are publishing on both. Neither give you an easy time. Google wants regular work from a dev (updating target SDK, filling out forms on the Play Console). F-Droid sometimes just doesn't build the app for days. (For my app it took about 8 months to initially appear on f-droid due to some bug, but hey, at least there's real people to talk to :))