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I think policies[1] are blocking F-Droid more than anything from being a viable alternative. A bank will likely never release their app as open source, nor will

I think policies[1] are blocking F-Droid more than anything from being a viable alternative. A bank will likely never release their app as open source, nor will any of the big authentication vendors. This means that you cannot completely replace the Google Play Store with F-Droid if you have to use any of these, you can only use it as an additional store, at which point many won't be bothered. [1]: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy/ https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy/

jraph 2y ago
It's also its strength and raison d'etre. What use is F-droid if it starts including proprietary software?
- ericjmorey 2y ago
  An alternative for app distribution outside of Google Play Store.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  No tracking? Providing an alternative? Not strengthening the Google-Apple duopoly on the mobile phone market? I was looking at it as a platform to publish an app on, which the open source requirement stopped dead in its tracks. I didn't have a viable open source business model for it at this time because it was a straight "customer pays money, gets software" deal with no tracking or other nonsense. As-is, F-Droid will not be an _alternative_, it can, at most, be an extension to the Play Store.
  - lern_too_spel 2y ago
    That's what this article is about. Building a federated platform for distributing any type of mobile app, open source or not.
  - mid-kid 2y ago
    I mean, f-droid allows adding custom repositories that don't follow the main one's rules. There's a decent amount of apps that do this for one reason or another. Other apps, like for example OSMAnd, have a special f-droid build with google services removed, leading to the lack of some features like android auto support. The client doesn't support any form of purchases and I don't think it ever will. I think you'd be best served using any of the other stores that support this or hosting it on your own website.
    - jraph 2y ago
      I don't see why fdroid would never provide a payment feature. At least for ethical reasons. Fdroid focuses on free software (and is also concerned with privacy and other features). Free software does not need to be gratis. As long as the payment code is open source. At worst it would be a NonFreeNet anti feature. Could be mitigated by supporting several payment platform. Of course it could be hard to set up in practice.
      - mid-kid 2y ago
        You're right, but I don't think there's any incentive to do it. They pride themselves on having no tracking or otherwise user information (not even app popularity statistics), and adding any form of payment would require managing user accounts or coming up with impractical multi-device proof-of-purchase sharing solutions. It's also worth mentioning that since everything on the store would still remain free software, making it legal to share purchased copies, people seeking to use it as a business model (like the parent post) would generally be ill-served.
  - jraph 2y ago
    I won't trust no tracking if it's non free. I know I will sound extreme (although I think it shouldn't be the case in among developers) and no offense, but this sounds like a happy outcome to me. I believe proprietary software to be unethical. I'm not interested in being proposed non free software. The software industry should figure it out and start respecting its users. However software funding is a real concern and I do believe there's room for some set of builtin solutions allowing free software funding beyond a donate link. There are many ways to fund free software. I'm not saying it's easy but there are many open source businesses now and as a developer I decided to join one of them. Support, consulting and paid (but still open source) paid features are some options. I don't think anybody would remove a license check in an app sent to f-droid if it's free software. Now, I genuinely thank you for having considered an alternative to Google for distributing your software. I know it's hard to build stuff and bootstrap it. I'm with you on this. In f-droid, you can still add third party repositories and I heard it's getting easier for users. Not sure it is easy enough. Now I'm totally aware only free software doesn't cut it for most people yet, and fdroid will not suffice. Most people will do with the play store, but some will use fdroid as a store of "trusty" apps and resort to the play store if really needed. I know people doing this.
    - janosdebugs 2y ago
      In this case the software in question was a game. I have not seen any visble business models for truly open source games under the acceptable licenses for F-Droid. There are source-available games, but that would not be enough in this case. I think the main issue may be how much up-front investment games need that would never be recouped with an open source license, but I'd love to be shown an example to the contrary.
      - jraph 2y ago
        Game is its own thing indeed and I'll admit that first, I don't play much, and second, never even started thinking about business models for open source games. Maybe you could license the data for a fee and have the code as open source? Of course this is low effort and you know way better than me.
- Ajedi32 2y ago
  Yeah personally that's what I love most about F-Droid. There's not a very wide selection of applications there, but if you can find an app that does what you want you're almost guaranteed that it'll be open source and free of ads, tracking, and other annoyances.
mid-kid 2y ago
I'm not entirely sure why this is a problem. Nothing's stopping you from using f-droid as an app source as well as some other store - it doesn't need to cover every use case. It's already a viable alternative for apps which can't go on the Play Store due to Google's policies, like AdAway, NewPipe and Termux. The fact there's no freedom respecting bank applications is a problem on its own, though. I will continue avoiding them until there is...
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - hedora 2y ago
    I’ve never been able to discover decent apps on the Google Play Store. I’m continually surprised how bad its search functionality is. Usually, I start with f-droid (to avoid spy/adware), then go straight to ddg or kagi.
    - yashasolutions 2y ago
      Just to add, F-Droid is not a guarantee against adware. There are definitely adware apps (and by extension, maybe even spyware) on F-Droid.
      - mid-kid 2y ago
        Adware is marked as an Anti-Feature in the details of an app in F-Droid[1]. Since non-free software is not allowed on F-Droid, and most Ad platforms aren't free software, you're unlikely to find any, though. There's currently only 30 apps with this Anti-Feature[2]. [1]: https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#Ads https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#Ads [2]: https://monitor.f-droid.org/anti-feature/Ads https://monitor.f-droid.org/anti-feature/Ads
        ycombinator_acc 2y ago
        I'd never use F-Droid due to how insecure it is. They still modify all app signatures, so you can't even verify what you're installing is authentic.
repelsteeltje 2y ago
> A bank will likely never release their app as open source, nor will any of the big authentication vendors. I suppose you're right and I think it's worrying that precisely these kinds of organizations still seem to rely on security through obscurity (to some extent, not solely).
- snvzz 2y ago
  I'll go further and say that a bank should be required by law to implement and enable access to open banking APIs. As well as not require, under any circumstances, an account holder to install a proprietary application in order to use the bank.
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  Not just obscurity, but also requiring you to have a mobile phone, with software made by two spcific companies, (for us europeans) both foreign, and in some cases, not even allow you to have the phone rooted. I miss the time of totp dongles.
t0bia_s 2y ago
I'm not using Google play or any other services on android over 6 years now. You don't need banking apps for making transactions.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  I live in an EU country and I, in fact, cannot use online banking without a Google-enabled Android or an iPhone. There is exactly one bank that offers a desktop authenticator, but we had a really bad experience with them when we tried them for a year.
  - t0bia_s 2y ago
    MicroG could work, but I never used banking app, so I cannot verify it. Adopt paying by other, more secure and private friendly ways.
    - janosdebugs 2y ago
      What payment method would you recommend for paying mortgages, utility bills, and company expenses?
      - rakoo 2y ago
        You said you're in the EU right ? SEPA works. The only moment I need to confirm identity with my bank is when I buy frivolities, not for my bills.
        janosdebugs 2y ago
        Here's the problem: I can do a SEPA transaction using online banking (with a Google-enabled phone) or by walking to my bank personally.
        rakoo 2y ago
        I might be lucky enough to have online banking work with sms and a pre-shared secret. My bank (also in the EU) didn't tell me I could do it automatically, they only mentioned it when I told them I lost my phone (it was true) and that I didn't know when I could buy a new one. Maybe it'll work with yours ?
burningChrome 2y ago
I used Graphene OS on a Pixel 4 for a few years and loved it. I feel like I'm a total minority user who doesn't attach themselves to specific apps so not having Firefox available wasn't really a huge thing for me. There were several apps I did have to have, but they were all available through the F-Droid store. Graphene was easy for me but like you pointed out, many will not use it because it doesn't have exactly what they use/need. To some degree this inflexibility reminds me of people not switching to the Windows Phone platform for the same reason - which is sad considering we only have two choices now because people wouldn't take the chance and Microsoft abandoned the OS before really giving it a good opportunity to thrive. Kind of a sad state of affairs when people are totally comfortable handing over all their personal information to the likes of Apple, Samsung and Google. Full disclosure: Yes, I'm a totally disgruntled former Windows phone user. Yes, there were a lot of factors that led to its demise, but I felt at the time we finally had an alternative to what we were being spoon fed in Apple and Google.
- hedora 2y ago
  Windows Phone 8.0 was great, partially because of the OS, and partially because MS paid for ports of the top-N apps to it. GrapheneOS didn’t work as a daily driver for me because I couldn’t reliably use it for uber, lyft, parking or ev charging. The camera support was missing some features. Most of that is fixable by adding back the google services, but then you lose most of the privacy advantages of having a de-googled phone.
  - johnsea 2y ago
    A note regarding your last point: - Google Play is sandboxed [1], you have (important) privacy advantages - with a second account for banking apps (or in your example) uber, lyft, one can nicely separate "google-play-apps" from free apps, account switching is fast [1]: https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play

jraph 2y ago

It's also its strength and raison d'etre. What use is F-droid if it starts including proprietary software?

ericjmorey 2y ago
An alternative for app distribution outside of Google Play Store.
janosdebugs 2y ago
No tracking? Providing an alternative? Not strengthening the Google-Apple duopoly on the mobile phone market? I was looking at it as a platform to publish an app on, which the open source requirement stopped dead in its tracks. I didn't have a viable open source business model for it at this time because it was a straight "customer pays money, gets software" deal with no tracking or other nonsense. As-is, F-Droid will not be an _alternative_, it can, at most, be an extension to the Play Store.
- lern_too_spel 2y ago
  That's what this article is about. Building a federated platform for distributing any type of mobile app, open source or not.
- mid-kid 2y ago
  I mean, f-droid allows adding custom repositories that don't follow the main one's rules. There's a decent amount of apps that do this for one reason or another. Other apps, like for example OSMAnd, have a special f-droid build with google services removed, leading to the lack of some features like android auto support. The client doesn't support any form of purchases and I don't think it ever will. I think you'd be best served using any of the other stores that support this or hosting it on your own website.
  - jraph 2y ago
    I don't see why fdroid would never provide a payment feature. At least for ethical reasons. Fdroid focuses on free software (and is also concerned with privacy and other features). Free software does not need to be gratis. As long as the payment code is open source. At worst it would be a NonFreeNet anti feature. Could be mitigated by supporting several payment platform. Of course it could be hard to set up in practice.
    - mid-kid 2y ago
      You're right, but I don't think there's any incentive to do it. They pride themselves on having no tracking or otherwise user information (not even app popularity statistics), and adding any form of payment would require managing user accounts or coming up with impractical multi-device proof-of-purchase sharing solutions. It's also worth mentioning that since everything on the store would still remain free software, making it legal to share purchased copies, people seeking to use it as a business model (like the parent post) would generally be ill-served.
- jraph 2y ago
  I won't trust no tracking if it's non free. I know I will sound extreme (although I think it shouldn't be the case in among developers) and no offense, but this sounds like a happy outcome to me. I believe proprietary software to be unethical. I'm not interested in being proposed non free software. The software industry should figure it out and start respecting its users. However software funding is a real concern and I do believe there's room for some set of builtin solutions allowing free software funding beyond a donate link. There are many ways to fund free software. I'm not saying it's easy but there are many open source businesses now and as a developer I decided to join one of them. Support, consulting and paid (but still open source) paid features are some options. I don't think anybody would remove a license check in an app sent to f-droid if it's free software. Now, I genuinely thank you for having considered an alternative to Google for distributing your software. I know it's hard to build stuff and bootstrap it. I'm with you on this. In f-droid, you can still add third party repositories and I heard it's getting easier for users. Not sure it is easy enough. Now I'm totally aware only free software doesn't cut it for most people yet, and fdroid will not suffice. Most people will do with the play store, but some will use fdroid as a store of "trusty" apps and resort to the play store if really needed. I know people doing this.
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    In this case the software in question was a game. I have not seen any visble business models for truly open source games under the acceptable licenses for F-Droid. There are source-available games, but that would not be enough in this case. I think the main issue may be how much up-front investment games need that would never be recouped with an open source license, but I'd love to be shown an example to the contrary.
    - jraph 2y ago
      Game is its own thing indeed and I'll admit that first, I don't play much, and second, never even started thinking about business models for open source games. Maybe you could license the data for a fee and have the code as open source? Of course this is low effort and you know way better than me.
Ajedi32 2y ago
Yeah personally that's what I love most about F-Droid. There's not a very wide selection of applications there, but if you can find an app that does what you want you're almost guaranteed that it'll be open source and free of ads, tracking, and other annoyances.

mid-kid 2y ago

I'm not entirely sure why this is a problem. Nothing's stopping you from using f-droid as an app source as well as some other store - it doesn't need to cover every use case. It's already a viable alternative for apps which can't go on the Play Store due to Google's policies, like AdAway, NewPipe and Termux. The fact there's no freedom respecting bank applications is a problem on its own, though. I will continue avoiding them until there is...

Dalewyn 2y ago
[flagged]
- hedora 2y ago
  I’ve never been able to discover decent apps on the Google Play Store. I’m continually surprised how bad its search functionality is. Usually, I start with f-droid (to avoid spy/adware), then go straight to ddg or kagi.
  - yashasolutions 2y ago
    Just to add, F-Droid is not a guarantee against adware. There are definitely adware apps (and by extension, maybe even spyware) on F-Droid.
    - mid-kid 2y ago
      Adware is marked as an Anti-Feature in the details of an app in F-Droid[1]. Since non-free software is not allowed on F-Droid, and most Ad platforms aren't free software, you're unlikely to find any, though. There's currently only 30 apps with this Anti-Feature[2]. [1]: https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#Ads https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#Ads [2]: https://monitor.f-droid.org/anti-feature/Ads https://monitor.f-droid.org/anti-feature/Ads
      - ycombinator_acc 2y ago
        I'd never use F-Droid due to how insecure it is. They still modify all app signatures, so you can't even verify what you're installing is authentic.

repelsteeltje 2y ago

> A bank will likely never release their app as open source, nor will any of the big authentication vendors. I suppose you're right and I think it's worrying that precisely these kinds of organizations still seem to rely on security through obscurity (to some extent, not solely).

snvzz 2y ago
I'll go further and say that a bank should be required by law to implement and enable access to open banking APIs. As well as not require, under any circumstances, an account holder to install a proprietary application in order to use the bank.
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
Not just obscurity, but also requiring you to have a mobile phone, with software made by two spcific companies, (for us europeans) both foreign, and in some cases, not even allow you to have the phone rooted. I miss the time of totp dongles.

t0bia_s 2y ago

I'm not using Google play or any other services on android over 6 years now. You don't need banking apps for making transactions.

janosdebugs 2y ago
I live in an EU country and I, in fact, cannot use online banking without a Google-enabled Android or an iPhone. There is exactly one bank that offers a desktop authenticator, but we had a really bad experience with them when we tried them for a year.
- t0bia_s 2y ago
  MicroG could work, but I never used banking app, so I cannot verify it. Adopt paying by other, more secure and private friendly ways.
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    What payment method would you recommend for paying mortgages, utility bills, and company expenses?
    - rakoo 2y ago
      You said you're in the EU right ? SEPA works. The only moment I need to confirm identity with my bank is when I buy frivolities, not for my bills.
      - janosdebugs 2y ago
        Here's the problem: I can do a SEPA transaction using online banking (with a Google-enabled phone) or by walking to my bank personally.
        rakoo 2y ago
        I might be lucky enough to have online banking work with sms and a pre-shared secret. My bank (also in the EU) didn't tell me I could do it automatically, they only mentioned it when I told them I lost my phone (it was true) and that I didn't know when I could buy a new one. Maybe it'll work with yours ?

burningChrome 2y ago

I used Graphene OS on a Pixel 4 for a few years and loved it. I feel like I'm a total minority user who doesn't attach themselves to specific apps so not having Firefox available wasn't really a huge thing for me. There were several apps I did have to have, but they were all available through the F-Droid store. Graphene was easy for me but like you pointed out, many will not use it because it doesn't have exactly what they use/need. To some degree this inflexibility reminds me of people not switching to the Windows Phone platform for the same reason - which is sad considering we only have two choices now because people wouldn't take the chance and Microsoft abandoned the OS before really giving it a good opportunity to thrive. Kind of a sad state of affairs when people are totally comfortable handing over all their personal information to the likes of Apple, Samsung and Google. Full disclosure: Yes, I'm a totally disgruntled former Windows phone user. Yes, there were a lot of factors that led to its demise, but I felt at the time we finally had an alternative to what we were being spoon fed in Apple and Google.

hedora 2y ago
Windows Phone 8.0 was great, partially because of the OS, and partially because MS paid for ports of the top-N apps to it. GrapheneOS didn’t work as a daily driver for me because I couldn’t reliably use it for uber, lyft, parking or ev charging. The camera support was missing some features. Most of that is fixable by adding back the google services, but then you lose most of the privacy advantages of having a de-googled phone.
- johnsea 2y ago
  A note regarding your last point: - Google Play is sandboxed [1], you have (important) privacy advantages - with a second account for banking apps (or in your example) uber, lyft, one can nicely separate "google-play-apps" from free apps, account switching is fast [1]: https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play