4 ms·

I wish they would add some kind of download counter. A decent bunch of the apps on F-Droid are woefully inadequate or still early in development. At the moment

by crote 2y ago

I wish they would add some kind of download counter. A decent bunch of the apps on F-Droid are woefully inadequate or still early in development. At the moment F-Droid allows sorting apps either by time of most recent update, or alphabetically. Neither of those is actually useful to me as user. If there are multiple apps doing the same thing, it is currently incredibly hard to see which one is the best. I do not want to download and install multiple apps only to find out they are essentially unusable, and that of the 5 options only a single one is actually functional. I understand that F-Droid might not want to go all-in with the rating and review system, but a barebones download counter would at least show some indication whether people install it once and remove it after trying it out, or leave it installed long enough to survive multiple updates.

Almondsetat 2y ago
How does a download counter tell you if people immediately uninstall the app because it sucks?
- Jarwain 2y ago
  Depends on implementation. One way, which is less private, show active installs by having the phone reports back to the store if it's unstalled A more secure way, show downloads for each version/build. Graph it. If an app is releasing/being updated regularly but more users are uninstalling, you'd expect the downloads per version to decrease or stay level
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- irjustin 2y ago
  Don't know about the parent, but for me VS Code's download count + star rating mental combo does make not download some extensions.
- crote 2y ago
  If you install it once and then remove it, you only do a single download. If you install it and keep it installed for several app updates, you download it for every update. If a lot of people download it at the same time due to an app update, you'll see a huge download spike immediately after a release. It's a very rough metric, but it could be added without adding any kind of additional telemetry to the client, and it would give at least a small hint of what's happening.
gunian 2y ago
what if download counts lead to app dysmorphia?
mfld 2y ago
Agreed. Or number of installations, if that is tracked.
vrighter 2y ago
I fully agree with this. It's so hard to actually find good apps on f-droid because of this. I've been bit by woefully incomplete prototypes on f-droid multiple times.
jron 2y ago
F-Droid is littered with dead-end pet projects and no easy way to filter them out. Instead of wasting time on Filecoin pipe dreams, they should just fork Modrinth https://github.com/modrinth https://github.com/modrinth to handle Android apps instead of Minecraft mods. The difference in usability is night and day: https://modrinth.com/mods https://modrinth.com/mods
- lern_too_spel 2y ago
  F-Droid prioritizes privacy. Modrinth does not. Users who download apps don't create accounts and cannot even create accounts. This is by design. There are several clients that access F-Droid repos that add those features for users who are willing to pay the privacy cost.
DuncanCoffee 2y ago
I sort by last updated and check the date. Since most of the projects are on Github I then open it and check last commit/stars. Maybe they could add Github stars? I use droidify btw
pmontra 2y ago
I usually visit the source code page (almost every time on GitHub) and check the timestamp of the commits, how many issues are open, how they are handled, etc. The usual indicator of a project being alive. The number of downloads is less important. Often there are plenty of equivalent proprietary apps on the Play Store with 100'000+ downloads and I'm going to F-Droid because I trust open source apps more. 10 downloads would be enough.
spookie 2y ago
Unfortunately that would lead to many great apps not getting proper attention. Things such as a downloads counter would simply promote the highest rated ones, preventing you from even considering newer alternatives. I would prefer to have more options to filter by time of release. Such as past month, past 6 months, and past year. That would filter out unmaintained apps altogether, even though there are many that still work well years after release. Another one would be search operators, or simply a better string matching algorithm, as I keep searching for apps that I know the name of, but make some typo, and they don't appear. Wonder what that is about.
- mystified5016 2y ago
  All I have to do to out-compete your app on f-droid is to update more often than you, even if I make no actual changes. Anytime anyone in your target category updates, you push out a version bump and you're on top of the list. Bonus points if you start your app name with AA0 so it's always at the top of both available sort orders. "Recently updated" is a bad metric that does not help users. By offering no other sort options, and sufficiently motivated person can trivially dominate any category in the repo. A recently updated app is not better than a less frequently updated one just by merit of a higher version number.
  - sedawk 2y ago
    Pretty sure I'm not touching any app that starts with AA0* (esp. if that name isn't relevant to app's functionality in some way)! But I get the point you are making, on how current system can be gamed with just app-naming and frequent (meaningless) updates to the app :-(

by crote 2y ago

Almondsetat 2y ago

How does a download counter tell you if people immediately uninstall the app because it sucks?

Jarwain 2y ago
Depends on implementation. One way, which is less private, show active installs by having the phone reports back to the store if it's unstalled A more secure way, show downloads for each version/build. Graph it. If an app is releasing/being updated regularly but more users are uninstalling, you'd expect the downloads per version to decrease or stay level
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
irjustin 2y ago
Don't know about the parent, but for me VS Code's download count + star rating mental combo does make not download some extensions.
crote 2y ago
If you install it once and then remove it, you only do a single download. If you install it and keep it installed for several app updates, you download it for every update. If a lot of people download it at the same time due to an app update, you'll see a huge download spike immediately after a release. It's a very rough metric, but it could be added without adding any kind of additional telemetry to the client, and it would give at least a small hint of what's happening.

gunian 2y ago

what if download counts lead to app dysmorphia?

mfld 2y ago

Agreed. Or number of installations, if that is tracked.

vrighter 2y ago

I fully agree with this. It's so hard to actually find good apps on f-droid because of this. I've been bit by woefully incomplete prototypes on f-droid multiple times.

jron 2y ago

F-Droid is littered with dead-end pet projects and no easy way to filter them out. Instead of wasting time on Filecoin pipe dreams, they should just fork Modrinth https://github.com/modrinth https://github.com/modrinth to handle Android apps instead of Minecraft mods. The difference in usability is night and day: https://modrinth.com/mods https://modrinth.com/mods

lern_too_spel 2y ago
F-Droid prioritizes privacy. Modrinth does not. Users who download apps don't create accounts and cannot even create accounts. This is by design. There are several clients that access F-Droid repos that add those features for users who are willing to pay the privacy cost.

DuncanCoffee 2y ago

I sort by last updated and check the date. Since most of the projects are on Github I then open it and check last commit/stars. Maybe they could add Github stars? I use droidify btw

pmontra 2y ago

I usually visit the source code page (almost every time on GitHub) and check the timestamp of the commits, how many issues are open, how they are handled, etc. The usual indicator of a project being alive. The number of downloads is less important. Often there are plenty of equivalent proprietary apps on the Play Store with 100'000+ downloads and I'm going to F-Droid because I trust open source apps more. 10 downloads would be enough.

spookie 2y ago

Unfortunately that would lead to many great apps not getting proper attention. Things such as a downloads counter would simply promote the highest rated ones, preventing you from even considering newer alternatives. I would prefer to have more options to filter by time of release. Such as past month, past 6 months, and past year. That would filter out unmaintained apps altogether, even though there are many that still work well years after release. Another one would be search operators, or simply a better string matching algorithm, as I keep searching for apps that I know the name of, but make some typo, and they don't appear. Wonder what that is about.

mystified5016 2y ago
All I have to do to out-compete your app on f-droid is to update more often than you, even if I make no actual changes. Anytime anyone in your target category updates, you push out a version bump and you're on top of the list. Bonus points if you start your app name with AA0 so it's always at the top of both available sort orders. "Recently updated" is a bad metric that does not help users. By offering no other sort options, and sufficiently motivated person can trivially dominate any category in the repo. A recently updated app is not better than a less frequently updated one just by merit of a higher version number.
- sedawk 2y ago
  Pretty sure I'm not touching any app that starts with AA0* (esp. if that name isn't relevant to app's functionality in some way)! But I get the point you are making, on how current system can be gamed with just app-naming and frequent (meaningless) updates to the app :-(