5 ms·

OpenAPK – open-source Apps for Android, updated weekly

132 points by CHEF-KOCH 2y ago

fulafel 2y ago
The obvious question: There's F-droid, why use this instead?
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  I haven’t taken more than a glance at the linked site so I don’t know if it’s better in this way, but I’ve always found F-droid difficult to navigate. It’s got a lot of junk, too. The bulk of its utility for me has been for installing apps that I’ve become aware of elsewhere.
  - preisschild 2y ago
    There are alternative clients to F-Droid. Personally I use Droid-ify, which works quite well.
    - johnisgood 2y ago
      I switched to Droid-ify a long time ago, too, so I second it.
  - pferde 2y ago
    It's got a Search section for looking up new apps, and an Updates section for maintaining already installed ones. There's nothing else I need nor want from an "appstore". The only gripe I have is that screenshots on individual apps pages can sometimes be slow to download, but that gripe is so small I'm looking at it through a microscope. :)
  - mid-kid 2y ago
    I frequently learn of useful apps through its updated/new section that you see when opening the app. Back in the day when it didn't have this I used to scroll through all the categories - the catalogue was small enough to do this. I wish the updated/new section would filter "update spam" better, but right now it works for app discovery, without requiring f-droid to collect usage data. The search function sorting by "recently updated" also helped a lot in finding well supported apps. There's a lot of room for improvement of the search function though.
- mary-ext 2y ago
  See this issue talking about WireGuard and F-Droid. https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/issues/3110 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/issues/3110 OpenAPK here seems to be linking directly to official binary downloads, whereas F-Droid insists on building the APKs for the apps.
  - blendergeek 2y ago
    > F-Droid insists on building the APKs for the apps. You could say that OpenAPK blindly redistributes whatever APK upstream is peddling whereas F-Droid builds from source. I see the merits of both systems but prefer reproducible builds so that we can have the best of both worlds
    - jqpabc123 2y ago
      Maybe it's just me but I'm kinda struggling to see much merit in blind distribution.
      - JavierFlores09 2y ago
        Well, for starters it is just a whole lot less work and money to distribute and maintain binaries up from the distributers' side, for the developers it comes down to a lower-barrier of entry to not have to adjust their workflow to whatever x platform may demand for building on their servers and in the end that gives the users more choices to work with. Of course, this is all in a perfect world where the chain of trust isn't broken so easily, which isn't an easy feat but given platforms like Windows thrive in spite of it, it is probably not as bad as many people may think. All of that said, not particularly speaking for OpenAPK here, given their motives seems rather unclear to me. If I am to be charitable, I guess they're just trying to provide a different platform than f-droid for discoverability, but for whatever reason they seem to be marketing the distribution-side of things more which is just odd to me, but alas.
        em3rgent0rdr 2y ago
        > given platforms like Windows thrive in spite of it, it is probably not as bad as many people may think. There is a lot of extra work done behind the scenes to "thrive in spite of it". Windows Defender (built into Windows after XP) has to periodically download updated virus definitions and always scans programs for potential malware, and still can't catch them all.
- Y_Y 2y ago
  See also, this large external repo for fdroid: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/ https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/
kopirgan 2y ago
Problem is this requires turning off protection for unknown origin apks and these days many banking apps etc stop working once you do that. Could be useful for a spare phone for secure but non critical work.
- vekatimest 2y ago
  I thought that was just for unlocked bootloaders, I've never encountered issues having sideloading enabled.
  - kopirgan 2y ago
    Depends on where you are https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/uob-dbs-introduce-new-security-features-on-banking-apps-to-protect-customers https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/uob-dbs-introduce-new...
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Y_Y 2y ago
      Weird. I've experienced the issue with various apps getting upset when another one is displaying over it. I like to have a little YouTube video playing in a popout and some buttons will refuse to press when this is present. I can't imagine this plays well will magnifiers or other assistive tech, but I understand their worry that a malicious developer could contrive to make you click a wrong button by covering the relevant context. As for getting upset about sharing a phone with unapproved apps, I think this is a failure of sandboxing. The app should see as much of the phone as I want it to and no more.
      - kopirgan 2y ago
        Really don't know how it works. There are many reports of people just clicking one link and the entire phone gets taken over, bank accounts drained. These days banks have KYC and should know who finally gets the money. Even across borders except perhaps in North Korea etc. for those countries that don't co-operate entire SWIFT system must be blocked. But for some reason they try other things, blame users but never claw back
PhilippGille 2y ago
Sounds similar to Obtainium: - https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium - https://obtainium.imranr.dev/ https://obtainium.imranr.dev/
- notpushkin 2y ago
  Also, IzzyOnDroid – an F-Droid repo with official APKs: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/ https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/
  - mid-kid 2y ago
    izzyondroid is generally not meant to replace apps that are already provided in f-droid, unless there's a feature discrepancy or other reason to have it available in both repos.
- anovick 2y ago
  That project goes against the spirit of free software: > "Israel" is blocked https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42104198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42104198
  - loufe 2y ago
    Neither you nor the linked comment provide any context for that. Is it not possible that Israel blocked because of a request by the Israeli government, and not because of a political statement?
    - wave-function 2y ago
      What other context besides "Israel" do you need? I guess, good on them for at least blocking the country outright and being honest about it, and not sneakily distributing malware like some very good people did to Russians back in 2022.
      - loufe 2y ago
naranyala 2y ago
always bet on apkmirror[1] [1] https://www.apkmirror.com/ https://www.apkmirror.com/
silverliver 2y ago
Slightly off topic but is it still practically impossible to build APKs without agreeing to EULAs and using proprietary blobs? It's great we are seeing more effort be put into open source android apps, but being forced to use restricted tooling to develop and build them leaves an extremely foul taste in my mouth.
- notpushkin 2y ago
  It is possible if you don’t depend on Google Play services.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
gdimoff 2y ago
The idea behind OpenAPK - https://www.openapk.net https://www.openapk.net is to follow the app developer releases directly by serving unmodified official binary downloads! All updates are available right on the after the release (no need to wait for F-Droid build). By installing official binary downloads signed with the developer signature you avoid signature mismatch issues caused by F-Droid builds for example. For most app there is an Obtainium download badge of you want to follow the updates automatically.

132 points by CHEF-KOCH 2y ago

fulafel 2y ago

The obvious question: There's F-droid, why use this instead?

cosmic_cheese 2y ago
I haven’t taken more than a glance at the linked site so I don’t know if it’s better in this way, but I’ve always found F-droid difficult to navigate. It’s got a lot of junk, too. The bulk of its utility for me has been for installing apps that I’ve become aware of elsewhere.
- preisschild 2y ago
  There are alternative clients to F-Droid. Personally I use Droid-ify, which works quite well.
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    I switched to Droid-ify a long time ago, too, so I second it.
- pferde 2y ago
  It's got a Search section for looking up new apps, and an Updates section for maintaining already installed ones. There's nothing else I need nor want from an "appstore". The only gripe I have is that screenshots on individual apps pages can sometimes be slow to download, but that gripe is so small I'm looking at it through a microscope. :)
- mid-kid 2y ago
  I frequently learn of useful apps through its updated/new section that you see when opening the app. Back in the day when it didn't have this I used to scroll through all the categories - the catalogue was small enough to do this. I wish the updated/new section would filter "update spam" better, but right now it works for app discovery, without requiring f-droid to collect usage data. The search function sorting by "recently updated" also helped a lot in finding well supported apps. There's a lot of room for improvement of the search function though.
mary-ext 2y ago
See this issue talking about WireGuard and F-Droid. https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/issues/3110 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/issues/3110 OpenAPK here seems to be linking directly to official binary downloads, whereas F-Droid insists on building the APKs for the apps.
- blendergeek 2y ago
  > F-Droid insists on building the APKs for the apps. You could say that OpenAPK blindly redistributes whatever APK upstream is peddling whereas F-Droid builds from source. I see the merits of both systems but prefer reproducible builds so that we can have the best of both worlds
  - jqpabc123 2y ago
    Maybe it's just me but I'm kinda struggling to see much merit in blind distribution.
    - JavierFlores09 2y ago
      Well, for starters it is just a whole lot less work and money to distribute and maintain binaries up from the distributers' side, for the developers it comes down to a lower-barrier of entry to not have to adjust their workflow to whatever x platform may demand for building on their servers and in the end that gives the users more choices to work with. Of course, this is all in a perfect world where the chain of trust isn't broken so easily, which isn't an easy feat but given platforms like Windows thrive in spite of it, it is probably not as bad as many people may think. All of that said, not particularly speaking for OpenAPK here, given their motives seems rather unclear to me. If I am to be charitable, I guess they're just trying to provide a different platform than f-droid for discoverability, but for whatever reason they seem to be marketing the distribution-side of things more which is just odd to me, but alas.
      - em3rgent0rdr 2y ago
        > given platforms like Windows thrive in spite of it, it is probably not as bad as many people may think. There is a lot of extra work done behind the scenes to "thrive in spite of it". Windows Defender (built into Windows after XP) has to periodically download updated virus definitions and always scans programs for potential malware, and still can't catch them all.
Y_Y 2y ago
See also, this large external repo for fdroid: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/ https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/

kopirgan 2y ago

Problem is this requires turning off protection for unknown origin apks and these days many banking apps etc stop working once you do that. Could be useful for a spare phone for secure but non critical work.

vekatimest 2y ago
I thought that was just for unlocked bootloaders, I've never encountered issues having sideloading enabled.
- kopirgan 2y ago
  Depends on where you are https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/uob-dbs-introduce-new-security-features-on-banking-apps-to-protect-customers https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/uob-dbs-introduce-new...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    Weird. I've experienced the issue with various apps getting upset when another one is displaying over it. I like to have a little YouTube video playing in a popout and some buttons will refuse to press when this is present. I can't imagine this plays well will magnifiers or other assistive tech, but I understand their worry that a malicious developer could contrive to make you click a wrong button by covering the relevant context. As for getting upset about sharing a phone with unapproved apps, I think this is a failure of sandboxing. The app should see as much of the phone as I want it to and no more.
    - kopirgan 2y ago
      Really don't know how it works. There are many reports of people just clicking one link and the entire phone gets taken over, bank accounts drained. These days banks have KYC and should know who finally gets the money. Even across borders except perhaps in North Korea etc. for those countries that don't co-operate entire SWIFT system must be blocked. But for some reason they try other things, blame users but never claw back

PhilippGille 2y ago

Sounds similar to Obtainium: - https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium - https://obtainium.imranr.dev/ https://obtainium.imranr.dev/

notpushkin 2y ago
Also, IzzyOnDroid – an F-Droid repo with official APKs: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/ https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/
- mid-kid 2y ago
  izzyondroid is generally not meant to replace apps that are already provided in f-droid, unless there's a feature discrepancy or other reason to have it available in both repos.
anovick 2y ago
That project goes against the spirit of free software: > "Israel" is blocked https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42104198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42104198
- loufe 2y ago
  Neither you nor the linked comment provide any context for that. Is it not possible that Israel blocked because of a request by the Israeli government, and not because of a political statement?
  - wave-function 2y ago
    What other context besides "Israel" do you need? I guess, good on them for at least blocking the country outright and being honest about it, and not sneakily distributing malware like some very good people did to Russians back in 2022.
    - loufe 2y ago

naranyala 2y ago

always bet on apkmirror[1] [1] https://www.apkmirror.com/ https://www.apkmirror.com/

silverliver 2y ago

Slightly off topic but is it still practically impossible to build APKs without agreeing to EULAs and using proprietary blobs? It's great we are seeing more effort be put into open source android apps, but being forced to use restricted tooling to develop and build them leaves an extremely foul taste in my mouth.

notpushkin 2y ago
It is possible if you don’t depend on Google Play services.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

gdimoff 2y ago

The idea behind OpenAPK - https://www.openapk.net https://www.openapk.net is to follow the app developer releases directly by serving unmodified official binary downloads! All updates are available right on the after the release (no need to wait for F-Droid build). By installing official binary downloads signed with the developer signature you avoid signature mismatch issues caused by F-Droid builds for example. For most app there is an Obtainium download badge of you want to follow the updates automatically.