7 ms·

Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

408 points by SnaKeZ 11y ago

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Any advantages or differences over F-Droid, sans the glossier UI?
- SnaKeZ 11y ago
  Popularity data, just this...it's a side project :)
  - tombrossman 11y ago
    Why not contribute to F-Droid, rather than 'reinvent the wheel?' https://f-droid.org/contribute/ https://f-droid.org/contribute/ Your site looks great and I don't mean to take anything away from it, but when I see something like this I think of it as merely an art project, something I might see on Dribbble. I would never download APKs from here for example, but have no problem trusting F-Droid's APKs.
    - madez 11y ago
      Competition is contribution. The relationship between LLVM and GCC is an example for this aphorism.
      - CyberShadow 11y ago
        Fragmentation can severely negatively impact a project as well. LLVM exists because no amount of contribution to GCC will accomplish LLVM's goals (licensing and modular design).
        madez 11y ago
        > Fragmentation can severely negatively impact a project as well. Natural selection. The losers die so the winners can take up more ressources. That'd be a contribution to the shared goal. > LLVM exists because no amount of contribution to GCC will accomplish LLVM's goals (licensing and modular design). The reason why the competition exists doesn't matter. But the competetive pressure that results from its existence does.
        CyberShadow 11y ago
        In real life, it doesn't work that way. Imagine there is an open-source project. Its development is active, many people are contributing patches, all is well. Then, the maintainer disappears. Forks start to appear, but as there is no centralized development any more, all you can find is a dozen forked GitHub repositories, each with a few improvements - but, without getting your hands dirty, you have to choose only one. Eventually, someone comes along and rallies together the forks and revives the project. You may think that all is well again, but suddenly the original project maintainers return and continue development in a direction incompatible with the main fork. Neither project's leaders show interest in uniting the forks back together. What's worse, now you have a bunch of other open-source projects that depend on the original version, and a bunch which depend on the fork. In many cases (e.g. libraries) you can't use both the original and the fork simultaneously, meaning you can't use any components that depend on both forks in the same project. And now you have a huge mess on your hands. This or similar situations have happened many times before. I can name 3 projects that have suffered this fate off the top of my head, projects that I've been personally involved with. Fragmentation is bad. Forking should be a last resort.
        em3rgent0rdr 11y ago
        Could you name these 3 projects?
        mlinksva 11y ago
        I almost completely agree with CyberShadow, though the problem with fragmentation isn't only caused by forks...my rant on this http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2013/10/22/open-source-proliferation-problem/ http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2013/10/22/open-source-prolifer... But fragmentation is going to happen and occasionally something really better comes along that wouldn't have from improving existing things. So I'm just as interested in making 'natural selection' work better. Now, it's extremely hard for it to operate, because it's hard to discern differences among similar projects, let alone which is better. Popularity data might help a little bit.
    - SnaKeZ 11y ago
      I know, it's a side project to learn Symfony 2. I love F-Droid project so i made this web app, I've contacted the authors of F-droid before doing this. Thanks :)
      - tombrossman 11y ago
        Excellent, good to know that.
      - mlinksva 11y ago
        Your project looks great! Is its source available? It'd be nice to add a link the the f-droid page for each application, where such a page exists.
        SnaKeZ 11y ago
        I will do it! Thanks for the suggestion.
Dosenpfand 11y ago
I really like the popular "popular" sections, the one thing that's missing from f-droid. What could be improved: 1. HTTPS, especially for APK downloads 2. Information about the APKs: built/signed by whom
- SnaKeZ 11y ago
  Thanks for the suggestions :)
  - higherpurpose 11y ago
    And if you're going to add signatures please don't make them MD5/SHA1. I don't understand why so many sites still offer those. Is it some default feature of some software stack where developers just "check" a button for signatures and it only supports MD5/SHA1? Otherwise I can't explain it.
    - sarciszewski 11y ago
      I recommend RSA (GnuPG) or Ed25519 signatures with two key pairs: A weekly/monthly signing key pair, and a long-term one that is only used to validate the short-term public key. https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2015/01/package-signing-thread-modelling https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2015/01/package-signing-th...
      - eropple 11y ago
        That's an excellent way to ensure nobody checks your signatures, though. Making it hard means they will be ignored.
      - drdaeman 11y ago
        Key rollover and certificate trust chains don't work in Android world.
    - JohnTHaller 11y ago
      In Windows world, you basically have to use SHA1 digests for digital signatures (though you use SHA2 certs to do the signing) as Windows XP doesn't support SHA2 at all, Windows Vista SP1 or SP2 prior to a patch a view years ago won't run the EXE or show an error due to a buffer overrun, and Windows Vista's Internet Explorer full patched will show the download as "reported unsafe" due to an unfixed bug in IE.
l33tfr4gg3r 11y ago
Would be nice to have a 'Suggest an app' feature on the site.
nagaiah 11y ago
Layout is great;
jfaucett 11y ago
I absolutely love this! Great job. For anyone looking to figure out how to build android apps and looking for source examples this is awesome. And the interface is much more accessible than f-droid. My only suggestions would be to make the source and tracker links more prominent and flip newest so its first or consider making separate menu points for each. Also any link to the fossdroid src, quick google search for fossdroid didn't turn up anything for me.
- Ologn 11y ago
  Some of the best samples are from Google - https://developer.android.com/samples https://developer.android.com/samples . They are some of the best examples of how to program Android, especially in terms of keeping to best practices and avoiding now-deprecated techniques. The quality of Fossdroid/Fdroid apps are hit and miss - some are good, some not. I should know, some of my ports to Android are on it ( http://fossdroid.com/a/truly-creative-live-wallpaper.html http://fossdroid.com/a/truly-creative-live-wallpaper.html ) where I'm still very nervous that critical sections survived my port safely.
7ewis 11y ago
Thanks for this! Will try and learn how to make my own apps by reading the source of others.
- SnaKeZ 11y ago
  we need to thanks https://f-droid.org https://f-droid.org :)
mahouse 11y ago
1. Resize the browser so the hamburger menu is shown, 2. Click it twice, 3. Resize the browser to its original size, 4. The sidebar has vanished forever.
- SnaKeZ 11y ago
  Thanks, i will fix it :)
spiritplumber 11y ago
Nice, how do I add mine? I'd like to keep the sources available on my wiki (mostly because that way I get a download count)
- SnaKeZ 11y ago
  https://f-droid.org/contribute/ https://f-droid.org/contribute/
whacker 11y ago
Nice Job. How do you accept new entries? Do you have/plan to build an installer app like the f-droid project? That app itself could use a modern design like you have done :-)
- dublinben 11y ago
  You submit new apps to F-droid. This is just a front-end to their database.
nextos 11y ago
IMHO a big missing app in FOSS Android is a good offline maps & nav program. Nokia Maps are great, but closed. QT's Marble could fill in this gap, if ported.
- phillc73 11y ago
  I use OsmAnd all the time: http://fossdroid.com/a/osmand~.html http://fossdroid.com/a/osmand~.html https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=net.osmand.plus https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=net.osmand.plus https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsmAnd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsmAnd The interface took a little while to become used to, but in general I've found it to be an excellent GPS navigation tool. Maps are downloaded, so everything works offline. I've used it extensively around Europe and especially in Austria.
  - nextos 11y ago
    Thanks, it was a bit buggy last time I tried. Besides, is navigation working well when offline?
    - mpnordland 11y ago
      It works fine, way better than Gmaps does.
    - phillc73 11y ago
      Navigation works fine offline. To be honest, I don't think I've ever used it online. I drove from Graz to Vienna last week. I know the way generally, but didn't really know where to go in Vienna. OsmAnd navigated me to where I needed to be, no problem. Then back out of the city and on to Krems. That's about a 275km journey. I have had the app crash a few times, but that's only been when I'm out walking in the hills and using it as a walking GPS. Even though it's not open source I now use ViewRanger for this instead (apk available directly from their website, so you don't have to go via Google Play, although it is available there too). I've used OsmAnd very successfully on both a Geeksphone Revolution and a Motorola Moto G 2nd Gen.
gusmd 11y ago
Great site and nice UI. Congratulations. Issues/sugestions: 1. Couldn't find an option to add my app. 2. Screenshots of apps would be nice (some people might be more interested in the app itself than in the source code).
- el_duderino 11y ago
  Yeah screenshots would be a huge improvement.
- dublinben 11y ago
  >Couldn't find an option to add my app You can add your app by submitting it to F-Droid. This is just a front end.
digi_owl 11y ago
Something of a tangent, but i really wish it was possible to whitelist specific apps to act as "stores". Right now if i want to use F-Droid or similar i have to either leave my device open for others to also be able to install, or constantly juggle the "unknown sources" option.
- Spittie 11y ago
  You can! You just need to make the F-Droid app a System app, then it can install applications without having to keep the "unknown sources" options on. You can use this app to do it: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=de.j4velin.systemappmover https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=de.j4velin.syste... You can also disable the "install" script and have it install stuff without any prompts like the play store, just go into the settings, scroll to the bottom and enable "Expert" and "Install using system-permission".
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    Everything here implies one has root.
  - eighthave 11y ago
    While we love more people testing the system/priv-app and root support in FDroid, keep in mind it is very very beta and not ready for general use. We did just have the core functionality professionally audited, and have fixed the issues they found.
aceperry 11y ago
This is a nice way to feature and popularize open source software. It would be nice to have a way to integrate the repo with each individual app. May the play store should have a section like this.
- Lorento 11y ago
  Half the value in this is that it's not the Play store which is blocked in China and practically inaccessible on a phone without the Play store app pre-installed. And they won't let you install it yourself. You've really got to fight to get access.
libredroid 11y ago
I think some people are confused/missing the point. This isn't competing with F-Droid, it IS F-Droid. Everything from the statistics to the APK downloads (notice the redirect) are sourced from https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/. It's a beautiful front end and necessary improvement over what exists, but it's complementary not competitive. My $0.02: 1. Link to download button to the app entry in F-Droid so I can download it from the Android client. (Getting the user to trust random APKs is not a responsible behavior.) 2. Clarify that this site is a viewer for F-Droid and non-UI contributions should be sent there. Other misc notes: Install F-Droid as a system app (root) in order to install packages using the client without having unknown sources checked. Material design for the client is coming [1] [1] https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/merge_requests/64 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/merge_requests/64 It's awesome to see this on the front page of HN, If you think these things are worth supporting, do so! https://f-droid.org/contribute https://f-droid.org/contribute
- SnaKeZ 11y ago
  Yes, isn't competing with F-Droid...it's just a frontend for F-Droid with popularity data.
  - libredroid 11y ago
    Your download links point to the most recent version of the app, which is not always the recommended version available from F-Droid. Recommended versions are marked with a star. For example, http://fossdroid.com/a/fdroid.html http://fossdroid.com/a/fdroid.html serves a download of 0.86 which is an unstable test version. All of this is handled better by the F-Droid client app. The way your site is set up now could lead to a poor user experience if they encounter problems with unstable versions of apps that shouldn't be downloaded by default. Being open source, you're free to do whatever you like, but I suggest you talk with the F-Droid devs to make sure everything is mutually beneficial.
    - SnaKeZ 11y ago
      Ok thanks, i added this issue :) i hope to fix this soon.
kannan4k 11y ago
Good to see a list of apps with source code!
patcon 11y ago
I am so unbelievably stoked about your efforts, SnaKeZ! Thanks so so so much! Definitely keep conversation open with the f-droid devs!
hayksaakian 11y ago
Has anyone figured out how to distribute an android wear app outside of the play store? How would i get it on f-droid? In development i can load the APK directly to the watch, but how will my users do it? Android Studio packs the wear.apk inside of the mobile.apk but your phone won't upload the wear.apk to your watch unless it comes from google. (at least in my experience.
minusSeven 11y ago
From blackberry user perspective which of these apps need google services to work. Would love to have apps that don't depend on google ecosystem.
afandian 11y ago
Interesting design philosophy. I'm used to reading vertical lists, e.g. https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?page_id=0&fdcategory=Multimedia&fdcategory=System https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?page_id=0&fdcategory=... Reading a list sideways feels bizarre: http://fossdroid.com/c/system/ http://fossdroid.com/c/system/ Intuitively I feel like my eyes are trained to flick sideways to read a short line and then down. Recalibrating to flicking sideways to read a short line, then moving sideways again a variable distance feels difficult.
eighthave 11y ago
fossdroid.com looks quite nice, a great start. As a big contributor to FDroid, I think it makes sense to run fossdroid.com as a separate project right now so it can develop fast on its own. Then we can figure out how best to integrate it with f-droid.org. One thing that MUST be addressed before considering it something that people actually use is the total lack of HTTPS. This is not optional, and indeed should be mandatory like with https://f-droid.org https://f-droid.org and https://play.google.com https://play.google.com. I'd love to see more thinking about the detail view of the app. For example, there should be a "buy/donate" button, since many apps on fdroid have a way to accept donations. You can scrape that from the standard metadata or the `index.xml`. I think it would be best to present it like https://elementary.io https://elementary.io does: force the user to click "Buy" with a recommended value, but let them set any value including 0.
- SnaKeZ 11y ago
  Thanks for the reply: i added HTTPS and donate/license info.

408 points by SnaKeZ 11y ago

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

Any advantages or differences over F-Droid, sans the glossier UI?

SnaKeZ 11y ago
Popularity data, just this...it's a side project :)
- tombrossman 11y ago
  Why not contribute to F-Droid, rather than 'reinvent the wheel?' https://f-droid.org/contribute/ https://f-droid.org/contribute/ Your site looks great and I don't mean to take anything away from it, but when I see something like this I think of it as merely an art project, something I might see on Dribbble. I would never download APKs from here for example, but have no problem trusting F-Droid's APKs.
  - madez 11y ago
    Competition is contribution. The relationship between LLVM and GCC is an example for this aphorism.
    - CyberShadow 11y ago
      Fragmentation can severely negatively impact a project as well. LLVM exists because no amount of contribution to GCC will accomplish LLVM's goals (licensing and modular design).
      - madez 11y ago
        > Fragmentation can severely negatively impact a project as well. Natural selection. The losers die so the winners can take up more ressources. That'd be a contribution to the shared goal. > LLVM exists because no amount of contribution to GCC will accomplish LLVM's goals (licensing and modular design). The reason why the competition exists doesn't matter. But the competetive pressure that results from its existence does.
        CyberShadow 11y ago
        In real life, it doesn't work that way. Imagine there is an open-source project. Its development is active, many people are contributing patches, all is well. Then, the maintainer disappears. Forks start to appear, but as there is no centralized development any more, all you can find is a dozen forked GitHub repositories, each with a few improvements - but, without getting your hands dirty, you have to choose only one. Eventually, someone comes along and rallies together the forks and revives the project. You may think that all is well again, but suddenly the original project maintainers return and continue development in a direction incompatible with the main fork. Neither project's leaders show interest in uniting the forks back together. What's worse, now you have a bunch of other open-source projects that depend on the original version, and a bunch which depend on the fork. In many cases (e.g. libraries) you can't use both the original and the fork simultaneously, meaning you can't use any components that depend on both forks in the same project. And now you have a huge mess on your hands. This or similar situations have happened many times before. I can name 3 projects that have suffered this fate off the top of my head, projects that I've been personally involved with. Fragmentation is bad. Forking should be a last resort.
        em3rgent0rdr 11y ago
        Could you name these 3 projects?
        mlinksva 11y ago
        I almost completely agree with CyberShadow, though the problem with fragmentation isn't only caused by forks...my rant on this http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2013/10/22/open-source-proliferation-problem/ http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2013/10/22/open-source-prolifer... But fragmentation is going to happen and occasionally something really better comes along that wouldn't have from improving existing things. So I'm just as interested in making 'natural selection' work better. Now, it's extremely hard for it to operate, because it's hard to discern differences among similar projects, let alone which is better. Popularity data might help a little bit.
  - SnaKeZ 11y ago
    I know, it's a side project to learn Symfony 2. I love F-Droid project so i made this web app, I've contacted the authors of F-droid before doing this. Thanks :)
    - tombrossman 11y ago
      Excellent, good to know that.
    - mlinksva 11y ago
      Your project looks great! Is its source available? It'd be nice to add a link the the f-droid page for each application, where such a page exists.
      - SnaKeZ 11y ago
        I will do it! Thanks for the suggestion.

Dosenpfand 11y ago

I really like the popular "popular" sections, the one thing that's missing from f-droid. What could be improved: 1. HTTPS, especially for APK downloads 2. Information about the APKs: built/signed by whom

SnaKeZ 11y ago
Thanks for the suggestions :)
- higherpurpose 11y ago
  And if you're going to add signatures please don't make them MD5/SHA1. I don't understand why so many sites still offer those. Is it some default feature of some software stack where developers just "check" a button for signatures and it only supports MD5/SHA1? Otherwise I can't explain it.
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    I recommend RSA (GnuPG) or Ed25519 signatures with two key pairs: A weekly/monthly signing key pair, and a long-term one that is only used to validate the short-term public key. https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2015/01/package-signing-thread-modelling https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2015/01/package-signing-th...
    - eropple 11y ago
      That's an excellent way to ensure nobody checks your signatures, though. Making it hard means they will be ignored.
    - drdaeman 11y ago
      Key rollover and certificate trust chains don't work in Android world.
  - JohnTHaller 11y ago
    In Windows world, you basically have to use SHA1 digests for digital signatures (though you use SHA2 certs to do the signing) as Windows XP doesn't support SHA2 at all, Windows Vista SP1 or SP2 prior to a patch a view years ago won't run the EXE or show an error due to a buffer overrun, and Windows Vista's Internet Explorer full patched will show the download as "reported unsafe" due to an unfixed bug in IE.

l33tfr4gg3r 11y ago

Would be nice to have a 'Suggest an app' feature on the site.

nagaiah 11y ago

Layout is great;

jfaucett 11y ago

I absolutely love this! Great job. For anyone looking to figure out how to build android apps and looking for source examples this is awesome. And the interface is much more accessible than f-droid. My only suggestions would be to make the source and tracker links more prominent and flip newest so its first or consider making separate menu points for each. Also any link to the fossdroid src, quick google search for fossdroid didn't turn up anything for me.

Ologn 11y ago
Some of the best samples are from Google - https://developer.android.com/samples https://developer.android.com/samples . They are some of the best examples of how to program Android, especially in terms of keeping to best practices and avoiding now-deprecated techniques. The quality of Fossdroid/Fdroid apps are hit and miss - some are good, some not. I should know, some of my ports to Android are on it ( http://fossdroid.com/a/truly-creative-live-wallpaper.html http://fossdroid.com/a/truly-creative-live-wallpaper.html ) where I'm still very nervous that critical sections survived my port safely.

7ewis 11y ago

Thanks for this! Will try and learn how to make my own apps by reading the source of others.

SnaKeZ 11y ago
we need to thanks https://f-droid.org https://f-droid.org :)

mahouse 11y ago

1. Resize the browser so the hamburger menu is shown, 2. Click it twice, 3. Resize the browser to its original size, 4. The sidebar has vanished forever.

SnaKeZ 11y ago
Thanks, i will fix it :)

spiritplumber 11y ago

Nice, how do I add mine? I'd like to keep the sources available on my wiki (mostly because that way I get a download count)

SnaKeZ 11y ago
https://f-droid.org/contribute/ https://f-droid.org/contribute/

whacker 11y ago

Nice Job. How do you accept new entries? Do you have/plan to build an installer app like the f-droid project? That app itself could use a modern design like you have done :-)

dublinben 11y ago
You submit new apps to F-droid. This is just a front-end to their database.

nextos 11y ago

IMHO a big missing app in FOSS Android is a good offline maps & nav program. Nokia Maps are great, but closed. QT's Marble could fill in this gap, if ported.

phillc73 11y ago
I use OsmAnd all the time: http://fossdroid.com/a/osmand~.html http://fossdroid.com/a/osmand~.html https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=net.osmand.plus https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=net.osmand.plus https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsmAnd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsmAnd The interface took a little while to become used to, but in general I've found it to be an excellent GPS navigation tool. Maps are downloaded, so everything works offline. I've used it extensively around Europe and especially in Austria.
- nextos 11y ago
  Thanks, it was a bit buggy last time I tried. Besides, is navigation working well when offline?
  - mpnordland 11y ago
    It works fine, way better than Gmaps does.
  - phillc73 11y ago
    Navigation works fine offline. To be honest, I don't think I've ever used it online. I drove from Graz to Vienna last week. I know the way generally, but didn't really know where to go in Vienna. OsmAnd navigated me to where I needed to be, no problem. Then back out of the city and on to Krems. That's about a 275km journey. I have had the app crash a few times, but that's only been when I'm out walking in the hills and using it as a walking GPS. Even though it's not open source I now use ViewRanger for this instead (apk available directly from their website, so you don't have to go via Google Play, although it is available there too). I've used OsmAnd very successfully on both a Geeksphone Revolution and a Motorola Moto G 2nd Gen.

gusmd 11y ago

Great site and nice UI. Congratulations. Issues/sugestions: 1. Couldn't find an option to add my app. 2. Screenshots of apps would be nice (some people might be more interested in the app itself than in the source code).

el_duderino 11y ago
Yeah screenshots would be a huge improvement.
dublinben 11y ago
>Couldn't find an option to add my app You can add your app by submitting it to F-Droid. This is just a front end.

digi_owl 11y ago

Something of a tangent, but i really wish it was possible to whitelist specific apps to act as "stores". Right now if i want to use F-Droid or similar i have to either leave my device open for others to also be able to install, or constantly juggle the "unknown sources" option.

Spittie 11y ago
You can! You just need to make the F-Droid app a System app, then it can install applications without having to keep the "unknown sources" options on. You can use this app to do it: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=de.j4velin.systemappmover https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=de.j4velin.syste... You can also disable the "install" script and have it install stuff without any prompts like the play store, just go into the settings, scroll to the bottom and enable "Expert" and "Install using system-permission".
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Everything here implies one has root.
- eighthave 11y ago
  While we love more people testing the system/priv-app and root support in FDroid, keep in mind it is very very beta and not ready for general use. We did just have the core functionality professionally audited, and have fixed the issues they found.

aceperry 11y ago

This is a nice way to feature and popularize open source software. It would be nice to have a way to integrate the repo with each individual app. May the play store should have a section like this.

Lorento 11y ago
Half the value in this is that it's not the Play store which is blocked in China and practically inaccessible on a phone without the Play store app pre-installed. And they won't let you install it yourself. You've really got to fight to get access.

libredroid 11y ago

I think some people are confused/missing the point. This isn't competing with F-Droid, it IS F-Droid. Everything from the statistics to the APK downloads (notice the redirect) are sourced from https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/. It's a beautiful front end and necessary improvement over what exists, but it's complementary not competitive. My $0.02: 1. Link to download button to the app entry in F-Droid so I can download it from the Android client. (Getting the user to trust random APKs is not a responsible behavior.) 2. Clarify that this site is a viewer for F-Droid and non-UI contributions should be sent there. Other misc notes: Install F-Droid as a system app (root) in order to install packages using the client without having unknown sources checked. Material design for the client is coming [1] [1] https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/merge_requests/64 https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/merge_requests/64 It's awesome to see this on the front page of HN, If you think these things are worth supporting, do so! https://f-droid.org/contribute https://f-droid.org/contribute

SnaKeZ 11y ago
Yes, isn't competing with F-Droid...it's just a frontend for F-Droid with popularity data.
- libredroid 11y ago
  Your download links point to the most recent version of the app, which is not always the recommended version available from F-Droid. Recommended versions are marked with a star. For example, http://fossdroid.com/a/fdroid.html http://fossdroid.com/a/fdroid.html serves a download of 0.86 which is an unstable test version. All of this is handled better by the F-Droid client app. The way your site is set up now could lead to a poor user experience if they encounter problems with unstable versions of apps that shouldn't be downloaded by default. Being open source, you're free to do whatever you like, but I suggest you talk with the F-Droid devs to make sure everything is mutually beneficial.
  - SnaKeZ 11y ago
    Ok thanks, i added this issue :) i hope to fix this soon.

kannan4k 11y ago

Good to see a list of apps with source code!

patcon 11y ago

I am so unbelievably stoked about your efforts, SnaKeZ! Thanks so so so much! Definitely keep conversation open with the f-droid devs!

hayksaakian 11y ago

Has anyone figured out how to distribute an android wear app outside of the play store? How would i get it on f-droid? In development i can load the APK directly to the watch, but how will my users do it? Android Studio packs the wear.apk inside of the mobile.apk but your phone won't upload the wear.apk to your watch unless it comes from google. (at least in my experience.

minusSeven 11y ago

From blackberry user perspective which of these apps need google services to work. Would love to have apps that don't depend on google ecosystem.

afandian 11y ago

Interesting design philosophy. I'm used to reading vertical lists, e.g. https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?page_id=0&fdcategory=Multimedia&fdcategory=System https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?page_id=0&fdcategory=... Reading a list sideways feels bizarre: http://fossdroid.com/c/system/ http://fossdroid.com/c/system/ Intuitively I feel like my eyes are trained to flick sideways to read a short line and then down. Recalibrating to flicking sideways to read a short line, then moving sideways again a variable distance feels difficult.

eighthave 11y ago

fossdroid.com looks quite nice, a great start. As a big contributor to FDroid, I think it makes sense to run fossdroid.com as a separate project right now so it can develop fast on its own. Then we can figure out how best to integrate it with f-droid.org. One thing that MUST be addressed before considering it something that people actually use is the total lack of HTTPS. This is not optional, and indeed should be mandatory like with https://f-droid.org https://f-droid.org and https://play.google.com https://play.google.com. I'd love to see more thinking about the detail view of the app. For example, there should be a "buy/donate" button, since many apps on fdroid have a way to accept donations. You can scrape that from the standard metadata or the `index.xml`. I think it would be best to present it like https://elementary.io https://elementary.io does: force the user to click "Buy" with a recommended value, but let them set any value including 0.

SnaKeZ 11y ago
Thanks for the reply: i added HTTPS and donate/license info.