from Hacker News

The importance of F-Droid, an Android app store

by tslocum on 10/1/24, 12:17 PM with 36 comments

• by infotainment on 10/1/24, 2:00 PM

  I was really looking forward to something like F-Droid on iOS after the DSA came into force, but unfortunately Apple’s absurdly bad compliance has rendered such a thing all but impossible.

• by sandreas on 10/1/24, 1:35 PM

  While F-Droid may be important, I personally tend to prefer Aurora Store and even more Obtainium[1]. Although you have to be even more careful what you install, Obtainium is extremely good at keeping apps up to date.

  Some projects don't even provide an F-Droid release, so just adding the github repository to Obtainium is much easier than having to deal with apk stuff.

  1: https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium

• by ranger_danger on 10/1/24, 1:33 PM

  In some security circles, use of F-Droid is discouraged:

  https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/

  https://www.privacyguides.org/en/android/obtaining-apps/#f-d...

  My understanding is that this largely stems from the fact that F-Droid compiles and signs all the apps on behalf of the application developers, so there is a loss of control there. Some will say that this is what redistributable builds are for, but in my experience they are not actively/widely verified even if they do support it, especially publicly.

• by metalman on 10/1/24, 1:56 PM

  hey HEY! fdroid all the way! I do the web sight sign in every time! java cookies dom get switched on selectivly de google till it breaks and then factory reset and try again linux laptop and adb keeps my pics and files, move them to a thumb drive once in a while I almost never see any adds and can do all the "things" just fine but like the article says,you gota be brave

• by lupusreal on 10/1/24, 1:40 PM

  Except for some apps for financial institutions, all my apps come from F-Droid. I feel like I can trust their vetting but absolutely cannot trust random apps from Google's store. Why is it that unpaid volunteers can do better than one of the largest tech corps on the planet? Google is pathetic.

• by jerojero on 10/1/24, 3:03 PM

  I use android and my first place to look for apps is fdroid. It doesn't have the best search and it doesn't have many apps. But I have hit the jackpot on a few apps and that's more than enough to justify its existence for me.

  It's particularly good for very niche use cases, like, you might need an app that simulates dice rolls, then fdroid might be the best place for that as you'll find an app that does just that and nothing else. No ads, no bullshit.

  If fdroid doesn't work for me then I will give in and search for "commercial" (ads or paid) solutions.