F-Droid 2.0

694 points - today at 3:26 PM

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Comments

comex today at 6:50 PM
I notice that

    Syncthing-For
    k
is one of the first pieces of text in the first screenshot. With the k on its own line like that. Not usually something I’d comment on, but if you’re showing off a redesign…
silverbluep today at 3:52 PM
I have been using droid-ify on GrapheneOS for a few years now; because F-Droid ui is terrible, and the privilege extention has been such a pain to configure and get working without issues on my previous lineageOS phone. Happy to see this major overhaul; and i'm glad the FPE is being phased out.
jjice today at 4:00 PM
What does the future of something like F-Droid look like once Google does their lock down next year?
Muhammad523 today at 7:32 PM
Finally a submission at the top of the page that isnt about AI!
temphaaa today at 5:04 PM
Can someone recommend a good F/OSS ebook reader on F-Droid? The existing ones I have tested have too many knobs and options and are not really user-friendly.... My wife started to get into reading, but I could not get her to get out of the Kindle/Play Books ecosystem because of the user-friendliness and easy synchronisation across devices that Kindle gives.
amiga386 today at 8:17 PM
Great! But why hasn't 2.0 installed automatically on all devices that already have F-Droid?

- go to F-Droid -> Updates. "Congratulations! Your apps are up to date."

- refresh the repositories. "Congratulations! Your apps are up to date."

- search directly for f-droid in apps. "This app was built for an older version of Android and cannot be updated automatically."

*facepalm* never change, F-Droid. You might not be able to automatically update the app because of Android API restrictions, but there's no reason your app can't tell me it knows there's an updated version I could be asked to apply manually, is there?

EDIT: it still says version 1.23.2 is "Suggested" even when 2.0 is installed. Perhaps this is a reason? Nonetheless, there's no setting to choose a different version policy, i.e. install 2.0 because it's newer, even if not "Suggested"

What does "Suggested" even mean? According to https://forum.f-droid.org/t/how-does-f-droid-suggest-a-versi... it's set manually by the person maintaining the metadata, which makes it even more of a facepalm if F-Droid are announcing 2.0 on their homepage but nobody set CurrenVersion=2.0 in their own metadata.

rom1v today at 4:02 PM
In addition to F-Droid on the device, I'd love an F-Droid "package manager client" on a computer, that allows installing apps on an Android device via adb:

    # update repo lists
    fdr update
    
    # upgrade all apps on the connected device
    fdr upgrade
    
    # search packages
    fdr search vlc  # lists org.videolan.vlc
    
    # install on the device
    fdr install org.mozilla.firefox
    
    # download the apk
    fdr download org.mozilla.firefox
    
    # uninstall
    fdr uninstall org.mozilla.firefox 
Of course, all operations would verify the signatures first.
aorth today at 3:54 PM
Cool! Unfortunately I switched to Obtanium a year or so ago. I get all my apps from GitHub releases straight from the developers now.
outadoc today at 3:44 PM
Very cool, the visual redesign was very much needed and I had been using Droid-ify for a while because of this. I'll switch back to the official app, congrats to the contributors!
Scene_Cast2 today at 3:42 PM
The official page still downloads 1.23.2. I wonder when this will go live, and if the old app will auto-update.
henearkr today at 7:41 PM
Since this made into HN first page, I've been trying to find the APK of this version 2.0...

Am I missing something stupid?

hobo123 today at 6:54 PM
Is it not available yet? Fdroid doesn't update, and downloading and re installing leaves me with the usual app.

Still, excited for when it'll be ready.

prima-facie today at 4:09 PM
Amazing news! I mainly use the F-droid Basic version which does automatic updating of apps. The regular one needs user confirmation for updates if I remember correctly.
AdmiralAsshat today at 6:11 PM
I hope the new redesign makes the store easier to navigate on TVs. It's a nightmare trying to install/update apps on F-Droid on either my Nvidia Shield Pro or my Onn 4K TV using the tv remote. The cursor gets lost all the time and it's often impossible to see what option is currently in focus when you click Ok on the remote.
juiceland today at 3:46 PM
For people who are die-hard F Droid users, do you get all your apps from it? I have tried in the past but it seemed like even when I restricted my use to basics it was missing things I needed to make my phone feel useful. Wonder if it has gotten better.
parisiansam today at 5:15 PM
I wonder if FDroid has a policy against LLM? i was reading one of the MR here https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/merge_requests/1729 and they seem to gate on LLM contributions (and vibe coded android app)?
zephiel7 today at 3:40 PM
This is very good to see. Classic F-Droid always seemed to fail at updating repos at least every week or so.
aargh_aargh today at 4:55 PM
mzajc today at 3:47 PM
> Also, F-Droid Privileged Extension (FPE) is not currently supported by 2.0. That means even if FPE is installed, F-Droid 2.0 won’t use it. This overhaul focused on full featured support for the Android “session” installer. That lets F-Droid run background updates on any recent Android version without requiring FPE. Like with any of the changes here, we welcome feedback.

This is a shame. Is the privileged extension a large maintenance burden?

tukunjil today at 6:39 PM
Not any super user but about three/four months, I'm using my device without any google account. Also not using any G service apps such as mail/yt/maps and of course play store. Instead of play store I found aurora store very helpful. "Very" because of the anonymous login future. But sometimes the store disturbs. Newly added apps on Play store doesn't appears on aurora. Also many applications fails to be installed without showing any reason. Some shitty apps redirect to the play store app (which I'm unable to disable but uninstalled her! Updates) and just doesn't works anything more then redirecting me. So I'm still not a fan of Aurora. But it's going not bad. But sometimes I should browse other sites to get old/delated from Play store apps. Also for mod/adless version of some apps.

I heard of fdriod but what I think it may only serves feature less, low UI/UX optimized apps. So didn't installed it yet. But something should be available where people can find all Play store apps (as aurora supplies) + premium/adsense deleted modified apps (random website) + Open source apps (fdroid)…… this will make android insane

kmarc today at 4:53 PM
Great visual and usability update.

Even greater HN conversation about all the to-me-unknown alternatives. I used neostore as a replacement, but maybe time to try f-Droid again

1970-01-01 today at 6:10 PM
Fitting, as there really are only 2.0 trustworthy app stores for Android.
cf100clunk today at 3:42 PM
That page uses the term ''repository''' singular. Can additional repos be added in the way Neo Store allows?
97laos today at 5:35 PM
Love it new design fdroid basic really smooth in my ancient phone.
magnat today at 4:01 PM
And still no popularity rating, download count or any user review system whatsoever.
Thev00d00 today at 5:00 PM
Urgh such a shame to be written by LLM
renszarv today at 3:46 PM
If only they improve the AndroidTV experience a bit
sharktheone today at 5:26 PM
so nice. FDroid always looked a bit dated to me
cyberax today at 3:59 PM
Dear F-Droud, please stop redirecting me to the Mandarin version automatically without an option to read the original message. Just because I have a Chinese keyboard layout available.
imzadi today at 4:23 PM
I wish they would add ratings or even just comments
Telaneo today at 4:31 PM
It's nice to see F-Droid going places.
deleted today at 3:58 PM
imshaikot today at 8:30 PM
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laruss5 today at 4:48 PM
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hathym today at 7:52 PM
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zb3 today at 3:45 PM
> All new code in this effort uses modern Android code standards and designs. This gives us a codebase that is easier to maintain, test, and easier to extend with new features in the future.

No, this increases the overall complexity of the system. Android will hopefully eventually collapse under its own weight.

mightysashiman today at 5:59 PM
Did they implement any GrapheneOS security complaints for it to be deemed actually secure?