F-Droid Awarded Open Technology Fund's FOSS Sustainability Grant
28 comments
·February 5, 2025ducktective
Well deserved. Though, I have problems in "discovering" apps for a particular purpose. It would have helped if there was a vote-based curated app categories section.
My current strategy is googling for "[category (e.g. 2FA or note-taking)] + reddit + open-source" then opening up each suggestion's git source and manually look for things like tech stack or project stars or number of contributors.
focusedone
This fantastic news. It's possible to take an android out of the box, install F-Droid and have a reasonably useful phone without even logging into the play store.
Glad to see them getting some credit for the hard work!
drewbitt
I've got about 80% of my apps that would normally be on F-Droid installed through Obtainium (https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium), which handles Git releases (among other sources). The F-Droid client feels clunky and in the past I had some update errors that were annoying. With some improvements it should return to being a good discovery tool and app manager, so this is good news.
einpoklum
It seems that Obtainium "curates" apps, i.e. derives lists of downloadable apps, is by crowd-sourcing this task. See:
https://apps.obtainium.imranr.dev/
I also believe the client is doesn't limit itself to FOSS.
drewbitt
I was not aware of an Obtanium catalog like that. That's a nice feature that I see hidden at the bottom of the Add App screen. You can also use Obtanium to install from F-Droid sources and really just any apk, so it's superior in many ways, except in 1) discovery (which that catalog helps) 2) as devs aren't curating F-droid releases with care, sometimes it's a pain to setup, especially when a package is always `apk-latest` or something.
captainbland
Couldn't deserve it more. Makes it easy to install FOSS alternative apps to what you find in the play store which aren't infested with dark patterns and adware.
_imnothere
F-Droid is indeed a nice alternative for Play Store, but still, it's not perfect.
captainbland
This reads really weirdly and seems to downplay concrete threats/malicious activity in the play store and emphasise best practice/security model violations on F-Droid.
yjftsjthsd-h
Note that most of that page is a matter of the authors having a completely different security model than F-Droid rather than what I would consider to be true defects.
udev4096
It's not. Stop being in an echo chamber. Refer to this post for more valid criticism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42653176
captainepoch
I hope they use the money to improve all the issues people have arised over the years. It can be a really good platform, if they're open to change. Otherwise, it might be dead in the future.
simonmales
For me, F-Droid is the apt of Android.
tengbretson
- Installs software adequately
- Terrible search ergonomics
It checks all the boxes.
ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7
What does that mean? Its a package manager? Or something deeper?
giancarlostoro
It is an F-Droid client.
amelius
Is that good or bad?
bityard
For me, it's good. Apt is famous for installing the software you want quickly, easily, and with no fuss.
amelius
For me Apt means that every time I install something, I have to be ready to give up my system because of resulting internal inconsistencies and because there is no rollback.
fsflover
And with no malware whatsoever.
maelito
Also check out https://droidify.eu.org.
The client is better IMHO.
1317
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/nya.kitsunyan.foxydroid/ is quite nice also
johnisgood
Oh yeah just made a comment about it, I prefer it over F-Droid, too.
dtgm92
I like it, gives you the option for older versions as well. When I updated my old browser and the look and feel completely changed, I had to go back years but I eventually found what I liked.
imsurgio
Great news. First place I check for OSS android software. App needs a bit of work but there are open alternatives.
hoseja
I was having major issues each time F-Droid decided to update itself and then the only app I cared about on it implemented self-updating so I let it go. Has major GIMP vibes IMO.
I use f-droid and the aurora store. The play store was disabled the day I got the phone. There has been a few issues but I stuck with f-droid for many years. Good for them.