F-Droid app store thumbs its nose at Google's dev crackdown Undeterred by a looming Google policy change that could effectively destroy it, open-source Android app store F-Droid has released its largest upgrade in a decade. F-Droid, a third-party app repository that only distributes free and open-source software packages for Google’s Android mobile platform, on Thursday announced …
I used F-droid on my Blackberry Q10, and KeyOne, But I used so few apps from there, and all of them were on the official playstore, so, at the end, for my Razr+ 2024, I did not bother to install F-droid.
Still, glad to see the team moving forward, I desire them good luck, and have nothing but gratitude towards them.
F-droid has been my main repo for years, and long may it remain so. Hopefully anti-trust will kill off Google's landgrab, alongside the sheer weight of opprobrium that's being heaped on them for such a blatantly self-serving, attempt to bind users into Google's money-grubbing darkness.
I think I'm with you on that. Ironically, I think the only app that I downloaded from F-Droid and not the PlayStore is DAVX which would allow me to sync OpenXchange calendars with things like Google Calendar. I haven't got round to setting it up, so I'm glad I haven't paid for it: like many of these things setup is complicated enough to deter many users. I'd be grateful to anyone who has a tip for a replacement to truly dreadful OXDrive: whoever thought WebDAV was a good idea for a protocol needs to go back to school.
I too downloaded DAVX from f-droid. Caldav/Cardav works brilliantly with Thunderbird. Not so much with other stuff. Will Mozilla spruce up K-9 to do the same?
Problem is the majors won't probably support it because it's a threat to their walled gardens. Otherwise my next tablet will run proper Linux. Problem is that means I 'll probably have to buy an old Surface Go.
Shame there isn't a decent alternative that lets you own your own device.
Except maybe something like the Makerphone (or one of the multiple other "microcontroller with a simple phone module attached" projects) to have something really controllable by its owner.
Makerphone might be interesting if it wasn't all about vibe coding your phone. I'm guessing this means it doesn't come with a properly designed OS, or proper documentation for the hardware or APIs, but just something cobbled together.
But maybe someone can port MINIX or something similar to it?
yes this... I still have BAD memories from the failed OpenMoko project : miserable battery life, half-backed OSs even hardware failures that I had to solder SMD caps and wires on the board , so NO thanks to any DIY 4G phone project, it will spend more of its lifespan connected to a cable with a PC than as 'normal' phone
It's running on an ESP32, so the underlying OS is FreeRTOS. The source for the pre-installed program is to be published in their Github repos, along with the hardware docs. As they've done for all their previous projects. But given the simplicity of the hardware, you could just ignore all that, grab the spec sheets for the devices on board and code up your own ESP32 'phone app yourself. The trickiest part of the hardware "API" to figure out from scratch is going to be the keyboard.
The vibe coding part of the package can be completely ignored: it's nothing more than a free trial of some random package for the backers to play with - and from the quality control of some of the questions a few backers will need that! So far, there is no indication (I've spotted - corrections accepted) that the provided software has been or will be vibe coded (barring any examples of using the LLM coding package itself, of course).
I have had a look at this thing today: given the current price of other microcontroller projects & products it doesn't look too bad just for the bits inside and actually having a full case, rather than just a PCB sandwich with open sides and the LiPo barely covered. They are all pricey and low specs compared to a bottom-end Android 'phone, but that is what scale of manufacturing gets us.
GrapheneOS is not effected by this b$ move, by another licentious American corp that were one of the original silicon valley corpo sh!tstains, that had a grifting hard on way before the current crop of even more intemperate Ai jizz stains, that we now have the displeasure of witnessing fck over the world at large.
Another thumb up for LineageOS+microG. A tip I got from this forum was to install the Aurora store (from F-Droid, naturally). It gives access to Play Store apps if I need them.
I only had one banking app, Tesco Bank, and it worked fine. But then Tesco sold their bank to Barclays who terminated the pre-pay debit card scheme I'd been using.
I use Revolut's one-off credit cards for that sort of thing, where I can: not possible for subscriptions and some other transactions but a good idea for a lot of web shopping.
You can pretty much install anything on LineageOS as long as it isn't rooted. If you need root, you can get this using adb, a bit more work but makes sense.
> "GrapheneOS is not effected by this b$ move, by another licentious American corp that were one of the original silicon valley corpo sh!tstains, that had a grifting hard on way before the current crop of even more intemperate Ai jizz stains, that we now have the displeasure of witnessing fck over the world at large."
Not a fan then ?
It's not set to automatically update so select it manually from the list of available versions.
The new one is cleaner and simpler. The only problem I see is that the targeted platform isn't shown in the app version list. It shows 5.4.4 5.4.4 5.4.1 5.4.1 ... You have to expand each entry to see the platform in the details.
F-Droid remains the first place I look for common utilities. They're all malware in Google Play Store.
* (Still more of) your personal data;
* More money; and,
* More control over you.
This is a way of getting that.
The reasons they give for that are self-justifying lies and public-relations puffery.
They do not care about your privacy.
They do not care if you are scammed.
I now shall go update my F-Droid installer.
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Well, the onus is on consumers to vote with their wallets.
Having bought the new Jolla phone with Android support I can confirm that microg worked for all but three of my previoulsy non-fdroid apps (i.e. banking apps), enabling pin lock on the android container (plus a patch on microg to report that it's version is similar to google's play store) brought that number down to 1 app that does not work (Revolut).
What is concerning is the amount of lock in to Android and Apple official hardware we have today for banking (and others), for example I can't make an online purchase without validating with the bank, but that requires using the app because it is impossible to approve on the bank web interface. From reports banks on other countries have it worse.
And the funny part is that Play Integrity, the Google attestation framework, is broken and easily bypassed on rooted phones..
So, yes, f-droid is needed and you should use it even if apps exist on play store.
As for the new developer validation check. Try to disable the android developer verifier app that is on your android phone now.
I would love to vote with my feet (I am pretty certain I can bring a few hundred people with me), please list genuine alternatives (not going near apple for the similar reasons)
Requirements:
- must be usable without IT team needing to step in every time an application is installed or updated
- actually usable as a phone (in addition to the functionality of a small screen tablet)
- must allow our users to access their bank accounts
- must have a web browser Firefox or Chrome maintained officially
- security updates for 5 years from sale of product to customer
Desirables:
- user removable battery
- good RF performance (the radios are fundamental to a phone not to be compromised or added as an afterthought)
- FLOSS OS and applications
- security updates for as long as the platform is working (and not broken by a HW/SW kill)
Stretch Goals:
- FLOSS platform (and modems - yeah I know that's not gonna happen)
Requirements:
- must be usable without IT team needing to step in every time an application is installed or updated
-- That's an hole the IT teams dug for themselves. You can have that issue with "official" Android phones.
- actually usable as a phone (in addition to the functionality of a small screen tablet)
-- Excluding "dev" phones (they are usually marked as such, like ) I think this one is easy
- must allow our users to access their bank accounts
-- This one is the hardest because of what I mentioned on my post, it is doable but depends on the bank policies. If restricting to a requirement of native non-android/ios apps, then basically there is no alternatives.
- must have a web browser Firefox or Chrome maintained officially
-- Most implement branded Firefox derivatives. If by maintained officially you mean with support from Google then Chrome is out, as for Mozilla it depends. Linux stack phones can usually run Firefox, the question is more what is the delta to the latest ESR version.
- security updates for 5 years from sale of product to customer
-- As that discounts most Android phones (even from top brands), I would consider this an aspirational goal after the 2 year mandatory warranty support in the EU. But in any case between brands and community support you can get this in most cases, the question is more if after 5 years you are still using the phone for non basic stuff.
Desirables:
- user removable battery
-- Sure, most got that, if you don't go with water protection that's easy
- good RF performance (the radios are fundamental to a phone not to be compromised or added as an afterthought)
-- Yeah, for "dev" phones this is usually the worst part
- FLOSS OS and applications
-- Excepting iOS all of them are either this or partially this (for shades of FLOSS)
- security updates for as long as the platform is working (and not broken by a HW/SW kill)
-- See comment for 5 year support.
Stretch Goals:
- FLOSS platform (and modems - yeah I know that's not gonna happen)
-- Yeah, not happening
It should be noted that phone's and their OS is a decision on the user but it may also require a change in usage and expectations. If the user wants to change OS and for everything remain the same, then maybe they don't want to change?
I'm astonished by how people put up with the hostile activity of companies that do this sort of thing. That are clearly against the majority of mankind for their own perceived benefit.
Too few are prepared to strike back, regain their agency, stop them.
It's worth taking a good look at what they're doing, then asking yourself Am I complicit?
If you are on this site and are using Android or Apple phones you are complicit. You may have your reasons, but you know the problems and implications and to some extent have accepted these.
As for the non-techies (98%) they just want a functional device and don't / can't understand the problems.
To quote Tony Stark, Google's latest "Dick Move, Banner", is worse than the Fondleslab crowd.
Former employer of mine has mobile apps they insist staff use to e.g. book desks and meeting rooms [and which, just by coincidence, demands access to your GPS location in order to work].
On a Fondleslab, you have to go in once and "approve" the addition of a 3rd party app store, but once that's done, everything else is completely transparent. Of course - it's possible that Apple demand much more of companies before they will all a 3rd Party repo to get a certificate and thus be "approved for use"...
This move by Google should be immediately blocked by all Competition and Markets agencies in government the world over. It's a blatant power grab and it is holding developers to ransom.
F-Droid is an amazing resource if you're an Android user... if you haven't already tried them, I can very much endorse both "NetGuard", the Android Firewall - also available via the Google Play store, but the F-Droid version gives you much more control over your device [something the Play Store actively blocked]. Also, there's the "Fossify Suite" - a phone, contacts, SMS, file manager, calculator, gallery, and notepad app - which is absolutely fabulous.
Worth checking out if you're a 'Droid user.
Though having said that, even before Google's latest, I see that Samsung are already clamping down on F-Droid. Now, when F-Droid detects one of your installed apps has an update, it doesn't let you know. Instead, you get a warning from the handset and have to go in and unlock device-wide security settings to run F-Droid, run your update, then re-secure your device. In other words, Samsung's attempt to discourage you from using F-Droid could actually leave you *less* secure [if you chose to let your handset default to the weaker security setting].
I really object to the concept of giving Google money for one of their handsets, but if they continue to support Graphene, that's likely to be my next mobile... [unless something better comes along].
"Google said in March that it would still allow unverified developers to have their apps installed on Android devices, but the workaround is extreme, to say the least: Android users have to confirm no one is forcing them to install an untrusted app, enable developer mode, reboot their device, sit through a 24-hour waiting period, acknowledge a whole bunch of other screens meant to terrify them into not installing the apps, and decide whether to allow their desired software to live for a week or indefinitely.
I hate the continued tightening of Android, but the above highlights a problem. Dumb people will grab a dodgy app from some dodgy site (often as a guise to watch free football or movies) and install it. When it does bad things, the tabloid press has headlines about "Insecure Android allowed thieves to drain my bank account." They also highlight how iphones are more secure.
It doesn't matter how strict they make the warnings, people just click through, and sites say things like "this warning message you get is normal. Click ok"
Now that wireless debugging has also been used as an exploit vector, expect tightening up on that, too.
Like the mechanic who doesn't want a car with a bonnet welded shut, I wish there was some way to keep my phone open without having to jump through hoops.
I'd also like the tabloids to treat such instances as they would with bank PINs. If someone left their card in public with their PIN written on it, the tabloids wouldn't be moaning about the banking system being insecure...
https://www.google.com/search?q=android+rogue+app+requires+adb
