On the importance of F-Droid
rocket9labs.com
F-Droid is an app store for Android where only open source applications are available for free. It provides an alternative to the proprietary Google Play Store, which is where most Android app distribution currently takes place. Because the Google Play Store is where most users go to find and install apps, this gives Google the power to exercise control over Android app developers. In this blog post, I describe the design, mechanism and results of this control from the perspective of a long-time Android app developer.
      • Captain Beyond@linkage.ds8.zone
        1·
        2 months ago

        There are those who believe that F-Droid’s role as a “middle man” vetting and building packages from source instead of blindly shipping builds provided by upstream makes it a security risk, because you’re trusting F-Droid in addition to (some say instead of) the upstream developer. Perhaps telling is that none of these critics can offer an alternative solution.

        Before anyone mentions Obtainium and Accrescent, these are not alternatives to F-Droid, they solve completely different problems.

        • stationary_melon@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          I personally like F-Droid’s vetting process. It’s true that updates always arrive a few days later, but you can be sure they don’t contain any malicious code. Furthermore, they specify all of the antifeatures a program has, which makes it easier to avoid them. If you want faster updates, you can always download a program through Obtanium.

          • trevor@lemmy.mlOP
            0·
            2 months ago

            I am not an F-Droid maintainer, but as far as I know the code is not vetted by F-Droid after the initial app submission process. Updates are pulled in, built and distributed automatically. The long delay is just because there are a lot of apps to build, and F-Droid is a volunteer-run operation.

            • stationary_melon@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              2 months ago

              I had no idea. Thanks for telling me! In that case, im going to try to use the ones from IzzyOnDroid if avaliable

              Edit: According to their docs, they do take some special security measures and I couldn’t find a case of an app offered on FDroid which had malware.