F-Droid 2.0
f-droid.org753 points by daveoc64 6 hours ago
753 points by daveoc64 6 hours ago
I notice that
Syncthing-For
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That app itself also has some of the most revolting UI I've seen in a modern Android app (Vertical gradient filled buttons with thick gray strokes surrounded by not-quite-Material UI widgets, in a nonsensical custom control they had to go out of their way to make rather than just use a dropdown). Android developers really just don't care.
its not an app you open much. I'd prefer them to spend time on the actual functionality
[flagged]
All designers only use Mac+iOS. /s
There's so much worse out there. This at least looks functional and shouldn't hurt anyones' eyes.
Anyway, this is a FOSS project. Anyone could go and work with them to clean up the design.
Honestly I'd take that over the hostile vomit that is the google playstore. That thing is an offence to my senses...so many colors and animations trying to grab my attention.
It's annoying and easy to forget, but you have to enable the high-quality line break algorithm per Text component in Compose. Or you have to set two flags (maxLines=1 and overflow=TextOverflow.Ellipsis). I usually end up with a TitleText and BodyText component in my codebases that set these flags internally so I don't have to remember.
I wasn't sure if this was a joke about Android being unintuitive so I was sad to see that enabling high quality line breaks is indeed something you have to configure:
https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/compose/text/style-...
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.
I think it is great that there are multiple clients out there, so people have a choice of user experience. One thing that I think is too often overlooked look is if they have implemented the same security and privacy standards as F-Droid, if that's important to you. For example, last I checked, the third party clients where still using index-v1, which is signed using SHA1. Maybe NeoStore updated to index-v2? And there is also quite a bit of effort put into the client-side to make sure it leaks as little as possible to the servers. There are libraries of the official core pieces for third party clients to use to gain many of these protections: https://f-droid.org/2023/05/02/three-client-libraries.html
Thank you. Used it to uninstall F-droid and roll back to v1 after trying out this new update (ooof... full-blown material ui is not for me. Those progress bars, oh my eyes!)
The old f-droid client made selecting app updates easy. With both v2 and droid-ify, you have to click through for each app. Not a great interface decision :( Why do updates always dumb interfaces down these days?
>I have been using droid-ify
After 10 years of F-droid, I'm bummed I only found droid-ify a couple of months ago. Sooo much better than F-droid.
Check out Neostore too. You'll love it.
I tried Neostore. All the info it shows is pretty cool, but ultimately I felt the expierence suffered from all the extra information shown compared to the simpler UI in Droid-ify.
There's also F-Droid Classic. For me Droid-ify never felt quite right + it never worked properly with unattended updates, for me at least.
Me too. But more and more I am using ObtainX now and installing from Github sources. I don't need F-Droid's gatekeeping.
What does the future of something like F-Droid look like once Google does their lock down next year?
It looks exactly the same as now. You will have to do Google's 24 hour flow thing, but it's not like that's going to stop anyone who appreciates what F-droid brings to the table.
Since F-Droid (i.e., the repositories, not the app) builds all apps, a practical solution would be for the repositories (i.e., their signing keys) to be recognized by El Goog. Whether and how much help / obstacle the "maybe we do evil" company puts up for / against this is a different question.
It seems to me this is a blocker to use if google can restrict sideloading like this. Its not going to end with just get people requiring to register their app with an identity. Wont they be able to put presser on f-droid devs to lock out software they consider a threat to some business model?
> sideloading
That newspeak term should just disappeared. It only contributes to the image that downloading and installing an app is something that is outside the "happy path". Installing software of your choice on a device you own shouldn't be demonised
Fully agree. Installing software is installing software, signed or unsigned, app store or not.
Surely you see how installing unvetted software on a device that holds your entire life, bank info, photos, etc. probably shouldn't be part of the "happy path" for most people. You shouldn't even install software you haven't fully vetted from the google play store. This should be drilled into non-technical people.
Those of us who want to can easily bypass it. My mom who doesn't know what she's doing and gets a phishing email with a fancy apk attached should probably have a hard time using it.
> a device that holds your entire life, bank info, photos, etc.
I'd see it the other way around and say that a device running an operating system controlled by some company shouldn't hold your entire life, bank info, photos, etc.
That means education for people: don't perform actions that are in emails.
Blocking apps is like blocking buying of knifes because one can hurt themselves.
Because education has worked so well on Windows.
There's not an easy answer, but the non-answer of "people just need to be educated" is trivially dismissed.
I'm not sure the situations are comparable when Windows doesn't have this permission system where the apps are still very limited in what they can access unless you grant specific directory access or access to the contact list or such
It does, but approximately nobody uses it, because Microsoft also tried to apply loads of constraints on what kinds of program could exist when they rolled it out, as part of their "all Windows software should also work on Windows Phone and Xbox" campaign.
> a device that holds your entire life, bank info, photos, etc
That device was called personal computer for decades, and the world didn't end for the simplicity of installing software on it.
> That device was called personal computer
To be fair, mobile phones being locked down probably contributed to the mass adoption of e.g. mobile payments and banking.
Web banking was offered by all banks long before banking apps, and you could of course access it from smartphones
The move to apps made things more difficult, if anything
The world may not of ended but to of people have been hurt by malware ruining their computer, cryptolocking all of their company's files for ransom, stealing all of your login credentials, stealing cryptocurrency, taking secret photos with your webcam, screen recording what you are doing on your computer, etc.
The "personal computer" has a terrible track record.
For many decades, people have been mistakenly putting diesel fuel into their gasoline cars, yet we never outlawed diesel vehicles. You can only do so much to protect people without destroying their rights to their property.
Society moved to having it so diesel fuel pump would not fit into gasoline cars.
Society didn't ban doing it, but put up barriers that help the average person from doing something dangerous.
Just like people get robbed, it is as common as that.
It doesn't mean one can't buy nice things because one is afraid of being robbed.
Except a sane society puts rules in place against robbers and then bans such people from society.