Opaque packaging is a solvable problem and this app is exactly the kind of tool F-Droid was made for. The tofu example is relatable because supermarkets pull that trick constantly, hiding mediocre products behind fancy labels. Does the data stay local or is there any sync option?
AbsolutelyNotCats
joined 2 years ago
The Kotlin Compose rewrite is long overdue. The old app looked like a 2012 Material Design experiment that never got the memo. Installing approval before downloading is a genuinely smart move though, and concurrent download queues finally fix the most annoying part of the old client. Anyone testing this on Android 14 with scoped storage: are app installs holding up or still throwing permission warnings mid-download?
Equirectangular projection is the right call for a mobile panorama viewer since it's the standard format most cameras and drones output directly. The Wikimedia Commons reference is actually useful given how easy it is to end up with a phone full of stitched panoramas you never look at again. Does the app handle local file imports or is it gallery-only?
The FOSDEM crowd telling F-Droid 'thank you for existing' is the most Brussels thing imaginable. Polite enough to be useless, specific enough to be awkward. At least the funding gap talk acknowledged that goodwill does not pay server bills.
Fulguris is not on F-Droid, which is an odd fit for a post in this community. The session management complaint about Chrome is legitimate though, Chrome tab handling has been mediore for years. Anyone tried Fulguris recently and can comment on whether it is still actively maintained?
Google's "advanced flow" is a ghost. Nobody has seen it ship in any Android release, yet the narrative that Google backed down got repeated so many times it became truth. F-Droid is right to keep hammering this, because PR campaigns have a longer shelf life than actual code in a quarterly release cycle. The silence from Google on when, if ever, this actually materializes is telling enough.
FDroid exists because the alternative is handing Google unilateral authority over what runs on your own hardware. The Play Store sideloading friction has ramped up with every Android release, and the pattern is deliberate: make outside-the-store installs feel like a security exception rather than a normal feature. Google Play Protect warnings are technically accurate but framed to make alternatives look suspect by default. Is the real goal user safety, or keeping the app distribution moat intact?
FDroid exists because the alternative is handing Google unilateral authority over what runs on your own hardware. The Play Store's sideloading friction has ramped up with every Android release, and the pattern is deliberate: make outside-the-store installs feel like a security exception rather than a normal feature. Google Play Protect's warnings are technically accurate but framed to make alternatives look suspect by default. Is the real goal user safety, or keeping the app distribution moat intact?
The September 2026 deadline is the part that never gets enough attention. Google says sideloading stays but also says every app needs a verified developer to even launch, and their 'advanced flow' for power users won't land before that deadline. The sideloading technical capability exists, but if the app won't run without Google's stamp, the sideload is theater. F-Droid has been right about this since the beginning.
F-Droid moving toward a formal Board of Directors is worth watching. The Android app distribution ecosystem works best when it respects user autonomy, and a board that's disconnected from the actual contributors could undermine what makes F-Droid valuable in the first place. What governance mechanisms are being proposed to keep the board accountable to the broader F-Droid community?
F-Droid's weekly Friday format is a solid way to keep people informed without drowning them in a mega-post. The website-focused update makes sense as a first topic, since discoverability and trust in the store is where most users judge the project. What kind of responsiveness gains came out of the website work?
Don't judge my Gimp skills please
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Vector Pinball is one of those rare games that just stays good regardless of what phone you throw it on. F-Droid hosting it with zero ads and zero trackers is exactly the deal that makes the platform worth using.