F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.
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“Digital Luddites are rising. They want to democratise tech, not destroy it” is a ten minute article about the “luddites” of old and of the present. Money quote: “Proprietary corporate systems have long been challenged by free, open-source alternatives. But digital Luddism isn’t just about using different tools. It’s about systemic change towards sustainable, transparent and user-controlled infrastructure”. That bit will sound all too familiar to everyone involved in FOSS and to fans of what the F-Droid ecosystem tries to achieve.
Good news for the Android ecosystem, “the first RISC-V vendor to support the open source Android app marketplace” (in Chinese) has been announced. The gist of it in English: “The Xuantie team has now completed the porting of about 1,500 applications in the F-Droid market, covering a wide range of categories such as system tools, graphics and images, audio and video software, transportation, office software, input methods, and development tools, improving the experience of end users of the RISC-V architecture Android system.”
If you are a Fediverse user, you might enjoy a “Large overview of Mastodon clients for Android” (in Polish), covering the F-Droid repo, IzzyOnDroid repo and even some apps from a certain silo app catalogue.
freeminer was updated to 5.10.0 after a nine year pause. This voxel-based multiplayer game platform is a fork of Minetest Luanti so everything should be familiar.
OpenConnect, Android UI for OpenConnect VPN client, was just included as a continuation and replacement for the old OpenConnect, SSL VPN client for Cisco AnyConnect, now archived.
QUIK SMS was updated to 4.1.0 after a long one year beta period, fixing a lot of bugs.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon was updated to 3.0.0 with a huge update. The developer posted about the changes early on, so you can read about the sixth hero which will be “The Cleric!”, take a review of the year 2024 and peruse all the changes in v3.0.0.
Shitter, Lightweight Mastodon client, was archived as the appID was changed to Smither.
Warsmash, A Warcraft III emulator made using LibGDX game engine, joins our ranks of game cult classics, so grab you old CDs.
0.2.31.6.0+20250223.3618.0de18b79v1.270.6.2-prod3.2.51.3.111.6.24.0.11.54.30.12.31.8.00.3.32.8.00.84.0-banglejs2.00.9.010.2510.25290172785.4.5_freenet2.5.02025.02.11113.2.31.41.7.121.7.01.4-pre-21.5.0v5.2.62.14v1.11.46.3.01.4.31.4.23.10.40.8.11.8.31.54.32.1.03.13.21.0.192.1.120.0.01.41.4.125.03.030.11.7.42.34.20.13.101.22642.0.03.29.22.9.20.0.72135.0.11.0.1102025.02.23.0.46282.2.10.84.01.35.22.8.0-beta23.8.10.0.221.7.21.1.0harmattan61caitlyn1.128.05.4.11.9.11.4.03.3.22.11.00.ose2.1.61.6.01.33.01.21.12.12.01.0.0-alpha.212.0.57.7.110.27.10.11.21.2.122.25.11.1.31.16.21.7.85.1.32.0.09.2.02.0.11.5.34.5.5b1.0.1013.4.13.31.02025030421.0.05.5.112.1.56.11.1.30.3.13v2.7.0v1.2.11.0.88v5.2.281.3.90.2.1-beta4.4.01.6.03.17.4-beta1.38.02025.03.02-7-FDroid1.54.50.5.92025.021.15.00.9.02.10.11.6.161.9.4202502261.611.9.24.2.14.0.125.2.16.1.12.3.08.10.30.10.30.8.12.19.5-foss2.10.25.9.45.04.6.122.5.24.49.0-fdroid0.4.1125020581-github0.13.12.15192.6.02.2.03.0.11.4.360.11.2.32.12.23.0.91.1.41.68.6.42025.2.0-free1.11.43.1.242.5.41.0.32.11.03.2.04.0.230.0.280.62.71.1.046.01.4.30.9.33.3.32.18.128.0 beta 1271.250224.0271.250224.01.3.64.15.143.212.01.1.020.2.4.01.10.1v1.0.32.31.5.03.5.01.32.9.92.0.0-beta060.0.234.13.7Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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6.3.2025 00:00Join our ranks of digital luddites
Two years ago, almost to the day, we’ve spoken about how “VPN trust requires free software” outlining the importance of reproducible builds in general, and specially when it comes to your Internet connection security. That post sparked some interest and led to improvements in the way F-Droid packages reproducible builds.
Last year we were sadden to read that proprietary keyboards are (still) spying on their users and encouraged you to seek better FOSS keyboard apps. The keyboard is perhaps the most sensitive app on the device. Everything you write will go through the keyboard app, including passwords and private messages. In order to have a trustworthy device, we need to know that our keyboard app is treating our secrets with the utmost care. The best ones do not even request internet access or any other way to send our precious keystrokes anywhere besides where they are intended to go.
As we push for apps to be reproducible when included, let’s take a look at the current F-Droid offer in regards to keyboards.
Our F-Droid Verification Server continuously rebuilds apps and compares them to the published version. This allows us to spot sources of non-determinism in all apps, no matter if setup as reproducible or not.
We split our available keyboard apps based on their reproducible status as:
Interesting list, looks like we offer a large variety of input apps that, hopefully, not only cover your typing needs but also allow you to do this on a verified reproducibly built app.
This work was supported by your donations, and from NLnet. To help support F-Droid, please check out the donation page and contribute what you can.
4.3.2025 00:00Even my keyboard is built reproducibly
Termux:GUI, A plugin for Termux to use the Android GUI from terminal applications, is finally live. Well technically it was live several times in the past but it was not set up properly. How so? Termux has a bunch of add-ons that enhance its functionality, but in order to interoperate with the main Termux app, they need to be specially setup to be signed with the same key (F-Droid key in this case). We have a dozen or so apps that need this configuration, set in the main build server, and managed there along with the signing setup since the early days of F-Droid.
As the F-Droid software components got updated, changed, improved over the years, this keyaliases (as they are called) setting was not yet tackled. This month the last bits have fallen into place, so we are moving forward to configure it in the main metadata repository so they are more easily added and removed as needed in the future.
If you live in France, maybe you can call your locally elected representative and ask them how are they going to vote on the new proposed surveillance law? Yes, there’s one every 8 months or so in some country, not sure how they think they can add backdoors to encryption and siphon data from your device at will yet still respect GDPR, but they keep trying to push these.
You can read about the law here and contact your favorite député ici.
FOSSGIS 2025 conference is the leading conference for free and open source software for geoinformation systems in the D-A-CH space, as well as for the topics of Open Data and OpenStreetMap. It will take place in Münster between 26 and 29 March. FOSSGIS 2025 Schedule was updated to 1.69.1-FOSSGIS-Edition, so make sure you have it installed and ready.
maid was updated to 2.0.1 with a complete rewrite of the entire codebase. It wasn’t a smooth process as reproducible builds are trickier and we had to skip some versions in between, but now it is live.
OnionShare was updated to 0.2.0-beta, but should be skipped as it is crashing. An updated version is built right now.
PipePipe was updated to 4.2.0 after a two months pause, many issues have been fixed and features being added like AV1 high quality format support and Sponsorblock integration.
RiMusic was updated to 0.6.71 which might be its last version to come to F-Droid. In an odd turn, the developer lost control of their Discord instance, warned people not to donate if asked there, saw their app being cloned on some centralized app store and made the app source code unavailable for the foreseeable future as a reaction. If the developer changes their mind, we will promptly update it as soon as possible.
SimpleX Chat was updated to 6.2.5 and, if you have 13 minutes to spare, the developers wrote about how they want to handle “large groups and privacy-preserving content moderation” in the future.
Threema Libre is built reproducible in F-Droid, signed by the developer. But this means that both teams need to be extra careful and fix issues that might arise from this process. This week the app was updated to 5.8.1l after a 3 months hiatus, thanks to the collaboration between F-Droid contributors and the app developers. Also now it features emoji reactions. 😜
We’ve bemoaned previously about the lack of updates for VLC but that’s well in the past as the app was just updated to 3.6.3. What’s new? It comes with the new Remote Access feature, a parental control and a lot of fixes. Also in the news, to celebrate its 20 year anniversary, “VLC Lunar Time Capsule” will send your video to the actual moon, if this TWIF gets to you on time. And the most interesting bit came out of CES 2025 back in January, where VLC announced that they will integrate offline on-device generative AI for automatic subtitle generation capable of speaking several dozen languages, based on the Whisper models (same used in the Whisper, Voice recognition app).
XScreenSaver was updated to 6.09 as we missed two versions, and while we don’t get Jamie Zawinski’s, of Netscape and early Mozilla fame, stamp of “official”, we want this fun app to be available and on your screen, be it as a live wallpaper or an actual screensaver.
@shuvashish76 ask us to stop press:
As we learn that @cketti, the beloved developer, has quit their job working on Thunderbird for Android and K-9 Mail at Mozilla. You can read more in the “Goodbye K-9 Mail” post.
v5.6.03.2.25.0.8472.7.01.3.53.2.51.54.112.3.012.3.012.3.012.3.00.12.14.2.12.7.34.10.08.0.0+ble1.1.21.0.72025.02.11083.2.21.31.4-pre-11.4.02.12.12.17.12+free4.3.0351.11.12.5.13.10.20.80.3.32.1-alpha-lite1.0.182.0.05.225.01.4.328.2025021600.5.141.3.20.10.11-480.12.21.7.30.9.981.10.01.9.13202502170.13.91.0.101.1.63.29.12.9.10.0.700.2.53.01.0.1062.0.93.0.22.3.125.00.7.11.64.1b42.8.21.703.8.00.0.211.11.26.162.01.7.12.12.0-1-1.6.11.9.41.1.0harmattan60verena1.3.92.10.123.3.11.6.12.10.01.ose1.5.81.21.02.8.10.1.101.0.0-alpha.207.0424.8.5.22.0.21.17.01.0.15.11.00.8.2 (fdroid)1.0.311.7.142.25.01.1.21.16.14.4.42.5.170.2.11.7.50.8.55.1.10.1.22.3.09.1.11.0.81.5.21.334.5.5a202502240.9.9.912.0.85.5.82.9.31.11.03.0.320.3.11v1.2.01.1.451.0.85v5.0.01.3.85.0.34.3.102.0.12.10.02025.02.17-3-FDroid1.8.370.95.61.1.11.6.151.9.3v8.0.0202502231.9.21.601.9.11.0.141.0.beta400.4.4.22.2.58.8.21.01-78-fdroid0.8.02.111.29.15.8.58.42.17.12+free125020471-github18.12.0.0Judices1.32.5.41.3.81.6.73.0.01.2.00.12.31.58.6.32.9952.9952.5.24.61.50.8.42.5.30.16.52.3.81.8.01.10.21.31.04.0.210.62.61.5.54.12.22.9.245.06.8.00.9.24.2.11.41.0.2474.0.62.17.107.1.3270.250219.04.15.120.41.41.3.11.0.82.24.3r/2.7.50522-r-2025-02-201.9.12.10.0112.9.61.3.110.2.02.42.00.19.12.0.0-beta052.1.10.0.221.2.04.13.5.2Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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To help support F-Droid, please check out the donation page and contribute what you can.
27.2.2025 00:00Saving screens
F-Droid Client 1.22.0 has been live for a couple of weeks now, the gist of the changes can be read here. Did you give it a good shake on your Android distro? No? As it’s not yet “suggested” only users that manually update or opt-in into Betas got it already, so feel free to do that and ping us if we need to fix any last minute thing.
Are you around Valencia, Spain on Feb 28? Would you like to mess with Linux, ad blocking, free apps, federated networks? There’s a workshop for you at Las Naves, more details here. And if you stay a bit longer you can start to code your own game in Godot in the next hours.
(/PS: When ready, feel free to add it to F-Droid and join the other dozen Godot games)
ArcaneChat and Delta Chat were updated to 1.54.0. If you want to dig deeper under their skin to see what makes them tick, you can read about the RIIR (rewrite it in Rust) adventure in the new “From C- to JSON-based APIs of the Rust “core” library” post.
Emacs was updated to 30.0.93, with dependencies required to render SVG and other raster and vector image formats, initiate TLS connections, shape Indic and Arabic text, and load tree-sitter grammar libraries. The description has also been revised hopefully to create less confusion.
2.0.1 to 1.5.0, pending some upstream changes.0.8.6a5.0.8462.1.1110391.6.14.2.063.3.050.3.02.0-rc55.01.0.62.11.6.Meta1.4.11.9-alpha-lite2.2.2-beta.52.9.31.4.327.2025021400.9.971.7.41.9.21.0.1032.0.51.3.01.6.02.56.02.2.71.126.15.3.31.8.120250207-032.0.11.5.62.8.00.6.103.1.101.11.7.12.0.5+free3.31.0 RC2202502132.0.54.03.0.311.0.842.9.0v4.17.8irreproduciblev4.17.80.7.554.5.0-beta.19.7.03.35.46.1.00.10.21.01-77-fdroid5.8.58.21.1.12.5.14.48.2-fdroid125020411-github0.12.8170.8.0-ex_25_2_00.6.73.0.81.41.40.0.161.11.33.1.222.9942.9941.0.112.3.11.7.14.0.194.2.34.0.5267.250206.0267.250206.04.15.1111.01.2.52.2.92.0.02.23.811.3.09.1.02.1.027.233Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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You are welcome to join the TWIF forum thread. If you have any news from the community, post it there, maybe it will be featured next week 😉
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20.2.2025 00:00Rewrite it in FOSS
We’ve teased the new Material Design 3 UI client design update, and the feedback is as expected, from “I hate it”, through “I don’t care”, to “I like it”. This is work in progress but we’ve polished it internally for the last year, so it’s pretty close to being done. Yes, pure black theme is staying, but the bottom bar will be dark gray. No, we can’t keep the old design in parallel too. Yes, Basic is built from the same source so everything will apply as well. No, it does not cover all views just yet, some are custom and need more work to be updated. Yes, we don’t expect any performance hit, but this might depend on your device and its Android version.
Building on this base, in the future, we can imagine adding Material You support too, for Android 12 and later devices, so you can make your own device wide pastel theme and love/hate it in private.
If you can lend a hand to fix any urgent issues that you see, feel free to contact us.
Box Smasher, Shoot balls to smash boxes into the void!, has made the transition from a centralized store to F-Droid. Welcome!
DigiAgriApp was updated to 0.3.2, previous two versions were missing some libs so if you had issues, update and retest.
mLauncher - Minimal and Clutter Free launcher, Fork of Olauncher, +minimalization, +customizability is back and updated to version 1.7.0. Users rejoice!
In more game news, Naija Ludo +, A Modern Twist on the Classic Board Game, is live too. It brings the classic board game of Ludo into the digital present.
SherpaTTS made a splash last week on launch as users crowded to install it and use it. Update 1.3 is available now, fixing crashes and adding the most wanted feature: multiple languages.
Video Diary, Record your life in one short video a day, brings the new concept of a short video journal for the future, in FOSS form, and privately.
@shuvashish76 manages some apps:
App Manager - Android package manager was updated to 4.0.0 with a long list of changes. And if you feel the need to dig deeper, you can read the 80 pages long app manual, it might take you about 3 hours to do that.
0.8.65.4.132025.02.002.0.03.2.15.0.8412.1.01.52.21.12.31.3.08.0.0+ble1.1.11.8.51.6.0101.6.01.4.85.4.2_freenet0.7.5372025.02.11031.8.01.6.11.3.0v5.2.49.12.17.10+free1.4.21.4.03.10.14.4.7-ose1.0.162.9.11.4.326.2025020301.3.01.6.3025.02.00.16.11.9.3202502090.13.61.0.92.9.00.0.66135.0.00.11.02.4.41.0.982025.02.12.0.42.1.05.4.41.24.06118.10.8.11.1.52.0.52.3.03.1.11.35.00.34.11.6.04.1.52.1.20.0.182.23.01.191.11.03.25.0v1.4-045.3.11.7.2Build103.0.120250207-021.511.92.1.32.10.11.4.360.6.91.0.0-alpha.190.14.17.7.103.0.41.2.101.7.61.15.31.4.11.92.18.11.7.02025.02.073.6.151.14.09.0.63.9.51.5.10.27.613.4.0202502092.0.42.1.44.0.33.0.300.0.246.3.281.0.811.3.71.2.01.9.04.3.90.23.03.17.23.17.3-beta1.37.01.54.250.8.41.6.12v7.0.43.35.33.2.0202502081.9.11.591.0.138.5.40.10.23.4.02.51.0.172.17.10+free0.6.90.6.7016.12.5.31.6.30.sc852.12.1100.0.155.251.481.11.12.81.0.34.42.2.13.195.260.8.21.0.211.1.32.3.714.4.85.4.0/X0.1.74.12.112.00.27.6266.250202.0266.250202.04.15.9-patch11.0.131.2.42.24.210.01.6.12.13.8r/2.7.50519-r-2025-01-302.9.51.2.49.0.1202502092.0.0-beta030.5Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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You are welcome to join the TWIF forum thread. If you have any news from the community, post it there, maybe it will be featured next week 😉
To help support F-Droid, please check out the donation page and contribute what you can.
13.2.2025 00:00Materialization of modern design
From a prolific FOSS dev @woheller69 we now have another app, SherpaTTS, Text-to-Speech engine based on Next-gen Kaldi. We’ve complained before about the FOSS voice situation, that while RHVoice got some updates, it’s still limited to 8 natural voices, and the new eSpeak is great, supports many voices, but the robotic synthesized sounds are harder to tune and use. Out of the LLM gold rush we hope to extract some value for the end users too, and applying their magic here appears to give some really nice results.
How good? SeeHear for yourself on the test page.
After install and the download of your language of choice, don’t forget to go to Android Settings, System, Languages, Text-to-speech and select SherpaTTS as the preferred engine. Now your apps will use it to give you directions, like Organic Maps mentioned below and OsmAnd~, read text out-loud or even your notifications (via Voice Notify).
On related apps, from the same developer even, do also try Whisper (Voice recognition speech to text: you don’t type, you just talk and magically the text appears on screen) and Seamless (After talking, the text is translated to another language).
Organic Maps: Hike, Bike, Drive Offline, was updated to 2025.01.26-9-FDroid. In the past we had our share of long philosophical discussions with the OM app team, say about newly added ‘features’, and about the nature of Ads but it all ended well enough from our point of view. The latest version improves upon all these, map features aside, as it fixes two of the pain points that had the app flagged with anti-features more than one year ago. The added Kayak hotel links are now a setting users need to enable if they want and the CDN servers that serve your maps finally run FOSS software.
Tubular, A free lightweight YouTube front-end, is newly added. It’s a fork of NewPipe which brings support for SponsorBlock and ReturnYouTubeDislike features and more.
5.4.12v5.5.02025.01.020.9.33.2.06.65 Stable1.52.112.2.012.2.012.2.012.2.01.3.5.363.2.550.2.410.2410.241.7.02.4.01.7.111.3.11.2.0v5.2.21.22.71.0.1311.4.71.52.12.0.01.1.4-hotfix21.56.05.224.00.1.70.10.11-471.7.04.3.21.9.25.4.01.22622.4.31.0.9111.7.1.01.69.1-FOSDEM-Edition1825.03.1.00.2.94.1.40.0.152.0.142.7.11.125.61.7.111.72.1.51.12.02.10.01.0.0-alpha.181.1.73.0.27.033.1.90.27.01.2.81.12.15.9.10.8.42025.01.310.23.173.9.41.5.04.5.5202501312.0.22.9.12.1.312.5.37.0.06.3.261.1.401.3.63.17.12.8.01.8.360.95.50.8.32.9.23.35.2202501301.8.03.4.03.8.01.3.725.28.3.20.10.00.7.13.19.32.4.21.0.162.7.61.4.234.48.1-fdroid0.6.7125010291-github0.6.691.6.61.1.01.11.02.9932.9931.9.54.33.195.251.0.11.15.41.80.0-t4f4686503-gb1405a1d10.14.31.7.01.0.714.4.61.30.00.0.271.5.344.00.9.12.17.9261.250116.0266.250131.00.2.34.15.71.2.320.2.3.00.6.32-fdroid2.24.01.7.31.101.6.02.0.0 (F-Droid)1.2.22.41.22.0.00.0.214.13.4.2Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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6.2.2025 00:00Hearing your device speak
We are excited to announce that F-Droid has been awarded $396,044 from the Open Technology Fund’s FOSS Sustainability Fund. This grant is specifically designed to support free and open-source software (FOSS) projects in addressing long-term sustainability challenges, and we are honored to be among the recipients.
As F-Droid’s user base and community of volunteer contributors has grown, so have the challenges of maintaining and expanding the project. While our lightweight, resilient architecture has scaled to meet increasing demand, we now face critical issues that dedicated and consistent funding will help us address so we can continue to bring FOSS-based, privacy focused apps to people around the world, even in places with limited internet access. This OTF funding will help us:
Refactor and integrate code with other maintained projects to reduce technical debt and improve efficiency.
Establish clear policies and legal strategies for handling government take-down and censorship requests.
Improve our localization workflows to make translations easier to manage and maintain.
Strengthen our donation infrastructure so we can sustain F-Droid long-term.
Enhance our hosting and infrastructure to increase flexibility, reduce costs, and ensure reliability.
This grant represents a major step forward in ensuring F-Droid’s long-term sustainability. We look forward to sharing progress as we work on these improvements.
You can follow our progress here:
Related issues
Related merge requests
A big thank you goes to the Open Technology Fund for supporting open-source infrastructure and helping projects like ours continue to thrive!
5.2.2025 00:00F-Droid Awarded Open Technology Fund’s FOSS Sustainability Grant
F-Droid and F-Droid Basic were updated to 1.22.0 stable, but not yet ‘suggested’. If you’ve missed the quick alpha version you can read the list of changes.
Current changelog since the alpha is short:
As usual we ask brave users to test this release and offer feedback as soon as possible. How to install this release? In F-Droid Client, on its own page, either scroll down, expand Versions and install the latest, or in the upper right menu choose “Allow Beta updates”.
Does IOCipher ring any bells for you as a developer? If so, you’d be informed that @Zoff, the developer behind Trifa - Tox Client, has picked up maintaining a fork of IOCipher and updated to version 1.0. You’ll have to adapt your code a bit so do read about this community reboot here.
Delta Chat and ArcaneChat were updated to 1.52.0, with fixes all around. That aside, their push of Webxdc is getting more traction, across protocols and with many more apps for users to drop in their chats. Were you rehearsing your elevator pitch for the moment you see a VC going up? Maybe you need to cross out some of those app ideas as Webdxc might replace billionairish platforms with ZIP files.
Dolphin Emulator was updated to 2412, and you can read about all the new goodies while it installs. Oh, wait, I lied, Release 2407 and 2409 notes will take you at least 30 minutes, and you might need to grab a beverage as Release 2412 notes will need 40 more.
KDE Connect was updated to 1.32.11, and maybe you should keep an eye on any popups about the update being blocked, as some reported this week and last week.
NewPipe was updated to 0.27.5, fixing one of the recent issues with Youtube, the other issue that stops videos at 59 seconds is work in progress.
Tarnhelm version 1.6.6 was rebuilt, to fix an issue with Xposed API, so now it’s missing for one cycle but it will come back in the next one along with the next version.
@linsui transfers our words:
CatShare, App for Mutual Transmission Alliance, was just added. Do you have a phone made in China which comes with a convenient file transfer function? Some phones made in China support Mutual Transmission Alliance in the stock ROM but this function is not available in FOSS ROMs such as LineageOS. CatShare is a FOSS implementation of Mutual Transmission Alliance protocol. Now you can transfer files between any ROM with Mutual Transmission Alliance protocol thanks to the power of FOSS.
Ciyue was updated to 1.0.0, bringing multiple dictionaries support. The external storage permission is removed, therefore when upgrading from old versions the dicts won’t work anymore. Please clear the data and import them again.
3.1.93.2.41.7.363.2.350.2.32.0-rc43.8.00.27.3-beta2.3.01.8.41.2.221.0.90.3.11.3.80.6.5360.9.21.1.02.3.12025.01.10971.51v0.16.02.17.2-4+free1.520.7.12.11.5.Meta2.17.9+free1.4.401.4.14.4.6-ose1.21.7-alpha-lite1.7.01.10.01.4.325.2025012500.1.64.3.10.13.51.22600.6.20.6.271.1.995.4.32.2.91.2.01.1.40.34.03.0.01.16.97.0.02.02.7.31.5.02.22.01.11.01.7.0-beta3.24.0Your Way +21.125.32.10.1120250123-01jmp-v1.2.11.4.61.4.341.0.0-alpha.177.7.97.021.1.03.61.2.21.2.141.2.01.15.24.4.32025.01.240.1.441.25.4a1.25.4a9.0.51.0.63.31.0 RC1202501272.0.120.1.15.4.92.0.112.5.13.0.276.3.213.4.81.0.781.3.34.3.61.5.23.1.43.17.0v4.17.7irreproduciblev4.17.71.53.20.95.46.1.06.1.00.8.21.6.111.24.3.0v7.0.0202501241.23.23.3.08.2.11.1.01.0.142.17.9+free125010241-github0.12.70.6.681.3.71.6.40.6.61.31.10.94.23.195.241.3.00.2.214.4.53.901.7.54.0.17MatriX.135.2.F-Droid262.250122.00.2.24.15.51.7.53.0.22.2.21.2.11.6.00.6.29-fdroid1.7.8r/2.7.50517-r-2025-01-211.3.32.0.61.0.51.1.1Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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You are welcome to join the TWIF forum thread. If you have any news from the community, post it there, maybe it will be featured next week 😉
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30.1.2025 00:00Refresh your home-screen
In an important step toward ensuring a safe, constructive, and empowered community, the F-Droid Board put out a call for Community Council nominations and subsequent extension. This search yielded one nomination, that of Vishal Bakhai, aka vdbhb59 (Harry), who is an active moderator of the F-Droid forum and other channels.
If you have any feedback about the nomination of Vishal, or feedback about the process of the Community Council, please email elections {at} f-droid {dot} org before 2025-02-18. We’ll also try to monitor other channels on a best effort basis.
If you would like to nominate yourself or somebody else as a potential member of the Community Council, we welcome nominations via elections {at} f-droid {dot} org until the end of the feedback period on 2025-02-18.
27.1.2025 00:00Seeking feedback on Community Council nominations, and a call for more
Element - Secure Messenger was updated to 1.6.28, small fixes, yet big changes ahead. Last week we casually mentioned that Element users should test try other apps too, say like Element X or the fork SchildiChat Next, but we did so since we’ve seen what’s coming. The gist of it is that Element is being sunsetted and this version already is being impaired to force users to switch, as the app will “prevent creation of new accounts on server with MAS support, and redirect users to Element X”. Critics already pointed out that: “Element X is still very much incomplete, no support for spaces, no support for threads, and no support for validating other users”, so do shake these new clients thoroughly before jumping for good. We will add more news as we come across them.
For now SchildiChat, the Element fork, will not block any in-app features, so users still have options.
Emacs was updated to 30.0.93 as the first version that is specifically improved for Android. Potential users might shriek while reading the permissions list, and we’d like that pruned as much as possible too.
FOSDEM 2025 is a week away, and after you finish reading about the billionaires future dramas at the conference, do check the updates for FOSDEM 2025 Schedule, now at 1.69.0-FOSDEM-Edition, and FOSDEM Companion at 2.2.8. When you reach FOSDEM do try to find us, we might have stickers!
KDE Connect was updated to 1.32.10, and for a second we had a flash-back from October 2023 as we’ve seen this worrying report. We hope it’s just a glitch…
PeerTube, Federated video platform, is finally here and built reproducible. We host several apps that might be considered 3-rd party PeerTube clients or Fediverse clients that can access it, but now we have the so called official app. There has never been a better time to embrace federated services, and it’s getting better.
Still in federated news, Pixelix was updated to 3.2.1, did it replace your use of some big corporate siloed photo sharing site/app? Maybe take a look at it, as for a little while it was the best selling social network app in some other store. F-Droid offers it for free, but you can thank the developer on their Buy Me a Coffee donation page. And if you want to improve the app, there’s no easier way to contribute than translating it.
Podcini.R - Podcast instrument was updated to 7.3.5 for one last time, as the developer stopped its work on the app. We guess the integration with some big video site from a known monopolist corporation is proving problematic, once again.
But all is not lost, the developer will continue to work on the newly added Podcini.X - Podcast instrument, Modern, feature-rich, podcast instrument, app instead.
VPN Hotspot, Tethering/Wi-Fi repeater, a new fork of the old VPN Hostspot app was added and since the old one has not been updated for a long time it will be archived soon. Do try this one and replace the vanishing one.
Write On: Simple Notepad was updated to 1.2, yet you have it and you don’t see the update? Unfortunately the developer lost the key, no joke, bad things happen. Hence you’ll need to uninstall the app and reinstall the fresh one.
/PS: We’ve updated the RSS link in the footer to point straight to the feed. While the plain link was useful for both browser users and feed apps users, not all RSS apps would pickup the feed correctly unfortunately. Now the link is for app use only.
1.69.01.5.256+20250113.3575.02bcdf3a3.3.42.4.01.0.62.0.03.1.8v0.121.12.22.7.12.7.24.10.28.0.0+ble1.1.02.3.00.3.00.8.31.3.10.9.11.6.12.2.43.1.22025.01.10953.1.352.34.49.6.01.2.2v1.11.22.25.1.21.4.396.1.10.7.112.0.78.80.58.01.0.121.6.31.4.324.20250119014.3.00.12.14.2.80.9.810.13.31.0.81.22592.8.10.10.01.1.10.4.511.5.6.01.3.11.1.32.2.01.16.82.1.41.4.02.21.02.0.132.02.31.573.23.03.7.4-open2.2.6Your Way +11.3.02.185.3.01.7.0Build103.0.07.0.0y25-v120250117-013.2.711.62.10.00.ose1.6.21.0.0-alpha.163.2.20.13.08.0-a13.0.02.3.0-beta.11.2.12.8.31.12.02.24.10.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.190.5.193.1.21.15.12.5.165.9.01.0.72025.01.142.0.4+free2.1.12.2.01.1.01.321.0.90.13.03.30.80.24.01.24.5202501215.4.12.4.01.10.36.06.4.11.1.393.4.713.0.101.0.61.3.04.0.24.18.14.3.53.1.22.0.0v4.17.6irreproducible1.52.31.8.356.0.06.0.01.6.5v6.4.03.34.1202501201.9.01.0.121.23.00.4.4.12.1.02.2.43.00.9.61.01-76-fdroid3.19.23.2.04.6.72.4.11.0.111.5.6125010201-github1.11.60.6.672.4.41.6.31.3.6-rc03.02025.1.0-free1.26.56.2.41.10.73.1.20v0.334.12.32.060.11.4.23.2.32.3.51.29.2.014.4.30.14.03.893.1.11.7.44.0.161.4.154.11.1MatriX.135.1.F-Droid1.0.2464.0.42.17.827.2259.250113.00.2.04.15.33.13.0.11.2.01.5.0b2.23.22.01.6.44.10.02.9.39.0.02.41.04.3.11.0.424.12.27j-0.0.201.1.0Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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You are welcome to join the TWIF forum thread. If you have any news from the community, post it there, maybe it will be featured next week 😉
To help support F-Droid, please check out the donation page and contribute what you can.
23.1.2025 00:00Federated services made easier
With 2024 now behind us, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the growth and achievements we accomplished as a community last year, and celebrate the incredible support we received from the FOSS community throughout the journey.
This year has been a milestone for us, with significant strides in decentralizing app distribution, expanding the F-Droid ecosystem, and solidifying our infrastructure. All of these advancements were made possible thanks to donations, grants, our volunteers and regular contributors. So thank you again to everyone who helped make 2024 another great year for F-Droid. Now let’s take a closer look at what we accomplished.
One of the most important initiatives we worked on in 2024 was the continued development of our app decentralization efforts. Our aim is to make F-Droid a more robust and accessible platform, making further in-roads into the hold Big Tech currently has on app distribution. Building on the work we started in 2022, as a part of the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web grant, we continued to make substantial progress this year in providing developers and end-users with more options to distribute their apps through a decentralized, equitable and privacy-oriented process. The goal for this project is to enable individuals and organizations to mirror and distribute F-Droid apps in a community-driven fashion, reducing reliance on centralized services. This work ties into a larger vision of creating a truly open-source ecosystem for Android apps that is not governed by proprietary companies.
In 2024 we completed the following infrastructure upgrades:
Broke out and overhauled core client logic around publishing and consuming repositories.
Made client logic into libraries to make it easy to embed repositories in any app that needs it.
Added support for mirroring repositories onto both IPFS and Filecoin.
Added support in F-Droid client to use mirrors and repositories hosted on IPFS and Filecoin.
Improved F-Droid client “whitelabel builds”.
Enhanced F-Droid client’s existing “nearby” and “app swap” capabilities.
Updated F-Droid’s Repomaker tool (for easy “point and click” curation and publishing of app repos) and add support for IPFS publishing.
Supported iOS apps and progressive web apps (PWA) as packages that can be shipped via repositories.
2024 marked the end of this grant period, however the tools, features and policies established within the scope of the grant, will continue to be developed thanks to donations and other funders who are committed to further decentralizing app distribution.
Another key project we started in 2024 was the further exploration and expansion of tools within the F-Droid ecosystem. Thanks to a major grant from EU Horizon Europe, we were able to deepen our focus on tools like Repomaker, which helps developers create their own F-Droid-compatible repositories. This tool is crucial for maintaining and growing the diverse range of apps available on F-Droid, and its expansion will support more developers who wish to contribute to the platform.
Mobifree is an initiative that aims to provide a free, open-source, and decentralized alternative to traditional mobile app stores. It focuses on the freedom of choice, privacy, and user empowerment. Our contributions to this project will help strengthen the ties between F-Droid and other decentralized app distribution systems, ensuring that we remain a key player in the future of open-source mobile software.
Do you have your own project ideas for Mobifree? You can apply for up to 50,000€ from NLnet NGI Mobifree. We can help you apply, just reach out via the regular F-Droid channels.
Key Contributions in 2024:
In 2025, we continue to contribute to the Mobifree project, getting our tools, apps and software ready for pilot testing this spring. From there, we will continue to improve the software based on user-testing feedback, ultimately making the tools available for the general public to use and enjoy.
None of this would be possible without the incredible contributions from the FOSS community. In 2024, we saw a substantial increase in the number of contributions to F-Droid. From bug fixes and app updates to new apps being added to the store, our community of developers, testers, and contributors have been pivotal in keeping F-Droid running smoothly.
Here are some statistics that highlight the community’s impact this year:
These numbers are a reflection of the dedication and passion of the F-Droid community. We are immensely grateful for each and every contributor who made these achievements possible.
As we look forward to 2025, we are excited to announce two key additions to the F-Droid team who will help us scale our efforts in the coming year. Hailey Still has joined us as a new project manager and UX designer. Hailey brings a diverse background of experience in managing complex projects and designing user-friendly and intuitive interfaces. Her expertise will continue to be instrumental in helping us secure new grant opportunities, streamline our operations and improve the user experience tools we work on.
We are also pleased to welcome Nzambi Kakusu as our new grant administrator. Nzambi will play a crucial role in helping us secure and manage funding for F-Droid’s continued development. With her experience in grant management, Nzambi will help ensure that we can continue to sustain and grow the project in a way that aligns with our mission and values.
In 2025 we are thrilled to begin working on a grant funded by the Open Technology Fund. This grant will help us maintain F-Droid and focus on critical infrastructure work that was often overlooked, due to lack of consistent funding in the past. We’ll be working on improving the resilience and security of our systems, ensuring that F-Droid continues to serve as a reliable, open-source app distribution platform for years to come. There will be an official announcement article coming soon.
As we continue to grow and evolve, we are committed to our mission of decentralizing app distribution, expanding the F-Droid ecosystem, and empowering users with open-source alternatives to proprietary software. With the support of our community, our volunteers, and our new team members, we are excited for what 2025 will bring.
Thank you for being part of the F-Droid journey!
We look forward to an exciting year ahead, and we invite you to continue supporting F-Droid through contributions, donations, and spreading the word about our mission. Let’s make 2025 another year of progress for the open-source community!
21.1.2025 00:00A Look Back at 2024: F-Droid's Progress and What’s Coming in 2025
Fennec F-Droid was updated to 134.0.0, and we urge users that still use Mull to switch. We’ve been announcing this for the last 3 TWIFs, we’ve added a warning in the last cycle that you’ll see in the Updates tab and we marked the app for archival in the next index update. If you’ve been using the DivestOS repo, either by will or by running DivestOS Android on your device, the same advice applies even if, for now, that repo does not warn you about this.
Katawa Shoujo: Re-Engineered, (18+) A fan-made modernization of the classic visual novel, was added one year ago and back then we were amazed of its size. The app just got a huge assets update and also changed its application ID. The new app is Katawa Shoujo: Re-Engineered (yes it’s the same name adding to the confusion) and it’s now even bigger, weighting at 1GB (you read it correct, gigabyte!). The size comes from using the archive of the original developers which contained all assets including photo pictures of backgrounds with nicely preserved metadata. The devs spent most of the year with two artists drawing and formatting these 4:3 CGs to be used with current modern widescreen resolutions. Going forward, users that have it installed need to uninstall the old version and install the new one.
RetroArch was updated to 1.20.0 fixing an old pain point in the initial setup. Previously users would have needed to jump through the hoops in Online Updater, digging through 5 menus, to first download a list of assets and then be able to access them. Latest version packs an updated UI which will download everything needed in the first menu as expected.
Syncthing, Open, trustworthy and decentralized file synchronization, has been finally archived, as announced back in October ‘24, just in time for a new Syncthing-Fork update to 1.29.0.0. Still waiting to switch?
WG Tunnel, An alternative VPN client app for WireGuard with additional features, is now built reproducible, hence users will need to uninstall the old version and install the latest one.
Wikipedia was updated to r/2.7.50515-r-2024-12-16. In related news, the app team released a new study based on the behavior of its users. You can read a summary of it in “Wikipedia Searches Reveal Differing Styles of Curiosity” and the full paper here: “Architectural styles of curiosity in global Wikipedia mobile app readership”.
Concerned users brought up this study as an issue since “the team tracked more than 482,000 people using Wikipedia’s mobile app in 50 countries or territories and 14 languages”, which sounds like a grave privacy invasion. We want to remind you that until last year or so, the app was rightfully flagged with the Tracking anti-feature as users were unable to disable the in-app analytics. Since then, as far as we know, tracking was removed from the app. Remember: the anti-features flags are there to inform the users, not to punish the developers.
@linsui puts elements together:
Element - Secure Messenger was updated to 1.6.26 with the fix for an annoying bug that made replies from bridges not visible. It’s not marked as suggested yet so, if you want to get this version, please update manually or enable “beta updates” for it. In related apps, did you test Element X yet?
NClientV2 was rebuilt to fix the API compatibility. A rebuild will not pop-up as an update and you can’t update to the rebuild version from the F-Droid Client directly but you can install the APK, from the app page linked above, without uninstalling the broken version. Also of note, it seems this project has been discontinued so it’s unlikely to get any future updates.
1.5.250+20250106.3569.dc794da9v5.4.32025.01.013.1.75.0.840V2.6.143.6.11.0.51.50.80.3.24.6.41.12.12.7.10.8.91.2.210.1.71.3.62.1.5.foss3.1.11.0.52.4.11.2.021.51.510.6.00.7.0v5.1.42.17.8+free1.4.37344.0.4.51.4.62.0.6_10.57.01.50.51.7.2v7.7.11.55.05.222.01.4.322.2025011100.12.01.6.24.2.30.9.760.13.21.5.11.0.71.22580.6.12.8.00.0.630.2.30.6.262025.01.11.1.975.4.2600.8.01.1.31.1.02.11.30.6.34.1.31.1.12.0.112025.1.2-minimal1.6.3v1.4-031.124.2Build102.0.01.5.420250107-010.18.41.43.2.511.41.6.11.11.02.9.20.1.91.0.0-alpha.15.23.2.01.34.1-fdroid7.011.0.62.9302.3.0-beta.00.8.1 (fdroid)2.9.41.11.00.9.05.1.93.9.3.02025.01.102.142.3.0+fork.108.moshinda9.0.44.4.08.3.111.4.33.30.71.24.3202501115.4.00.12.2v1.1.83.4.51.0.771.1.3v1.2.14.3.43.16.8-beta0.8.31.21.11.51.11.8.341.6.91.6.43.32.0202501071.581.0.110.4.41.3.62.0.97.2.31.31.11.01-00-fdroid3.19.15.8.24.22.17.8+free1.4.220.4.01.14.00.6.6125010031-github0.6.661.4.20.7.6.sc202.11.41.3.4-rc23.0.72.35.08.6.20.2.83.1.191.2.02.42.1.222.123.195.223.2.211.1.22.3.31.15.33.1.01.7.24.0.144.0.03.1.01.3.343.06.7.00.9.01.0.2442.17.77.1.227.14.15.12.16.0-fdroid1.4.23.1.11.7.21.83.1.43.4.01.3.01.2.10.1-0200.19.0Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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To help support F-Droid, please check out the donation page and contribute what you can.
16.1.2025 00:00Stop mulling, get Fennec
How is the new Client 1.22.0-alpha0 update working for you? Did you notice any updates that seem stuck? Brave testers did. We mentioned last week that the new “gentle update” API might be troublesome, and indeed both internal testing and your reports showed as much. Apps that cling to foreground services to be able to run and serve you continuously like an email app, a music player or even a keyboard app, will not be updated unless either force closed or (for the keyboard) deselected as an input method.
It was decided to postpone the usage of this feature until we find a way to update such apps as well. What does this mean? Your music might stop for 2 seconds on update or your email client will restart. Might be annoying for a bit but it’s for a good cause. This change will come with a future alpha update and we will announce this then too.
If you can read Italian (or just use Fennecs translate feature), Enrico Zoia has prepared a new “Goodbye Big Tech: How to replace the most common apps on your smartphone with Open Source versions” article for you to start your year with. It takes just 10 minutes.
Fossify Paint, Quick, easy and open source drawing app, is here and now we can archive the old Simple Draw Pro. Go ahead, switch!
As mentioned in the last TWIF of 2024 the Privacy oriented web browser Mull has stopped development. As a new version of Firefox was released, and will be built in the next cycle, we marked Mull with the Known Vulnerability anti-feature to signal to users the need to switch to a currently developed browser instead. We recommend Fennec F-Droid.
OpenTracks (Non-reproducible) was updated to v4.17.5irreproducible adding this new strange name. Why? Because we now also include OpenTracks (Reproducible build), A sport tracker buddy that respects your privacy, which is the same app but signed by the developer, and built and verified reproducible by F-Droid. If you want, you can switch to the reproducible version doing an export and import of your tracks.
@linsui has the gist on proxies:
Exclave, Proxy client, was just added, a fork of the discontinued SagerNet. As we mentioned in TWIF 9 of 2024, the author of SagerNet published sing-box as a successor of SagerNet. Sing-box is a great app, but many users prefer the design and rich features of SagerNet. @dyhkwong started Exclave as a fork of SagerNet and has added some more features to it. With dyhkwong’s help, Exclave is available in F-Droid now with reproducible builds! There are some plugins but they are not packaged for F-Droid. Please get them from upstream.
4.1.11.10.73.3.32024.12.252024.12.023.0.75.0.8352.20.12.0.412.0.512.0.512.0.512.0.51.3.5.24.6.34.1.60.83.1-banglejs1.25.063.1.050.1.04.10.10.3.1-alpha0.8.82.2.61.5.11.5.00.2.02.2.34.5.12.0.51.0.42025.01.10893.1.3021.42.34.22.5.181.5.0v0.15.00.6.00.16.02.11.4.Metav5.1.31.22.65.1.12.17.7+free4.2.4324.4.2041.10.41.13.13.10.04.4.5-ose0.56.01.9.90.3.11.3-alpha-lite1.0.150.6.43.3.01.4.318.2024122201.9.10.1.50.11.04.2.21.0.31.0.61.22561.1.40.0.621.1.0171.0.11.1.01.7.31.0.60.83.10.7.01.64.1b21333.10.52.7.23.7.00.8.32.20.11.10.46.141.561.6.213.0v2.55.01.9.33.1.20.72y24-v141.5.30.18.32.9.11.6.02.9.02.7.20.1.80.6.87.7.57.002.0.11.7.02.0.13.2.72.2.31.2.01.2.132.7.52.14.01.10.11.14.01.1.11.4.04.4.22.5.155.8.42024.12.312.0.3+free1.13.09.0.33.9.32.3324.5.4a1.0.80.13.0-rc051.24.2202501036.3.03.0.264.3.21.36.01.50.31.8.335.1.05.1.02.9.11.6.71.7.01.0.2v6.3.09.6.03.31.4202412281.0.102.0.43.21.13.024.8.22.0.87.2.05.5.21.00-71-fdroid0.7.03.192.3.12.17.7+free4.48.0-fdroid1.13.70.6.3124123651-github1.1.10.12.61.11.50.6.65.11.6.131.1.22.4.21.3.62.1.060.01.6.26.sc840.7.6.sc192.11.32.12.0 (alwaysOnline)5.242.16.2.30.2.53.1.180.7.04.02.3.04.02.3.83.195.153.9.8351.4.111.0.32.2.91.14.40.14.20.1.62.0.23.0.24.0.121.4.140.0.2642.00.9.1.81.0.2424.0.13.3.22.17.57.1.027.0259.241220.04.14.191.30.30.41.31.0.62.0.31.0.31.14.020.2.2.01.4.12.3.63.9.23.6.61.6.31.9.01.2.4559258.4.02.40.54.3.01.72.0.50.18.26.0.524.12.27j-0.0.19Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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9.1.2025 00:00Gentle updates postponed
We wish you a Happy New Year! and we bring the new F-Droid and F-Droid Basic 1.22.0-alpha0, which marks the start of another dev testing cycle.
What’s new? More polishing, bug fixing and pain points addressed:
As usual we ask brave users to test this release and offer feedback as soon as possible. For example, “use ‘gentle update’ API so apps don’t get killed while in use” needs some attention, keep an eye on interactions with apps that keep a foreground service active, say like your email client or your messaging app, do they autoupdate as expected?
How to install this new alpha? In F-Droid Client, on its own page, either scroll down, expand Versions and install the latest, or in the upper right menu choose “Allow Beta updates”.
@codedoctor is a bit late here but wanted us to know that Linwood Butterfly 2.2.3 was released. It sounds like a small release but it’s one of the biggest quality of life updates.
Highlights:
🎨 More interface customization
💾 Save button indicator for autosave
🖊️ Laser tool improvements
📝 Template dialog improvements
🎨 Color wheel
🖼️ Render resolution
Full blog entry here.
Tailscale was updated to 1.78.1-t8903926f7-gfdc1e9ca4 after more than 2 months, as version 1.72.0 had some issues that we mentioned in TWIF 2024 week 43. Another good news is that the app might be swichable to build reproducible soon, if upstream agrees.
1.15.13.0.53.6.01.50.50.3.11.12.02.3.12.1.01.421.21.4.13.70.15.1v5.1.22.8.51.0.111.6.214.2.00.7.64.2.00.9.721.0.51.22522.7.4v1.2.01.1.950.33.00.6.24.1.11.0.81.9.220241216-0111.30.6.77.7.46.2524.8.4.22.2.3-rc.21.1.262.23.14.4.15.8.32024.12.191.10.013.3.3202412221.1.373.4.41.0.761.0.91.5.0v4.17.01.50.21.8.324.9.101.6.4v6.2.0202412211.0.96.16.41.28.53.3.02.31.4.211.13.41.11.40.6.65Josue3.0.42.5.21.3.3-rc02024.12.201.50.205.233.1.161.482.2.80.14.11.10.13.0.11.7.13.0.02.9.12.15.62.17.30.41.22.0.02.1.120.2.1.02.22.01.4.38.3.02.40.47.5.7Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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2.1.2025 00:00Happy new alpha!
Will you be at the 38-th Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg between 27–30 Dec 2024? If so, did you install the 38C3 Schedule and the c3nav Indoor navigation apps yet?
@thore proposed an F-Droid meetup at 38C3, so if you fancy a real human talk, add the FOSS Android App and F-Droid Community Meetup to your Day 2 TODO schedule!
Conversations and Quicksy were updated to 2.17.6+free polishing more of the UX about bubbles, avatars and reactions. While Audio and Video calls have been available since April 2020, recently the apps also got “Android calls integration” too. This makes an XMPP call behave like a normal phone call yielding useful features like: better Bluetooth integration and busy answer when you get called during an ongoing call. Not all Android versions support this, but newer ones do, so it all should be fine and dandy, right? Well, not quite. The integration was part of a larger code refactoring and the initial feedback was from plenty of devices, from many manufacturers, that… they stopped being able to call. Apparently this feature had a lot of bugs depending on the device and Android version, eg. tablets that advertised to have call integration or phones that did yet nothing worked. The developer started adding devices to an exception list with each new release making this an unwieldy endeavor. Latest version adds a toggle that allows users to just turn it off in case they’re unlucky and their device is one of the broken ones. Forks like Cheogram and monocles chat should follow suit soon.
Not all news is fun to type. We’ve been advertising the good work that the Divest project does, not only on the custom Android distro that helps old devices still be up-to-date but also about their apps in F-Droid. December marks 10 years of DivestOS, and this December will be the end of the project unfortunately. We wish Tavi all the best and thank them for all the work done during all this time!
Mull and Fennec we’re updated at the same time, so we hope there’s a way forward for Mull too and we’re tracking this in this issue. The rest of the apps might function by themselves or by having someone else host updated databases, we are tracking them in this issue.
@shuvashish76 fills the board:
LibreSudoku was updated to 2.0.0, with lots of changes. Major features include : Killer Sudoku, Backup & Restore.
1.15.05.0.8340.8.12.162.031.50.463.0.050.0.010.2110.218.0.0+ble1.0.40.0.70.6.5352.17.2-3+free0.15.01.22.51.4.4v1.10.21.11.31.50.3v7.7.02.8.01.40.1.31.1.41.22512.7.21.1.942.1.22.0.01.16.61.6.12.2.02.0.91.6.00.1.703.1.10.711.123.05.2.71.6.9Build101.0.02.09.04.ose0.1802.9.01.0.0-alpha.147.7.23.1.82.0.02.2.3-rc.11.1.2228.12.23.05.8.20.8.31.9.0-beta.63.9.21.0.01.4.2202412187.2.013.0.84.17.11.4.22.5.30.95.31.6.31.8.31.4.1202412171.0.81.22.01.0.254.0.26.15.111.18.11.0.15.8.15.00.1.21.5.56.2.11.6.121.6.20.7.5.sc181.20.85.226.2.12.22.2.62024.12.1151.28.1.15.3.0/Xv2.854.10.23.6.02024.12.15-fdroid4.2.0259.241217.04.14.160.41.11.0.22.21.01.1.28.2.02.40.2Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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26.12.2024 00:00Calls and call for a meet up
DEfO ECH Apps, Experimental fork of F-Droid to use TLS ECH with Cloudflare as the default host, was updated to 0.3 after two and a half years. If the buzzwords in the summary tickle your network needs, you can give it a spin, but remember that it’s based on the older client code so it might miss some of the new niceties. Testing helps us to hopefully integrate these features in the main client sooner.
ArcaneChat was updated to 1.50.3 and Delta Chat to 1.50.2. Did everyone test the new state-of-the-art Peer-to-Peer networking support introduced in 1.48? No? At least do read about it.
Element - Secure Messenger was updated to 1.6.24, but for various reasons only arm64 and x86_64 for now. The next cycles will bring the versions for the older armv7 architecture and the (probably gone by now) x86 architecture.
eSpeak, Text-to-speech engine for Android based on the eSpeak engine, was updated to 1.52.0 after a two year pause too. We complained that only RHVoice was updated 3 months ago, as its language support is limited, but looks like eSpeak is back, for arm64 and newer devices too, covering with its robotic voice more languages of the world.
Did you want to know more about the transition from K-9 to the Thunderbird app? Now you can, from the latest Heise interview with Philipp Kewisch. Three questions and answers: Technical change – from K-9 to the Thunderbird app is written in German, but Fennec and Mull will offer to translate it for you.
What about the apps? Well, K-9 Mail and Thunderbird Beta for Testers were updated to 9.0b3 and Thunderbird: Free Your Inbox was updated to 8.2.
SimpleX Chat was updated to 6.2.1, but given its build complexity and time needs only the armv7 version was built in the last cycle. Support for arm64 will come out soon. While you wait, peruse their latest posts, Preset servers operated by Flux, business chats and more and Oppose digital IDs.
@shuvashish76 brings us the gossip:
another.im, Yet Another Conversations fork but..., was just included yet it’s not a new app but the old Conversations Classic which finally fixed its issues that contributed to its removal in October. Welcome back!
DNSNet, Lightweight ad and content blocker, is a fork of DNS66, which appears to have its development stopped. The new app aims to continue the goals of the original with modern Android development practices.
Mullvad VPN: privacy is a universal right was updated to 2024.9 following their latest biennial security audit. A total of six vulnerabilities were discovered during the test by X41, and you can read about those and their fixes, here.
0.8.52.83.0.23.1.01.3.5v0.111.11.202.7.00.0.64.9.10.2.0-alpha5.3.1_freenet2024.12.10833.1.2921.12.34.11.24.9a.111.4.01.502.4.03.60.5.80.14.0v5.1.12.11v1.10.12.8.41.22.52.0.58.70.3.05.221.00.7.51.344.1.60.9.712.34.10.1.0-0-g78c03d12133.0.31.3.30.6.252024.12.15.4.111.5.3.0593.1.01.16.53.6.0.stable4.3.0.stable1.3.51.2.16.131.0.71.6.11.122.21.3.85.0.17220241211-010.18.23.2.39.20.1782.7.11.0.0-alpha.133.1.17.7.12.0.01.1.192.6.10.8.41.9.11.5.01.12.35.8.12024.12.1010.1.20.0.22133.0.33.6.141.25.2a1.25.2a0.1.19.0.08.3.101.4.11.0.7202412112.0.02.4.46.2.20.12.11.1.363.4.21.0.754.2.031.03.5.1.2v4.16.11.49.41.6.01.8.29.5.13.31.1202412120.10.01.3.46.15.43.2.23.1.22.21.13.3124123421-github6.2.00.6.641.6.110.25.31.6.12.5.11.3.2-rc02.04.63.1.150.6.02.13.9.01.42.1.2160.02.2.41.28.1.01.6.61.10.00.1.51.29.12.2.11.7.04.0.92.9.0-fdroid2.15.56.6.12.2.31.0.2412.17.227.0 beta 1256.241211.04.14.142.0.13.6.43.7r/2.7.50514-r-2024-12-111.8.21.1.12.40.12.0.41.6.2j-0.0.18Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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19.12.2024 00:00Message in a tunnel
Dear members of the F-Droid community,
Due to an error on the part of the Board of Directors, the call for nominations to the F-Droid Community Council was not properly communicated on our Mastodon profile and forum. For this reason, we are extending the deadline for nominations from the 15th of December 2024 to the 29th of December 2024. These nominations will be announced shortly before the New Year. To ensure that everyone in the community has an opportunity to make comments or raise concerns, the deadline for community feedback on these nominations will be similarly extended from the 1st of January 2025 to the 15th of January 2025.
We apologize for any inconvenience, and we look forward to your nominations and feedback.
Best regards,
Sebastian Crane on behalf of the F-Droid Board of Directors
14.12.2024 00:00More time to submit Community Council nominations
Automation is one key factor that lets the small F-Droid team provide apps to millions. The @checkupdates-bot is a new reworking of an old piece of automation in F-Droid: checkupdates. This goes through all of the existing apps, checks if they are set up for automatic updates, and if so, runs the process to automatically generate a new build entry for that release. That gets added to fdroiddata, which is what the production buildserver processes in order to build and ship apps.
Since the best security is provided by systems that follow the principal of least privilege, we recently reorganized our setup and workflow around that principal so that the @checkupdates-bot has the least privileges needed to do its job. The checkupdates process now runs in its own isolated project, separate from fdroiddata and any other F-Droid project on gitlab.com. It now only pushes commits to its own dedicated project, then makes a merge request per app to fdroiddata. Both our automated CI processes and our trusted human reviewers now handle all updates using the same process as for new apps.
At the same time, we removed a key bit of cruft in our code: stats/known_apks.txt. This file was the place that stored the dates when each app was added to the collection. This file was updated on the buildserver and maintained in fdroiddata. That information is also in the index file, so we switched to fetching it from there instead. That meant we could remove the last deploy key in use in fdroiddata. Our operations no longer require any deploy keys in fdroiddata.
While we were at it, we added some additional checks via the merge requests. For example, now any time an image file is added or modified, a CI job checks whether the image contains any EXIF metadata, which can be used as an exploit vector. We also added some additional enforcement to make sure changes to key files go through human review via merge requests.
About a month ago, @SomberNight reported a security issue to us in a confidential issue. We appreciate this detailed report, and also want to highlight their diligent follow up. In specific situations, the old setup was leaking the private deploy key which granted access to directly push commits to fdroiddata. We immediately revoked that key, then removed all privileges from the @fdroidci user that was associated with that private key. We also investigated all the leads we could follow to see if someone had used this key to insert something into F-Droid. We searched the activity of the @fdroidci user and found no evidence that unauthorized commits were added.
To be sure, we did some additional investigations. Since checkupdates had
been running as part of the fdroiddata project on gitlab.com, a malicious
app build recipe could have also read the CHECKUPDATES_SSH_DEPLOY_KEY
variable which contained the private key. We checked fdroiddata’s history
for signs of exfiltration and found nothing. We require that apps are built
from source code, and that source code is in a source code management system
like Git. That ensures a local copy with history is retained on our
buildserver. We searched our local copy source code and found no evidence
that any app build processes were trying to exfiltrate the checkupdates
private key.
Do you have more ideas for things to search? Please dig in and let us know if you find anything suspicious. Working in public means everyone is free to investigate and come to their own conclusions, and contribute to a more secure free software ecosystem on Android.
13.12.2024 00:00Security of the updates automation
Fcitx5, Input method framework and engines, and its plugins: Anthy , Clipboard Filter, Hangul, Jyutping, RIME, Sayura, Unikey were updated to 0.1.0-0-g78c03d12 adding a new plugin for Thai, floating candidates window when using physical keyboard and removed many unnecessary files in the packages. You can read more in the detailed changelog.
Back in October 24-th TWIF we’ve mentioned that Syncthing will no longer be developed, and that time has come, this week’s update 1.28.1 is the last one as its source code repository was archived. We repeat the advice to backup your settings and restore in the currently developed Syncthing-Fork app. The now old app will be Archived by the time the next TWIF appears so as future new users don’t get stuck with it and to allow current users to update at least.
GNU Taler is a privacy-preserving payment system, not meant as a store of value, but with transactions always backed by an existing currency. This “not another crypto coin” project is about digital money done right. Taler has been part of the “digital euro” discussion for a while now, as seen in past banks studies like these ones from Austria or Switzerland.
Since January 2024 they announced the creation of an EU-funded consortium with the central objective to launch GNU Taler as a privacy-preserving payment system across Europe. You can read more about NGI Taler, funding calls, its events and partners on the dedicated web page.
Latest grant from NLnet foundation that paid for the development of libeufin for regional- and event-currencies had its first result too, as it funded an external crystal-box security audit of the libeufin component of GNU Taler. You can read more, about the findings and the fixes, here
GNU Taler Point-of-Sale was updated to 0.2.8 and Taler Wallet was updated to 0.14.0.
1.10.63.3.23.0.1V2.6.132.20.02.0.31.49.01.3.4.10.3.01.3.462.1.049.2.00.1.7-alpha3.7.18.0.0+ble1.0.34.21.2321.01.490.5.70.13.1v5.0.21.22.41.0.1251.14.62.17.5+free2.0.41.9.81.0.75.220.01.33.2.00.3.214.1.04.1.25.3.01.81.22501.3.12.3.3v1.1.15.4.01.23.01.33.04.31.121.32024.12.1-minimal3.141.122.05.2.61.6.84.1.60.18.19.0b21.10.02.8.14.0.03.1.00.12.21.34.0-fdroid6.241.4.12.2.3-rc.01.1.173.1.11.3.22.22.5.121.6.35.7.21.0.62024.11.300.1.421.30.23.161.9.0-beta.30.27.42.9.13.30.62024120620.1.06.2.02.0.30.12.04.0.14.17.0v4.16.00.7.541.48.31.809.5.0202412054.0.11.0.beta392.2.26.15.31.00-70-fdroid0.6.05.7.93.12.1.12.17.5+free1.13.22.0.30.6.62.2Numeri1.3.51.6.02.5.01.4.1a1.1.41.6.24.sc830.7.4.sc171.50.013.1.141.10.4 - RC260.0-beta10.16.44.0.72.15.46.6.02.17.04.14.132.20.01.104.9.11.1559222.39.31.00Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂
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12.12.2024 00:00Forks to the rescue
When F-Droid is installed, it provides a strong, trusted channel to the apps you want to install. Ideally, F-Droid comes pre-installed on your device, like with CalyxOS, LineageOS-for-microG or DivestOS. Then there is already a verified version of F-Droid in place, ready to serve you.
We work to make the f-droid.org web site as hardened as possible to provide a trustworthy channel for first time installers to download the F-Droid.apk. For example, we recently rolled out Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) and DNS Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) protections for the f-droid.org domain name.
If a user already knows about the f-droid.org domain, or a trusted source tells them that f-droid.org is the right domain, then they will get the right F-Droid.apk directly from this website. Unfortunately, on the web, there are lots of ways to trick users into believing they are visiting the right website. This is usually known as “phishing”. For example, https://f-droid.org/de/ is the German version of this site, but https://f-droid.org.de/ is a site controlled by someone else who owns the org.de domain. Or some unknown owner has controlled f-droid.cn since 2015. We have not seen any activity on that domain, but it could still be used to lead users astray. We regularly buy domains that might be confusing to users to avoid them being misused. But that alone is unfortunately not enough (note: we’d love to buy that domain, let us know if you can help us find the owner).
This problem led us to look for other “roots of
trust”. When a user already
knows and trusts a channel, they can use to fetch and verify the
F-Droid.apk. For GNU/Linux distros like Debian, there is a strong trust
anchor provided by the built-in package manager. For other operating
systems, there are add-in package managers, like Homebrew for macOS. So we
made the new fdroid install command to take advantage of these trust
anchors. If you already trust your package manager, and it ships
fdroidserver v2.3.0 or newer (e.g. apt-get install fdroidserver), then
you can just install that, run fdroid install, and get a cryptographically
verified F-Droid.apk to install on your device.
On top of that, fdroid install will automatically try to download from a
number of built-in mirrors. So installing using fdroid install could be
more reliable than trying to download F-Droid.apk from this website. For
extra privacy, use fdroid install --privacy-mode and it will avoid
downloading from https://f-droid.org and instead download from mirrors
that host lots of different kinds of software. Any network observers will
not be able to see which specific software you are downloading from the
mirror. The visible parts of your download traffic will not show that you
are downloading something related to F-Droid. It is important to note that
the operator of that mirror will be able to see that you are downloading
F-Droid.apk.
As of this writing, here are some sources of the required version of fdroidserver:
apt-get install fdroidserverapt-get install
fdroidserver/bookworm-backportsbrew install fdroidserverpip install fdroidserver