F-Droid

In the digital age, large corporations and institutions are working to make the Internet more centralized, placing its control in their own hands, and thereby hindering the privacy and freedom of all users. This is not utopia, it's already happening. As a bitcoiner, decentralization, respect for privacy and individual freedoms are principles that you hold dear, especially in the tools you use on a daily basis. Android, unlike iOS, has for years allowed several app stores to coexist within its ecosystem, giving you the freedom to find and install apps from your favorite sources.

In this tutorial, we'll be taking a look at F-droid, an application directory that represents an alternative to application stores such as Google Play Store and Microsoft Store.

F-Droid is an application and tool store that lets you install free, open-source applications on the Android platform. F-droid itself is an open source project started in 2010 by Ciaran Gultnieks and several other contributors. The main aim of the project is to make open source applications accessible, and to enable initiators of open source projects to find a platform where they can publish their tools without having to refer to the Google Play Store.

Unfortunately, F-Droid is not an application available on iOS, and contains many tools designed for Android systems.

You can download F-droid from the official website in APK format and install it manually on your Android phone.

On Android, make sure you grant installation permissions for the browser from which you downloaded F-Droid.

Once installation is complete, F-Droid will launch an update of the Open Source application directories to enrich the applications in the store.

You can now install applications on your phone without going through the Google Play Store.

In the Application Store, you'll find several categories of applications to suit your needs. In the Categories tab, you'll find over 20 types of application, from browsers to free text editors, and all requiring the least amount of information on your part.

Would you like to install a specific application? Click on the Search button, then enter the name of the application you're looking for.

F-Droid provides comprehensive information on every application you wish to install.

By clicking on the application, you will find, among other things:

Find out more in our Thunderbird tutorial:

F-Droid gives you all the information you need to decide whether using an application protects your data and enhances your privacy. Scan all the applications you want to use, then click on the Install button to download and install your application.

Grant F-Droid installation rights by enabling the option in your settings.

F-Droid encourages the practice of open source and community contribution, notably via its Near By exchange option. Connect to the users around you via:

With this option, you can share and receive applications installed on your Android phone with friends and family in just a few steps.

In the Update tab, consult the list of available updates, and make sure you also read the information about new versions of each application to find out about any major changes to the version you're using.

You can also update the list of available applications by refreshing the page (scroll down).

F-Droid is an Open Source project that encourages contributions to applications that prioritize user privacy. You can add your own Android mobile app to the store through contributions to the F-Droid GitLab source code.

Your application must be open source, with the source code publicly available on GitHub or GitLab, for example.

You must then prepare a YAML file (the metadata) describing your application, including all the information and permissions required for its use, following the metadata template proposed by F-Droid.

In the Developers section of the documentation, you'll find all the resources you need to publish and maintain your applications on F-Droid.

Putting an application into open source is often synonymous with increased security, but also with considerable risk. How can you ensure that there are no malicious alterations in the source code of an application available on F-Droid?

F-Droid compiles applications on their own servers, based on the official source code and compilation instructions. Each published application is rebuilt and verified to ensure that it has not been compromised. This ensures that the APK offered is faithful to the source code published by the developers. What's more, each application installed via F-Droid is digitally signed, and then the signature fingerprint is compared with that announced by the application's developers on the official website or on the Git repository.

If you enjoyed this tutorial, find out more about our IT security and data management course: