How to download free and open source apps with F-Droid – AndroidGuys

How do you download apps on your Android phone? Most likely you head to the Google Play Store as its often pre-installed on your phone. Moreover, it gives you access to pretty much every kind of app or game you can think of. If not the Play Store, you probably use the Amazon Appstore.

What if you have a passion for open source software? Or, what if you dont like Google serving you ads and sponsored content as part of your experience? If either of these situations sounds like you, perhaps you should consider F-Droid.

Open Source Software (OSS), is software whose source code (the stuff that makes up the app) is made available for anyone and everyone to view, edit, or copy. This code is often managed by the git versioning system that keeps track of changes, called commits. The code is then uploaded to repositories on websites such as GitHub or GitLab.

The basic makeup of Android is open source software, known as the Android Open Source Project. Similarly, the Chrome browser is based off of an open source browser called Chromium.

F-Droid is an app store that exclusively deals in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). That is to say that he apps you download are open source and come at no cost to you. The main F-Droid repository mostly consists of apps vetted, compiled (put together from source), and signed by F-Droid. The app in itself is free of any form of tracking, which is why youll never see any download stats on the apps you find.

First, head to to F-Droid.org on your phone and click the download button. Your phone will probably prompt you with a warning or notification. If thats the case, do what it says and go into settings and allow your browser as an app source.

Upon installation, open the app up where you will see it immediately refreshing information from the repository.

When you click on an app, youll see the name, when it was last updated, some important links about the app, permissions the app needs, and previous versions.

If you like the app, click install. Itll download the app, and then you have to allow F-Droid to install apps and then install the app manually.

Its worth noting here that this means that all updates will have to be manually installed. This may change in the future because Android 12 could introduce a permission for alternative app stores to be able to install apps without user intervention.

In your settings, you can do things like change how updates are handled, change your theme, add a proxy, and turn on anti-feature apps

These are apps that, for one reason or another, arent completely in line with the F-Droid ethos. They may contain ads or tracking, connect to a non-free network service (such as YouTube or Facebook), or rely/depend on a non-free app or service (e.g. Google Play Services).

No problem! There are a variety of extra repositories you can add on, with some only containing one or a few specific apps. The biggest one, and a favorite of mine for those hoping to more fully replace the use of Google Play, is the IzzyOnDroid Repo. This contains apps compiled by the original developers and might include dependencies on Google Play Services. In total, IzzySoft contains around 650 apps.

To add a repository, go to https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721 and copy the link to the repo you would like to add. Then go into your F-droid settings, to repositories and then click the plus sign. The link will likely populate from your clipboard, so all you have to do is click Add and let the app add and update the repository.

After that, youre good to go! Enjoy your newly-freed Android experience!

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How to download free and open source apps with F-Droid - AndroidGuys