October 10th, 10-10, is the perfect day to announce F-Droid 1.0! After 7 years and the last year of intense development, we are ready to call the F-Droid ecosystem ready for prime time. We think that F-Droid is mature enough and ready for all users.

With 60+ languages, 100+ contributors, 2500+ apps, and many millions of downloads, F-Droid is already widely used. It is even the default, built-in app store for two important Android ROM projects: Replicant and CopperheadOS.

F-Droid started out with a focus on providing verified free software in an Android app repository. That remains the core goal of the F-Droid community. We built a lot of software to achieve that goal, and along the way, we realized that F-Droid is also a complete “app store kit” that anyone could use. It also includes complete build and release tools for managing the process of turning app source code into published builds.

What’s New

There are many things that are new and improved in 1.0, so this post covers some highlights. In the user interface, there is a whole now architecture as well as a lot of new small improvements.

• apps can include screenshots and feature graphics
• donations to app developers highlighted on the App Details screen
• inline download/install buttons for quick installation
• all app texts can be translated
• apps with known security vulnerabilities will be marked

F-Droid is now a first class app store

F-Droid can now be your only app store, fully integrated into your device with background updates and streamlined installs, all without sacrificing any of the privacy or security that F-Droid has always offered. F-Droid is already well known among those who install custom Android ROMs on their devices, and that is now much better supported via the F-Droid Privileged Extension, which can be flashed onto a device like any other OTA (Over-The-Air) update ZIP.

We will work with any ROM project to help them integrate F-Droid as the default app store, built into the ROM. See the Privileged Extension instructions for how to get started.

F-Droid in your language

All parts of F-Droid are now translatable, including the app descriptions, website and the command line tools. They are already translated into many languages. Having free software available in people’s native languages greatly reduces the barriers to entry. Look at the menu in the upper right of this website for the available languages.

Is F-Droid not available in your language? Or would you like to help improve the existing translations? Get involved!

F-Droid app

fdroidserver tools

$ fdroid update -h
usage: fdroid update [-h] [-v] [-q] [--create-key] [-c] [--delete-unknown]
                     [-b] [-i] [-I] [-e EDITOR] [-w] [--pretty] [--clean]
                     [--nosign] [--use-date-from-apk] [--rename-apks]
                     [--allow-disabled-algorithms] [-W W]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose         比一般情况输出更多的信息
  -q, --quiet           仅输出警告和出错信息
  --create-key          在密钥存储中创建资源库签名密钥
  -c, --create-metadata
                        创建缺少的主干元数据文件
  --delete-unknown      从资源库中删除没有元数据的 APK 和 OBB
  -b, --buildreport     报告编译数据状态
  -i, --interactive     需更新事项的互动提示。
  -I, --icons           对超过像素大小上限的全部图标进行尺寸调整，然后退出

Run your own app “repo”

f-droid.org is just one app repository (aka “repo”) out of hundreds of repos created by individuals all around the globe. So whether you are a musician who wants to publish their music or a developer who wants to serve nightly builds of their app, you are free to create your own repo and share it with other people independently of F-Droid.org. F-Droid repos can now include any kind of file: apps, videos, audio, ebooks, ZIPs, etc

Anyone can make their own F-Droid repo using the fdroidserver command line tools, the same as always. That requires knowledge of the command line, manual editing of “metadata” files to edit your packages’ store details, copying screenshots to the right directory, etc. Now with Repomaker, there is a simple web app to create repos, so special knowledge is no longer needed. More information on how to install Repomaker coming soon!

There are also new options for publishing custom, hosted repos. Standard webservers and Amazon S3 have been supported for a while. Now you can also publish repos directly to GitLab or GitHub. On top of that, we have improved the fdroidserver workflow when working with large collections of APKs, based on feedback from the developers of Izzysoft and Metro Tech & Solutions.

Join us!

Do you also want to see Android as a complete free software platform? Join us! There are many ways to contribute.

• get more apps built and included in f-droid.org
• test nightly builds
• translate any part of F-Droid
• improve the server side tools
• add missing features to the Android client
• make Repomaker work well on your platform

If you are looking for a good place to get started, see the list of “first timer” issues.