F-Droid, for those unaware, is a free app store for Android devices that focuses on privacy. It lets users discover and install open-source apps. It’s been around for more than a decade at this point. Well, the project has now announced F-Droid 2.0, which it claims is the biggest update in 10 years. It is basically a complete redesign of the F-Droid app.
F-Droid 2.0 makes finding apps easier with improved search
The F-Droid 2.0 release follows more than a year of development and 14 test builds. It brings a modern interface, improved search, and a simpler experience that “works well.” The project notes that one of their main goals for F-Droid 2.0 was to make it easier to discover, install, and maintain the apps users rely on. Much of the redesign appears to be about making F-Droid’s app catalogue easier to navigate.
The main navigation is simplified into three core areas: Discover, Search, and My Apps. Meanwhile, the settings and Nearby Swap have moved to the top bar. Discover brings together categories, newly added apps, recent updates, and the most-downloaded names. My Apps provides a central place to manage your installed apps, updates, and other items.
F-Droid is expanding and refining Categories significantly, including more specialized categories, like VPNs, firewalls, password managers, navigation tools, and more. This should help make it easier to find specific types of apps. Search, in addition to app names, can now check descriptions, categories, and translated content instead of just app names.
Improvements to installation and update management
The company is bringing improvements for users searching in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Results can be filtered by categories, device compatibility, and anti-features. Nearby Swap still lets you share apps directly between devices without using a central server. However, a more reliable version is still in development.
The installation and update management are also seeing improvements. F-Droid 2.0 uses a unified installer that supports Android’s pre-approval API, allowing compatible devices to approve an installation soon after selecting an app instead of waiting for the download to finish. It can also check for and install updates automatically in the background based on your existing preferences.
More improvements to come
Pull-to-refresh is no longer there, with manual update checks now available through the three-dot menu in My Apps. Network and data-usage settings have also been reorganized. F-Droid 2.0 brings changes to some of its privacy features. Tor support is being simplified, with automatic detection removed and the existing “Use Tor” option moved to the general proxy settings. A Tor VPN is now the recommended way to route F-Droid’s connections through Tor.
Its disguise feature only changes the app’s name and icon, but the app remains visible in Android’s settings. The panic-trigger option for wiping apps is also still missing. F-Droid notes that in the coming months, it will continue improving performance, accessibility, app discovery, and overall usability.
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