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F-Droid 2.0

1465 points · 420 comments · daveoc64

  1. jjice · · focus · HN ↗
    What does the future of something like F-Droid look like once Google does their lock down next year?
    1. pritambaral · · focus · HN ↗
      Since F-Droid (i.e., the repositories, not the app) builds all apps, a practical solution would be for the repositories (i.e., their signing keys) to be recognized by El Goog. Whether and how much help / obstacle the "maybe we do evil" company puts up for / against this is a different question.
      1. trinsic2 · · focus · HN ↗
        It seems to me this is a blocker to use if google can restrict sideloading like this. Its not going to end with just get people requiring to register their app with an identity. Wont they be able to put presser on f-droid devs to lock out software they consider a threat to some business model?
        1. McDyver · · focus · HN ↗
          > sideloading

          That newspeak term should just disappeared. It only contributes to the image that downloading and installing an app is something that is outside the "happy path". Installing software of your choice on a device you own shouldn't be demonised

          1. ragequittah · · focus · HN ↗
            Surely you see how installing unvetted software on a device that holds your entire life, bank info, photos, etc. probably shouldn't be part of the "happy path" for most people. You shouldn't even install software you haven't fully vetted from the google play store. This should be drilled into non-technical people.

            Those of us who want to can easily bypass it. My mom who doesn't know what she's doing and gets a phishing email with a fancy apk attached should probably have a hard time using it.

            1. g-b-r · · focus · HN ↗
              > a device that holds your entire life, bank info, photos, etc

              That device was called personal computer for decades, and the world didn't end for the simplicity of installing software on it.

              1. bluebarbet · · focus · HN ↗
                The difference is that the only people who used those personal computers were (are) an educated subset of the middle class in developed countries.
                1. g-b-r · · focus · HN ↗
                  No. Plenty of people with no technical knowledge.

                  Today people get in debt to have the latest orange iPhone, for a long time before that most people in, ok, developed countries somehow got hold of a computer.

                  Maybe with less brain cells burned by

                  1. g-b-r · · focus · HN ↗
                    I somehow forgot that last sentence there, apologies
                2. encom · · focus · HN ↗
                  That hasn't been true since September 1993.
                  1. bluebarbet · · focus · HN ↗
                    It was true then and it is true now. Outside businesspeople and students and the middle class of OECD countries (all amounting to a low single-digit percentage of the world population), ordinary people never bought desktop or laptop computers. By contrast, everyone has a mobile one in their pocket today.
                    1. g-b-r · · focus · HN ↗
                      That's just false
                      1. bluebarbet · · focus · HN ↗
                        More likely you're living in a bubble unrepresentative of the rest of the world. I just did some research, inconclusive because nobody is tracking this data. Personal-computer ownership in rich countries (i.e. "OECD") is indeed high. But only 12% of the world's population lives in Europe and North America combined. The figure is much much lower elsewhere in the world, where everyone lives. For example, 16 computers per 100 people in Brazil in the 2010s. [1] Most people in the world have never touched a laptop or desktop. Now that computing has gone mobile-first, the figure is only going to keep dropping.

                        [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;worldpopulationreview.com&#x2F;country-rankings&#x2F;computers-per-capita-by-country" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;worldpopulationreview.com&#x2F;country-rankings&#x2F;computers...

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