Announcing new libraries: F-Droid Update Channels
Posted on May 31, 2017
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
In many places in the world, it is very common to find Android apps via a multitude of sources: third party app stores, Bluetooth transfers, swapping SD cards, or directly downloaded from websites. As developers, we want to make sure that our users get secure and timely update no matter how they got our apps. We still recommend that people get apps from trusted sources like F-Droid or Google Play.
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New research report on the challenges developers face
Posted on May 15, 2017
| Seamus Tuohy
The Guardian Project has been working with the F-Droid community to make it a secure, streamlined, and verifiable app distribution channel for high-risk environments. While doing this we have started to become more aware of the challenges and risks facing software developers who build software in closed and closing spaces around the world.
There are a wealth of resources available on how to support and collaborate with high-risk users.
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F-Droid User Testing, Round 2
Posted on May 1, 2017
| Carrie Winfrey
#by Hailey Still and Carrie Winfrey
**** Here we outline the User Testing process and plan for the F-Droid app store for Android. The key aims of F-Droid are to provide users with a) a comprehensive catalogue of open-source apps, as well as b) provide users with the the ability to transfer any app from their phone to someone in close physical proximity. With this User Test, we are hoping to gain insights into where the product design is successful and what aspects need to be further improved.
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F-Droid: A new UX 6 years in the making
Posted on April 17, 2017
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
_(post by Peter Serwylo)_
F-Droid has been a part of the Android ecosystem for over 6 years now.
Since then, over 2000 apps have been built for the main repository,
many great features have been added, the client has been translated into over 40 different languages, and much more.
However, the F-Droid UX has never changed much from the original three tab layout:
This will change with the coming release of F-Droid client v0.
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F-Droid Lubbock Report – What We Want to Know
Posted on April 17, 2017
| Carrie Winfrey
F-Droid LBK Usability Study Report – What We Want to Know
Prepared by Carrie Winfrey
Preliminary Version – April 17, 2017
Introduction When planning this user test, the team outlined features and flows within the app on which we wanted feedback. From there, we created tasks for participants to complete that would access these areas, and produce insights related to our inquires.
This document is organized by the tasks participants completed.
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F-Droid now supports APK Expansion Files aka OBB
Posted on February 22, 2017
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
Many games, mapping, and other apps require a large amount of data to work. The APK file of an Android app is limited to 100MB in size, yet it is common for a single country map file to be well over 100MB. Also, in order to get users running as quickly as possible, they should not have to wait for huge amounts of data to download in order to just start the app for the first time.
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Build Your Own App Store: Android Media Distribution for Everyone
Posted on February 22, 2017
| Torsten Grote
Most people get their Android apps from Google Play. It is usually the simplest and most secure option for them. But there are also many people who do not have access to Google Play. This might be due to lack of a proper internet connection or simply because Google Play is blocked within their country.
The F-Droid project already offers tools to create independent app distribution channels for Android apps.
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Building the most private app store
Posted on June 2, 2016
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
App stores can work well without any tracking at all
Attackers are increasingly seeing app stores as a prime attack vector, whether it is aimed at the masses like XCodeGhost or very targeted like in FBI vs Apple. When we install software from an app store, we are placing a lot of trust in a lot of different parties involved in getting the source code from the original developer delivered to our device in a useful form.
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How to Migrate Your Android App’s Signing Key
Posted on December 29, 2015
| Abel Luck
It is time to update to a stronger signing key for your Android app! The old default RSA 1024-bit key is weak and officially deprecated.
What? The Android OS requires that every application installed be signed by a digital key. The purpose behind this signature is to identify the author of the application, allow this author and this author alone to make updates to the app, as well as provide a mechanism to establish inter-application trust.
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First Reproducible Builds Summit
Posted on December 9, 2015
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
I was just in Athens for the “Reproducible Builds Summit“, an Aspiration-run meeting focused on the issues of getting all software builds to be reproducible. This means that anyone starting with the same source code can build the exact same binary, bit-for-bit. At first glance, it sounds like this horrible, arcane detail, which it is really. But it provides tons on real benefits that can save lots of time. And in terms of programming, it can actually be quite fun, like doing a puzzle or sudoku, since there is a very clear point where you have “won”.
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First Reproducible Builds Summit
Posted on December 9, 2015
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
I was just in Athens for the “Reproducible Builds Summit“, an Aspiration-run meeting focused on the issues of getting all software builds to be reproducible. This means that anyone starting with the same source code can build the exact same binary, bit-for-bit. At first glance, it sounds like this horrible, arcane detail, which it is really. But it provides tons on real benefits that can save lots of time. And in terms of programming, it can actually be quite fun, like doing a puzzle or sudoku, since there is a very clear point where you have “won”.
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Building a trustworthy app store that respects privacy
Posted on June 2, 2015
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
One core piece of our approach is thinking about very high risk situations, like Ai Weiwei or Edward Snowden, then making the tools for operating under that pressure as easy to use as possible. That means that we might occasionally come across as a little paranoid. It is important to dive into the depths of what might be possible. That is an essential step in evaluating what the risks and defenses are, and how to prioritize them.
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Complete, reproducible app distribution achieved!
Posted on February 11, 2015
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
With F-Droid, we have been working towards getting a complete app distribution channel that is able to reproducibly build each Android app from source. while this may sound like a mundane detail, it does provide lots of tangible benefits. First, it means that anyone can verify that the app that they are using is 100% built from the source code, with nothing else added. That verifies that the app is indeed 100% free, open source software.
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Question: central server, federated, or p2p? Answer: all!
Posted on September 18, 2014
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
There are many ideas of core architectures for providing digital services, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. I break it down along the lines of central servers, federated servers, and peer-to-peer, serverless systems.
a central service with clients connecting to it Most big internet companies operate in effect as a central server (even though they are implemented differently). There is only facebook.com, there are no other services that can inter-operate with facebook.
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New Official Guardian Project app repo for FDroid!
Posted on June 30, 2014
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
We now have an official FDroid app repository that is available via three separate methods, to guarantee access to a trusted distribution channel throughout the world! To start with, you must have FDroid installed. Right now, I recommend using the latest test release since it has support for Tor and .onion addresses (earlier versions should work for non-onion addresses):
https://f-droid.org/repo/org.fdroid.fdroid_710.apk
In order to add this repo to your FDroid config, you can either click directly on these links on your devices and FDroid will recognize them, or you can click on them on your desktop, and you will be presented with a QR Code to scan.
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Automatic, private distribution of our test builds
Posted on June 6, 2014
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
One thing we are very lucky to have is a good community of people willing to test out unfinished builds of our software. That is a very valuable contribution to the process of developing usable, secure apps. So we want to make this process as easy as possible while keeping it as secure and private as possible. To that end, we have set up an FDroid repository of apps generated from the test builds that our build server generates automatically every time we publish new code.
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Turn Your Device Into an App Store
Posted on November 18, 2013
| cpu
As we’ve touched upon in previous blog posts the Google Play model of application distribution has some disadvantages. Google does not make the Play store universally available, instead limiting availability to a subset of countries. Using the Play store to install apps necessitates both sharing personal information with Google and enabling Google to remotely remove apps from your device (colloquially referred to as having a ‘kill switch’). Using the Play store also requires a functional data connection (wifi or otherwise) to allow apps to be downloaded.
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Setting up your own app store with F-Droid
Posted on November 5, 2013
| Hans-Christoph Steiner
(_This blog post as now been cooked into an updated HOWTO_)
The Google Play Store for Android is not available in all parts of the world, US law restricts its use in certain countries like Iran, and many countries block access to the Play Store, like China. Also, the Google Play Store tracks all user actions, reporting back to Google what apps have been installed and also run on the phone.
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Our new F-Droid App Repository (out of date!)
Posted on March 15, 2012
| n8fr8
Update: this blog post has been changed to reference our new FDroid repository at https://guardianproject.info/fdroid. If you are still using the old one originally described here which has the URL https://guardianproject.info/repo, you should switch to the new repo as soon as possible!
For all of you out there looking for a safe way to find and download apps outside of the Play Store (aka Android Market) or random, sketchy third-party app stores and file sharing sites, then your wait is over:
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