{ "archive_path": "archive/1790330699.595182", "base_url": "f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html", "basename": "f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html", "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-25 10:04", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=f-droid.org", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html" }, "domain": "f-droid.org", "extension": "html", "hash": "82PJF6JVRPVX6E0WSBYK", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=f-droid.org" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:45.126577+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790330699.595182", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:44.557564+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:45.797324+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790330699.595182", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:45.132120+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:56.475714+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790330699.595182", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:52.154828+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpr9l__woo", "https://f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:52.147531+00:00", "index_texts": [ "After more than a year of hard work, we are thrilled to announce the launch of F-Droid\n2.0, a complete redesign of the official F-Droid app and the largest app update\nin 10 years.\n\nFor more than a decade, F-Droid has helped people discover and install free and\nopen source Android apps. F-Droid 2.0 builds on that foundation with a modern\ninterface, better app discovery, improved search, and a simpler experience that\nworks well, whether you\u2019re new to F-Droid or have been using it for years.\n\nThis isn\u2019t just a visual refresh. The user experience was redesigned to\nintegrate smoothly with current Android patterns, like Material Design, while\nkeeping familiar F-Droid interactions in place. Key components were reworked and\nrewritten using Kotlin Compose, the standard toolkit these days, creating a\nfoundation that will help us deliver improvements more quickly in the years\nahead.\n\nWe are excited to begin rolling out F-Droid 2.0 to users over the coming weeks\nafter 14 test releases.\n\nWhat has changed?\n\nOne of our main goals for F-Droid 2.0 was to make it easier to discover,\ninstall, and maintain the apps you rely on. We simplified the main\nnavigation into three core areas: Discover, Search and My Apps. Categories are\nnow integrated into Discover, making it easier to browse and explore, while My\nApps provides a central place to manage installed apps, updates, and potential\nissues. Settings and Nearby Swap are still only a tap away from the top bar, but\nno longer compete for space in the main navigation.\n\n\n\nDiscoverability improvements\n\nHelping people discover relevant free and open source software (FOSS) was one of the\nprimary goals of F-Droid 2.0. As the F-Droid ecosystem has grown to thousands of\napplications, finding the right app has become increasingly challenging. The new\nrelease introduces improvements throughout the app from browsing and categories\nto search to make it easier to find software that matches your needs. And of\ncourse, F-Droid does this without tracking you, or trying to \u201cengage\u201d you to\nspend increasingly more time in the app.\n\nA redesigned Discover experience\n\nThe new Discover screen helps uncover apps you might otherwise miss. In addition\nto highlighting newly added and recently updated apps, it now showcases the most\ndownloaded apps in the repository. Whether you\u2019re new to F-Droid or looking for\nsomething different, Discover provides several ways to explore the growing\necosystem of free and open source Android applications.\n\nMore useful categories\n\nCategories play an important role in helping users browse the repository, so\nwe\u2019ve expanded and refined them significantly, including more specialized\ncategories that make it easier to find specific types of apps, such as VPNs,\nfirewalls, password managers, launches and navigation tools. Here is what you\ncan expect:\n\n\n \n First, we\u2019ve significantly expanded the category system. Instead of relying on a small number of broad categories, F-Droid now includes many more specialized categories, helping you get closer to the kind of app you want in just a few taps, even before you start searching.\n \n \n Second, to make this expanded category system easier to navigate, we\u2019ve introduced higher-level \u201cmeta\u201d categories in the Discover screen. These group related categories together and provide a more approachable entry point for browsing the growing F-Droid ecosystem.\n \n \n Finally, categories now play a larger role throughout the app. Their names and descriptions are used to improve app discovery and help guide users toward relevant free and open source applications.\n \n\n\nAs an example of this effort, we\u2019ve completely reworked the Games\ncategory. Rather than grouping all games together, F-Droid 2.0 now distinguishes\nbetween 17 different game genres, making it much easier to find the kinds of\ngames you actually enjoy playing.\n\nSearch that understands what you\u2019re looking for\n\nSearch has also been significantly improved. In addition to app names, it can\nnow search app descriptions, categories, and translated content. This makes it\neasier to find apps based on what they do rather than what they\u2019re called.\n\nWe\u2019ve also made major improvements for users searching in Chinese, Japanese, and\nKorean. The new search system provides much better support for CJK writing\nsystems, helping users find relevant apps more reliably in their own language.\n\nSearch also remembers your recent queries, allowing you to quickly return to\nprevious searches without having to type them again.\n\nPowerful filtering, made approachable\n\nBrowsing and searching are only part of the story. F-Droid 2.0 also introduces\npowerful filtering options that help you narrow down large lists of apps to\nexactly what you\u2019re looking for.\n\nFilters can be combined using multiple criteria, such as app category, device\ncompatibility, or anti-features. For example, you can choose to view only Action\nGames that are compatible with your device and exclude apps that depend on\nnon-free network services.\n\nTo help users discover these and other advanced capabilities, F-Droid 2.0\nintroduces onboarding screens throughout the app. Rather than hiding features\nbehind complex settings, the app provides contextual guidance to help both new\nand experienced users get the most out of F-Droid.\n\nSmooth installation experience wherever F-Droid runs\n\nFor the longest time, the experience of clicking install or update was forced to\nbe second rate by Android. Now, thanks largely to pressure from the EU\u2019s Digital\nMarkets Act (DMA) and anti-trust actions around the world, Android offers all\napp stores an option for a smoother and more automatic install and update\nexperience than before. F-Droid 2.0 includes groundbreaking work on utilizing\nthese new abilities. This allows F-Droid to use a unified installer for all\nF-Droid installs, whether built into the OS or you installed it on your device\nyourself. The unified installer makes use of the new pre-approval API, so that\non supported devices the user can confirm right after deciding to install the\napp, instead of after the app was downloaded. That brings the F-Droid install\nexperience on official Android devices much closer to what the built-in app\nstore can provide.\n\nWhat moved, and what was removed\n\nA redesign of this size means making careful decisions about what belongs in the\nnew app, what can be handled differently, and what no longer makes sense to\ncarry forward. Some familiar features have changed, moved, or been removed as\npart of making F-Droid 2.0 more streamlined and easier to maintain, without\nsacrificing core functionality or features users rely on.\n\n\n\nUpdate checks now happen automatically\n\nF-Droid 2.0 now fetches and installs app updates by default. If you prefer more\ncontrol, no worries, your existing preferences are still respected.\n\nSome users missed the pull-to-refresh gesture for checking all repositories for\nupdates. In F-Droid 2.0, the pulling gesture is exclusively for scrolling. This\nis now possible because the app can now automatically check for updates in the\nbackground. Rather than preserving a familiar action, we focused on removing the\nneed for it. The best refresh button is the one you never have to press.\n\nUsers who want more control still have fine-grained and manual update options\navailable. If you used pull-to-refresh to manually trigger updates, that is now\navailable under the action overflow menu, e.g. the \u201cthree dots\u201d, on the My Apps\nscreen.\n\nData usage settings\n\nF-Droid gives you control of what get\u2019s downloaded when. This helps fit our\ndiverse users around the world, who have varying requirements. Many users have\ncheap access to mobile data, while mobile data is prohibitively expensive for\nothers. Some users have heightened privacy requirements, so they need to\ncontrol their network traffic. While others are using limited devices which bog\ndown when F-Droid updates in the background. The settings which control all this\nwere reworked to make adapting F-Droid to your needs more intuitive.\n\nPrivacy and security features\n\nSome F-Droid users operate in environments where simply having certain apps\ninstalled or even using F-Droid can attract unwanted attention. To help support\nthese users, F-Droid has long included a set of privacy and security features\ndesigned to protect both the user and their data.\n\nOne key privacy tool is Tor, and F-Droid has long supported using Tor for all\nnetwork connections, and using Tor Onion Services for repositories and mirrors.\nThe landscape of how Tor is integrated into Android has changed quite a bit\nsince Tor support was first integrated. Now there is TorVPN, Orbot, TorServices\nand more. We took this opportunity to simplify the settings and remove the\nauto-detection that was no longer reliable. If you enabled \u201cUse Tor\u201d, that will\nbe migrated to generic Proxy Settings. Going forward, Tor VPN is the recommended\napproach for easy Tor support, and the Proxy Settings are still available for\nthose who need manual control.\n\nAnother key part is the set of \u201cpanic\u201d features, which allow users to quickly\nremove some specific kinds of sensitive information from their device in\nemergency situations. These features are still included in F-Droid 2.0 and\nremain an important part of supporting users with elevated security needs.\n\nNotably, the F-Droid app hiding feature has been simplified, to give users an\naccurate idea of the kind of protection they can expect. F-Droid was one of the\nfirst apps that began providing app hiding features to protect user privacy,\nincluding our \u201cpanic\u201d feature which disguised the F-Droid app as a simple\ncalculator app. This simple feature was requested by many users, and since then\nOrbot, TorVPN, Signal and others have added such masking features. Over time, a\nstandard design has emerged across widely used apps, and we have adopted this\ndesign in the new release as well. This feature is designed so that users can\nbetter understand the limits of the disguise. Instead of the mask looking and\nfunctioning as a simple calculator app, now the mask only affects the app icon,\nname and nothing else. This informs users that the F-Droid app will still appear\nin the \u201cApps\u201d settings and would be detectable during forensic inspection. This\nchange will hopefully make it easier for users to understand the limits of this\nfeature, while still utilizing it when needed.\n\nOne feature that has not yet returned is the ability to remove and wipe apps as\na response to a panic trigger app like Ripple. We recognize that some users\nrely on this functionality for privacy and personal safety reasons and\nunderstand it is more than a usability feature. However, it requires highly\nspecialized work to maintain, and given the small user base, we felt it should\nno longer block so many other important improvements.\n\nThe app-wiping feature remains an important feature. We would\nespecially welcome feedback from people who use it, to help us\nunderstand how and when it is used, so we can evaluate the best path\nforward as we continue improving F-Droid 2.0. Users who rely on\nthe current app-wiping implementation may opt to postpone updating to\nF-Droid 2.0 while we evaluate bringing the feature back.\n\nFor Android versions that integrate F-Droid\n\nF-Droid is designed to be integrated into any version of Android or AOSP, as we\ncan see in CalyxOS, emteriaOS, iod\u00e9OS, Lineage-for-microG and ShiftOS. Each OS\ncan include their own repositories by default using the \u201cadditional repos\u201d\nmechanism. If you use one of these OSes, these will be visible in your\nRepositories overview. For additional info on what changed, check out this\nblog post.\n\nAlso, F-Droid Privileged Extension (FPE) is not currently supported by 2.0. That\nmeans even if FPE is installed, F-Droid 2.0 won\u2019t use it. This overhaul focused\non full featured support for the Android \u201csession\u201d installer. That lets F-Droid\nrun background updates on any recent Android version without requiring FPE. Like\nwith any of the changes here, we welcome feedback.\n\nLowering the barrier for contributors\n\nWhile many of the improvements in F-Droid 2.0 are visible on the surface, some\nof the most important changes happened behind the scenes.\n\nAll new code in this effort uses modern Android code standards and designs. This\ngives us a codebase that is easier to maintain, test, and easier to extend with\nnew features in the future.\n\nOne of the goals of the rewrite was to lower the barrier for new\ncontributors. Android development has changed significantly over the past\ndecade, and F-Droid 2.0 is now built using Kotlin, the language that has become\nthe standard for modern Android development. This makes it easier for developers\nfamiliar with today\u2019s Android ecosystem to contribute to the project.\n\nThe new user interface is built with Jetpack Compose, the standard toolkit for\nAndroid applications. Beyond simplifying development, this helped us align\nF-Droid more closely with Material Design, the design system used throughout\nAndroid. As a result, F-Droid feels more familiar to Android users while\nremaining true to its own identity and values.\n\nMost importantly, these changes provide a foundation for the next decade of\nF-Droid development. By reducing maintenance burden and making contributions\neasier, we can spend more time improving the experience for users and less time\nfighting technical debt. Some new tools also depend on fixes in Android itself,\none such fix was added in Android 7 forcing us to drop support for Android 6. As\nalways, old F-Droid releases will continue to work on old Android versions.\n\n\n\nF-Droid 2.0 is one of the largest and most ambitious projects in our\nhistory. Bringing it to life required much more than software development. It\ninvolved user research, design, testing, documentation, community feedback,\nquality assurance, lots of new code, a security audit and countless discussions\nabout how F-Droid should evolve over the next decade.\n\nThis work was made possible by the support of many organizations and\nindividuals. Torsten Grote\u2019s development work on the new app was funded by\nNLnet through the\nMobifree\nfund. The Open Technology Fund\u2019s User Experience & Discovery\nLab supported user research and design\nwork, bringing in Ura Design to help conduct user testing,\ndevelop user stories, and refine our Human Interface Guidelines.\n\nAdditional support came from the Open Technology Fund\u2019s Free and Open Source\nSoftware (FOSS) Sustainability\nFund,\nNGI, Mobifree, and the Calyx\nInstitute, whose sponsorship helps support the ongoing\nmaintenance\nand long-term sustainability of the F-Droid ecosystem.\n\nAs part of this effort, the Open Technology Fund\u2019s Security Lab\nin conjunction with Convocation conducted an independent\nsecurity review of F-Droid 2.0. We analysed and addressed all findings relevant\nto the new application, helping ensure that the release meets the high security\nstandards our users expect. We look forward to sharing the full audit report\nonce it has been cleared for publication.\n\nJust as importantly, F-Droid 2.0 reflects the contributions of many\nvolunteers. Community members contributed code, testing, bug reports, design\nfeedback, translations, documentation, UX discussions, and countless ideas\nthroughout the redesign process. Both long-time contributors and people making\ntheir first contribution helped shape the final result.\n\nFinally, this work would not have been possible without your support. Donations help fund many of the less\nvisible but essential activities that grants don\u2019t always cover, including\ncommunity management, handling the issue backlog, quality assurance, release\nmanagement, and project coordination. These contributions help keep F-Droid\nhealthy long after a specific grant-funded project has ended.\n\nThe journey continues\n\nF-Droid 2.0 represents a major milestone, but it is not the end of the story.\nRebuilding the app has given us a stronger foundation, yet there is still plenty\nof work ahead.\n\nAs the rollout reaches more users, we expect to learn a great deal from\nreal-world usage. Community feedback has shaped F-Droid 2.0 from its earliest\ndesign discussions through many alpha and RC releases, and it will continue to\nguide future improvements. Some ideas did not make it into the initial release,\nwhile other features are still evolving as we gather feedback and refine their\ndesign.\n\nIn the coming months, we will continue improving performance, accessibility, app\ndiscovery, and overall usability. We\u2019ll also keep listening to users as they\nadapt to the new experience and help us identify opportunities for further\nimprovement.\n\nLike every major F-Droid release before it, version 2.0 is not a destination,\nit\u2019s the beginning of the next chapter.\n\nThe future of Nearby\n\nOne area that continues to evolve is Nearby, the feature that allows users to\nshare apps directly between devices without relying on a central server.\n\nThe broader F-Droid 2.0 redesign gave us an opportunity to rethink Nearby from\nthe ground up. We have been working on a new implementation based on improved\nconnection methods that should make sharing apps more reliable and easier to\nuse.\n\nThis work is not quite ready for inclusion in the initial F-Droid 2.0 release,\nbut development is actively underway\nand the foundations are already in place. If Nearby sharing is important to you,\nnow is an excellent time to get involved. Community feedback and testing can\nhelp shape the next generation of the feature before it reaches a wider\naudience.\n\nHow you can help\n\nF-Droid 2.0 is the result of thousands of hours of work from developers,\ndesigners, testers, translators, donors, and community members around\nthe world. Now that it is reaching users, we\u2019d love your help making it\neven better.\n\nIf you\u2019re receiving the update, take some time to explore the new\nexperience and let us know what you think. Whether you\u2019ve found a bug,\nhave an idea for an improvement, or simply want to tell us what works\nwell, your feedback helps guide future development.\n\nIf you\u2019d like to get more involved, there are many ways to contribute.\n\nHelp us test, translate and review\n\nYou can help test upcoming features, improve translations and\ndocumentation, review issues, contribute code, or join discussions about\nthe future of the project. New contributors are always welcome.\n\nConsider donating to F-Droid\n\nAnd if you\u2019re able, please consider supporting F-Droid financially. Donations\nthrough Liberapay or\nOpenCollective help fund the ongoing work that\nkeeps the project healthy between major releases, from infrastructure and\nquality assurance to community support and project coordination.\n\nF-Droid 2.0 is a major milestone, but the work continues. Thank you for helping\nus build a free, open, and sustainable app ecosystem for Android." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790330699.595182", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:50.603357+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:50.598987+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "F-Droid 2.0: A New Chapter for Android Freedom | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790330699.595182", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:50.587046+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:50.581329+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790330699.595182", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-25T10:07:45.803997+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "F-Droid 2.0: A New Chapter for Android Freedom | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository", "warc": null, "wget": "f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1790330699.595182", "newest_archive_date": "2026-09-25T10:07:52.154828+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-09-25T10:07:44.557564+00:00", "path": "/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "2b02c72d-0196-451d-8d81-c70645af9423", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1790330699-import.txt" ], "tags": null, "tags_str": "", "timestamp": "1790330699.595182", "title": "F-Droid 2.0: A New Chapter for Android Freedom | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository", "updated": "2026-09-25T10:07:44.557091+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-09-25 10:07", "url": "https://f-droid.org/2026/09/24/f-droid-2.0-a-new-chapter-for-android-freedom.html" }