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Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

fossdroid.com

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Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#61

Post by Ologn »

jfaucett wrote: post #11

I absolutely love this! Great job. For anyone looking to figure out how to build android apps and looking for source examples this is awesome. And the interface is much more accessible than f-droid. My only suggestions would be to make the source and tracker links more prominent and flip newest so its first or consider making separate menu points for each. Also any link to the fossdroid src, quick google search for f…

Some of the best samples are from Google - https://developer.android.com/samples . They are some of the best examples of how to program Android, especially in terms of keeping to best practices and avoiding now-deprecated techniques.

The quality of Fossdroid/Fdroid apps are hit and miss - some are good, some not. I should know, some of my ports to Android are on it ( http://fossdroid.com/a/truly-creative-live-wallpaper.html ) where I'm still very nervous that critical sections survived my port safely.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#62

Post by justonepost »

icebraining wrote: post #56
justonepost wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt. But it's pretty funny that Google refuses to add a few lines of code to do it via the OS installer.

What would the OS check the signature against, though? The certs that come with the OS are for validating sites, not apps, so passing a check wouldn't tell you much. It seems that Android would have to add a whole new cert store (and mechanism for adding certs), not just a couple of lines.

That's not true at all. CA and leaf Certs have extensions and policies and can be used for any particular purposes. All the cert verification has to do is check for the code signing extension / policy.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#63

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

CyberShadow wrote: post #20
madez wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fragmentation can severely negatively impact a project as well. Natural selection. The losers die so the winners can take up more ressources. That'd be a contribution to the shared goal. > LLVM exists because no amount of contribution to GCC will accomplish LLVM's goals (licensing and modular design). The reason why the competition exists doesn't matter. But the competetive pressure that results from its existence…

In real life, it doesn't work that way. Imagine there is an open-source project. Its development is active, many people are contributing patches, all is well. Then, the maintainer disappears. Forks start to appear, but as there is no centralized development any more, all you can find is a dozen forked GitHub repositories, each with a few improvements - but, without getting your hands dirty, you have to choose only on…

Could you name these 3 projects?

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#64

Post by hayksaakian »

Has anyone figured out how to distribute an android wear app outside of the play store? How would i get it on f-droid?

In development i can load the APK directly to the watch, but how will my users do it? Android Studio packs the wear.apk inside of the mobile.apk but your phone won't upload the wear.apk to your watch unless it comes from google. (at least in my experience.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#65

Post by vetinari »

justonepost wrote: post #46
Dosenpfand wrote: post #4

I really like the popular "popular" sections, the one thing that's missing from f-droid. What could be improved: 1. HTTPS, especially for APK downloads 2. Information about the APKs: built/signed by whom

Google has made it so you can't enforce APK signatures via PKI on android os. Gee, I wonder why!

You can use self-signed certificate to sign APKs. Once you publish the signed package, you have to use this same certificate for the package forever.

When updating, the system checks, whether the newer APK is signed by the same certificate and refuses update, if the certificate differs.

It simply does not matter, whether your cert is vetted by CA or not. So using PKI would not make sense there.

The rationale was not forcing the developers to purchase signing certificates in order to publish for the platform. It does not make difference anyway.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#66

Post by mkesper »

SnaKeZ wrote: post #45
libredroid wrote: post #40

I think some people are confused/missing the point. This isn't competing with F-Droid, it IS F-Droid. Everything from the statistics to the APK downloads (notice the redirect) are sourced from https://f-droid.org/ . It's a beautiful front end and necessary improvement over what exists, but it's complementary not competitive. My $0.02: 1. Link to download button to the app entry in F-Droid so I can download it from th…

Yes, isn't competing with F-Droid...it's just a frontend for F-Droid with popularity data.

Please include a short About section telling us so (can link to a longer About page).

Always imagine someone stumbles over your page, not knowing what it's about at all.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#68

Post by afandian »

Interesting design philosophy. I'm used to reading vertical lists, e.g. https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?page_id=0&fdcategory=...

Reading a list sideways feels bizarre: http://fossdroid.com/c/system/

Intuitively I feel like my eyes are trained to flick sideways to read a short line and then down. Recalibrating to flicking sideways to read a short line, then moving sideways again a variable distance feels difficult.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#69

Post by eighthave »

icebraining wrote: post #47
justonepost wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has made it so you can't enforce APK signatures via PKI on android os. Gee, I wonder why!

Sure you can. Android itself just doesn't do it for you, but the F-Droid installer could very well verify the APK before installing it.

Verifying signing keys is one thing, but even better, f-droid.org can verify that the APK builds 100% from source, and that the APK f-droid.org builds matches the developer's official released APK: https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Deterministic,_Reproducible_Bu...

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#70

Post by eighthave »

Spittie wrote: post #39
digi_owl wrote: post #34

Something of a tangent, but i really wish it was possible to whitelist specific apps to act as "stores". Right now if i want to use F-Droid or similar i have to either leave my device open for others to also be able to install, or constantly juggle the "unknown sources" option.

You can! You just need to make the F-Droid app a System app, then it can install applications without having to keep the "unknown sources" options on. You can use this app to do it: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=de.j4velin.syste... You can also disable the "install" script and have it install stuff without any prompts like the play store, just go into the settings, scroll to the bottom and enable "Exper…

While we love more people testing the system/priv-app and root support in FDroid, keep in mind it is very very beta and not ready for general use. We did just have the core functionality professionally audited, and have fixed the issues they found.
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