i started checking out their apps maybe a year ago and while there aren’t nearly as many as play store, i like the idea that they are specifically chosen and aimed at not tracking me. just thought i would see if anyone else has had any experience with it and what their thoughts are 
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Yes! I check there first before looking at the Google Play Store. I have found great apps for passwords, watching Amazon prices, security, photos, cpu info, pedometer, and games.
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i really enjoy the games that i found there and like that the duck duck go app is stripped of the crud that google added before putting it in the play store
OpenVPN, VLC, Blockada, Firefox and quite a few others. Use the Duckduckgo app too. EtchDroid is pretty cool. Don’t have a cable to use it, but might be a good idea to get one. Just in case.
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i remember reading the description on that one just the other day and thinking the same thing.
Just ordered a USB OTG off ebay. I’m new to Linux so the odds of a total system crash and no live system handy and only one computer means I’m screwed. Bromite looks like a good Chromium browser. F-droid repository here.
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a bit off the subject, but do you have any kind of an external hard drive that you can use to backup your system in case of failure? between that and a timeshift/clonezilla regimen, my worries about system failure (short of an actual hardware nightmare) have lessened quite a bit.
Thanks for reminding me about that. Haven’t backup this new install yet. You do need a live system on usb to install the backup don’t you?
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with clonezilla, you do need a live usb. i have a dedicated clonezilla usb that i keep around just for that. timeshift, however, allows you to roll back your system while it is running. for example, the other day i messed up a config file and hadn’t thought to make a backup of. timeshift lets you pick an image (i make one daily and they are small since they are just system files) and roll back right then. it only took a few minutes to run and it went off without a hitch.
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i was pretty excited to see minesweeper and of course the old standard, solitaire
Hello, I use it sometimes. I think the last app I’ve downloaded is Blokada.
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A big yes there. I’ve been using F-Droid for half a year now and found lots of interesting apps there of which I wouldn’t have had the faintest idea using only Google Play Store. Google’s Store is very bloated with unuseful apps while F-Droid has strict guidelines for developers.
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i especially like that if any app might have features (this may have been a setting i changed. i don’t recall) that aren’t strictly up to standard, they make it know in the app description so there is no confusion. all in all it feels so much more straightforward and secure
i will check that out. i like the f-droid focus on foss vs. the play store to be sure.
on a sort of related note, have you seen the g-droid fork of f-droid? when i originally saw it, i just thought it was a repackage or what have you, but in the description it claims that f-droid is no longer maintained. i looked around on the f-droid forum a bit and didn’t find anything about it not being maintained so i wasn’t sure what to think.
i like the g-droid interface better. i know star ratings aren’t perfect, but i feel like they help me get a feel for how an app will perform. at least to a degree. anyways 
just wanted to share that find in appreciation of you sharing fissure.
G-Droid is actively maintained (the F-Droid client is not any more)
Ahh.
Heard of it, but thought it was just another “view” on the F-Droid repos.
Seems like it’s an alternate app for installing apps…
By the way, I haven’t heard about F-Droid no longer be maintained… (?)
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@01101111 @Fast.Edi I use both, F-Droid and G-Droid. The original one is obviously more stable, but the latter has already more functions and in 1 or 2 years it should be far superior to F-Droid. The most important function right at this moment is the ability to view your installed apps. As far as I know, this is not possible in the original.
P. S. : There is also an M-Droid client, but didn’t try it out, since the other two are enough.
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F-Droid has this function.
Not as obvious, that given, but it’s there:
Go to Preferences and it’s the first option.
I have the german version, so I don’t know what’s the exact english label.
It might be “Manage installed apps” or so…
Okay, found it. I would prefer it to be in the bottom bar with the categories, etc. It’s not really obvious.
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i am going to split these last few comments over to an existing f-droid thread so they don’t get buried here in one about a gif maker i meant to do that earlier when i made the first g-droid comment, but it slipped my mind.
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I recently wrote here on It’s FOSS a post about alternatives for dropping Google, most from F-Droid :
Maybe you find some interesting tools…
Cheers,
Benny.
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