FAQ - General

Where should I ask questions?

We welcome all questions and have a few places to reach out to the F-Droid community:

Why isn’t my favourite app included?

Some common reasons:

  • It’s not Free Software;
  • We’re trying to include it, but there’s a problem with it that we’re trying to resolve. Check the open merge requests;
  • It’s on our radar, but we haven’t got to it yet. Search the issues;
  • We don’t know about it. See the Inclusion Policy.

Otherwise if you think that an app respects the Inclusion Policy and actually nobody is talking about it in the forum, you can try to be the first to do it: See the Inclusion How-To.

How can I keep track of new apps?

There are several ways of keeping up with new apps that are added:

  • In the client, the “Latest” tab shows the latest 200 apps that were updated and that have good descriptions and graphics
  • If you don’t mind a detailed and potentially noisy stream of information that also includes updates and other changes, you could subscribe to this feed
  • In TWIF posts we talk about new apps and other news, you could subscribe to this feed.

We don’t yet have a dedicated and user-friendly feed you can subscribe to for new additions, but we welcome contributions to make this work better.

Is your building and signing process secure?

The building and signing is done in an secure offline (i.e. inaccessible from the internet) environment. Every package is built in a completely fresh isolated virtual machine environment which is discarded once the build is complete. Additionally, that build environment is completely separated from the signing environment.

So yes, as far as we know, it’s secure. However, as with everything else on the site, bear in mind this is a small community project which you are warned to use at your own risk. As with apps you get from elsewhere, including Google Play, you should exercise caution regarding the permissions they request when you install them. If in doubt, don’t install.

For apps being built reproducible, and signed by the upstream developer, you can read more on the dedicated page.

Why isn’t F-Droid on Google Play?

Pick your favourite reason (both are true and valid):

  • We don’t use proprietary software: Google Play is proprietary software;
  • F-Droid, as an app that “competes” with Google Play, is against their Terms of Service (paragraph 4.5).

How can I report bugs or request features?

Use the issue tracker or email team@f-droid.org. You can also discuss them in the forum or chat rooms.