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install and change it to be the default SMS/MMS app, open settings and disable auto-retrieving media messages
https://f-droid.org/repository...

Members of the family have been found in a variety of app stores, including Google Play, and have been installed on more than 850,000 devices worldwide.

But not including F-Droid

... which is strictly distributed and available as open source, see Ring official site or Ring on F-Droid. Unlike Signal, you can compile your own working Ring App from the sources.

Tinfoil now crashes when you attempt to use messenger, and there is no commentary from the developer if he can/will fix it.

I suggest that you examine the Face Slim client on F-Droid. He has released a recent, new version which solves the messenger problem.

I do need a client that will upload photos on KitKat. If I can find that, then the official Facebook client is history on all of my devices - their code is no longer welcome.

You may want some, or all, of these:

• -Xprivacy, a module in the Xposed framework, can be used to deny location access to any application, including Facebook. Your phone must be rooted to install Xposed modules.
• -Cyanogenmod PrivacyGuard has a similar feature. You must erase your OEM operating system to install Cyanogenmod.
• -3rd-party Facebook clients:
• • -Face Slim is very current, with patches in the last few days to deal with Facebook's messenger "night of the long knives."
  • -Tinfoil is the best-known skeleton client, but has been recently silent on the messenger issue. The app currently crashes if you try to use messenger functions.
  • -Several closed-source Facebook clients can be found in the Play store, who MIGHT respect your privacy.

You may want some, or all, of these:

• -Xprivacy, a module in the Xposed framework, can be used to deny location access to any application, including Facebook. Your phone must be rooted to install Xposed modules.
• -Cyanogenmod PrivacyGuard has a similar feature. You must erase your OEM operating system to install Cyanogenmod.
• -3rd-party Facebook clients:
• • -Face Slim is very current, with patches in the last few days to deal with Facebook's messenger "night of the long knives."
  • -Tinfoil is the best-known skeleton client, but has been recently silent on the messenger issue. The app currently crashes if you try to use messenger functions.
  • -Several closed-source Facebook clients can be found in the Play store, who MIGHT respect your privacy.

Some people "can't" abandon Facebook. (Not saying they shouldn't, but they think it is too important).

They could secure more privacy by ditching the official Facebook app and installing the open source lightweight FaceSlim app instead ( https://f-droid.org/repository... ) I believe it does not use background data and best of all, it still allows access to Facebook messaging without Facebook Messenger being installed.

If you're physically close to your phone, point its browser to F-Droid. I recommend you use those apps.

See? That's way better than that crap service Google wants to foist on you.

One possibility is to switch to free apps that are actually free software. One store specializing in such apps is F-Droid.

If you get your apps from F-Droid, you can easily read the T and C in under an hour.

Switch to Lightning

It's a decent suggestion, but you missed the part where I said "laptop" :)

Switch to Lightning

Yeah, ditch it. Or roll back to the last version before the original author sold it to the wolves, you can find it on ApkMirror. Look for version 4.0.2.3. You'll have to double check with another root file manager if that version is already sending back logs to China or not, ES hides the log file. You can unpack and repack the .apk installer to either change the name or resign the package, either one will stop the update manager from trying to install the new ruined version. You don't get SMB security patches that way though.

Amaze is Open Source and in the Play Store,
http://alternativeto.net/softw...

For that matter, to hell with this shareware crap, get as much as you can from FOSS apps cross-listed on F-Droid. http://f-droid.org/

I personally use Ghost commander. I beleive it is free in googles playstore. Don't have playstore? You can get it from the fdroid web page https://f-droid.org/repository... Also install the samba plugin (free)

There's a bunch of important basic stuff that Windows has always been missing

• f-droid so that you can easily prefer and search software libre
• Llama for profile control and security
• stuff like debian that allow you to treat the phone as a local unix device
• proper, native google docs client (and no, Office356 is not the same thing)
• stuff like xprivacy which requires you to root the phone
• proper ad blocking
• proper privacy software like ghostery
• proper up to date, first class clients for all the social networks

This is just the beginning before you even get into the question of which apps are present but don't actually work properly.

The Linux kernel is ready. It runs on everything from cell phones to supercomputers and everything in between, so unless he's starting a new project all he can do is sit back and watch. Not that Linux really needs a new DE, there's only so many ways you can start/switch/organize applications and if you look through Win95 to Win10 you're not exactly seeing a revolution. Nor did I see anyone really asking for all these widgets and portlets or system integration of contact management, notifications and all that into the desktop itself.

The OS is a means to run applications. And say what you want, but there's a lot more strange needs than there are OSS developers with an itch to scratch. Not to mention the "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" attitude that creates towards users. Without the Play store, Android would be nothing. AOSP + F-Droid would be roughly as popular as Firefox OS or Linux on the desktop. I'm not going to pretend that Angry Birds for $1 changes the world, but thousands of apps like that do. Open source wins by the long game, slowly improving stealing users and lowering the premium they can charge.

People don't want to make the big jump. Linux is too much new, all at once. And unless you're arrogant or delusional, they won't find good replacement for 100% of their softare, maybe 70%-90% if they're lucky often those are a deal killer. Paid/proprietary software is so obviously not welcome that only a few have dared try. Steam did but it's 0.85% of all Steam users now. In February it was 0.91%, January 0.95%, December 0.96%, November 0.98%... More games, less users that's not a trend which is likely to continue unless Valve can make Steam Machines popular.

If anyone can bring Linux mainstream on the desktop I don't think it's any of the existing open source distros, simply by nature of being just that. I'm guessing it'd be something like Chromebooks, if only Google would go on a full frontal assault on Microsoft. But then they're happy as long as people use Google's services, which they seem to do anyway so I can see why they're not in any hurry. After all Microsoft has a pretty big war chest that you don't want to pick a fight with for no good reason. If you're a business that is, OSS don't play by those rules.

The F-Droid app store allows ad blockers. These are just two:

https://f-droid.org/repository...

https://f-droid.org/repository...

F-Droid only contains free and open source apps. Each of them is fully built from source. https://f-droid.org/

The F-Droid app store allows ad blockers. These are just two:

https://f-droid.org/repository...

https://f-droid.org/repository...

F-Droid only contains free and open source apps. Each of them is fully built from source. https://f-droid.org/

The F-Droid app store allows ad blockers. These are just two:

https://f-droid.org/repository...

https://f-droid.org/repository...

F-Droid only contains free and open source apps. Each of them is fully built from source. https://f-droid.org/

Some of us prefer to use FOSS repositories such as F-Droid.

But your phone has to be rooted to use it. Adaway can be downloaded from D-froid [ http://f-droid.org/ ]. Each known ad web url is redirected to 127.0.0.1, really rocks :)

Well, our source code is available so you can check that we do not monitor what you do with your privacy :). But if you don't like Privacy Badger, try Disconnect, ublock, AdAway, AdBlock or Adblock Plus(though you'll need to manually subscribe to Easy Privacy for AB and ABP)!

I recommend "osmtracker" https://f-droid.org/repository...
I use both in the field, but osmtracker has a lot more features. MyTracks is still useful for caching and displaying the google satellite view, but osmtracker does a better job managing waypoints IMO so I record the tracks with that one. Also, while MyTracks is open source, most users are using the official google one and so if you improve osmtracker more people will benefit.

Download this app, start it, switch to spectrum mode: Oscilloscope (It's open source. The link is to the F-Droid Open Source app store.)

Then play this "Hearing test" Youtube video on a different device. It's a sweep from 20Hz to 20kHz. You can skip to the last third for the high frequencies.

Observe that you can clearly see the spike in the spectrum going almost all the way up to 20kHz, far beyond what most people can hear. The horizontal flyback transformer in CRT TVs had a frequency below 16kHz, and in many TVs, even expensive ones, the oscillating magnetic field caused components to vibrate and emit audible noise at that same frequency. I wrote "audible noise" there, but many people actually couldn't hear it. Children and teenagers usually could, but adults could not. The band from 18kHz to 19kHz is well within the operating range of audio hardware, but even most young people don't hear frequencies that high. With better audio compression codecs and higher bitrates, these frequencies are no longer summarily filtered out either.

derp?

What is the Android Play thing you are talking about? It sounds like a crappy version of F-Droid.

To be fair I've more faith in apps from f-droid.org than in I do in apps from the Play store. The flashlight and music player apps there don't want access to your contacts list, unique ID, and wifi connections. And their code seems to be more highly vetted than those in the Play store.

https://f-droid.org/repository...

If I wanted to watch Twitch on my 2013 Nexus 7 without ads, I first had to install the horrible Twitch app, then side-load Adblock Plus (as an app) onto the tablet and set up my internet connection to run through Adblock as a proxy. The problem is that running Adblock as a proxy breaks a bunch of other stuff and so it has to constantly be switched on or off to use different things.

You might want to look into AdAway. It merges adblock lists into /etc/hosts (or wherever Android stores its hosts file). It blocks ads in Chrome (or whatever browser you're using) and in apps without issue. It's been much less of a hassle to use than Adblock Plus.

• OSMAnd, which is actually the reason that I'm still using Android. Best mobile maps app (Nokia's Here is better for driving, but not for walking): offline vector maps that are small enough that you can fit a few entire countries on the phone, offline routing, and so on. The version on the Play store is not as good. I used to use the free version on Play, but actually donated $10 to them after discovering the F-Droid version.
• K9 Mail is a pretty reasonable mail client.
• Standalone Calendar is a fork of the AOSP calendar (now replaced by the Google Calendar app on most devices). The UI is not great, but I've not found any mobile calendar app that is. I mostly just use the Calendar Widget on my home screen to look at upcoming events and DAVDroid to sync with my CalDAV / CardDAV server (which also syncs with my laptop).
• Open Camera is definitely a geek's calendar app: far more configurable settings than the stock one, but the UI isn't quite as polished.
• KQSMS provides a nicer interface to SMS. For backups, SMS Backup+ will sync SMS with an IMAP server.
• AnySoftKeyboard provides a configurable set of keyboard layouts and, unlike the Google version, doesn't appear to be spyware.
• Firefox on Android is actually pretty nice, and the addition of the Self Destructing Cookies addon makes it a lot nicer than any other Android browser I've tried (cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from a page, tracking cookies are deleted periodically while on the page. There's an undo button if you realised that you actually wanted them for one site, and and you can then whitelist just those ones).

I'd love to have a company adopt some of these, polish the UI a bit, and provide an Android phone that ships with them by default, instead of the Google stuff.

• OSMAnd, which is actually the reason that I'm still using Android. Best mobile maps app (Nokia's Here is better for driving, but not for walking): offline vector maps that are small enough that you can fit a few entire countries on the phone, offline routing, and so on. The version on the Play store is not as good. I used to use the free version on Play, but actually donated $10 to them after discovering the F-Droid version.
• K9 Mail is a pretty reasonable mail client.
• Standalone Calendar is a fork of the AOSP calendar (now replaced by the Google Calendar app on most devices). The UI is not great, but I've not found any mobile calendar app that is. I mostly just use the Calendar Widget on my home screen to look at upcoming events and DAVDroid to sync with my CalDAV / CardDAV server (which also syncs with my laptop).
• Open Camera is definitely a geek's calendar app: far more configurable settings than the stock one, but the UI isn't quite as polished.
• KQSMS provides a nicer interface to SMS. For backups, SMS Backup+ will sync SMS with an IMAP server.
• AnySoftKeyboard provides a configurable set of keyboard layouts and, unlike the Google version, doesn't appear to be spyware.
• Firefox on Android is actually pretty nice, and the addition of the Self Destructing Cookies addon makes it a lot nicer than any other Android browser I've tried (cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from a page, tracking cookies are deleted periodically while on the page. There's an undo button if you realised that you actually wanted them for one site, and and you can then whitelist just those ones).

I'd love to have a company adopt some of these, polish the UI a bit, and provide an Android phone that ships with them by default, instead of the Google stuff.

• OSMAnd, which is actually the reason that I'm still using Android. Best mobile maps app (Nokia's Here is better for driving, but not for walking): offline vector maps that are small enough that you can fit a few entire countries on the phone, offline routing, and so on. The version on the Play store is not as good. I used to use the free version on Play, but actually donated $10 to them after discovering the F-Droid version.
• K9 Mail is a pretty reasonable mail client.
• Standalone Calendar is a fork of the AOSP calendar (now replaced by the Google Calendar app on most devices). The UI is not great, but I've not found any mobile calendar app that is. I mostly just use the Calendar Widget on my home screen to look at upcoming events and DAVDroid to sync with my CalDAV / CardDAV server (which also syncs with my laptop).
• Open Camera is definitely a geek's calendar app: far more configurable settings than the stock one, but the UI isn't quite as polished.
• KQSMS provides a nicer interface to SMS. For backups, SMS Backup+ will sync SMS with an IMAP server.
• AnySoftKeyboard provides a configurable set of keyboard layouts and, unlike the Google version, doesn't appear to be spyware.
• Firefox on Android is actually pretty nice, and the addition of the Self Destructing Cookies addon makes it a lot nicer than any other Android browser I've tried (cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from a page, tracking cookies are deleted periodically while on the page. There's an undo button if you realised that you actually wanted them for one site, and and you can then whitelist just those ones).

I'd love to have a company adopt some of these, polish the UI a bit, and provide an Android phone that ships with them by default, instead of the Google stuff.

• OSMAnd, which is actually the reason that I'm still using Android. Best mobile maps app (Nokia's Here is better for driving, but not for walking): offline vector maps that are small enough that you can fit a few entire countries on the phone, offline routing, and so on. The version on the Play store is not as good. I used to use the free version on Play, but actually donated $10 to them after discovering the F-Droid version.
• K9 Mail is a pretty reasonable mail client.
• Standalone Calendar is a fork of the AOSP calendar (now replaced by the Google Calendar app on most devices). The UI is not great, but I've not found any mobile calendar app that is. I mostly just use the Calendar Widget on my home screen to look at upcoming events and DAVDroid to sync with my CalDAV / CardDAV server (which also syncs with my laptop).
• Open Camera is definitely a geek's calendar app: far more configurable settings than the stock one, but the UI isn't quite as polished.
• KQSMS provides a nicer interface to SMS. For backups, SMS Backup+ will sync SMS with an IMAP server.
• AnySoftKeyboard provides a configurable set of keyboard layouts and, unlike the Google version, doesn't appear to be spyware.
• Firefox on Android is actually pretty nice, and the addition of the Self Destructing Cookies addon makes it a lot nicer than any other Android browser I've tried (cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from a page, tracking cookies are deleted periodically while on the page. There's an undo button if you realised that you actually wanted them for one site, and and you can then whitelist just those ones).

I'd love to have a company adopt some of these, polish the UI a bit, and provide an Android phone that ships with them by default, instead of the Google stuff.

• OSMAnd, which is actually the reason that I'm still using Android. Best mobile maps app (Nokia's Here is better for driving, but not for walking): offline vector maps that are small enough that you can fit a few entire countries on the phone, offline routing, and so on. The version on the Play store is not as good. I used to use the free version on Play, but actually donated $10 to them after discovering the F-Droid version.
• K9 Mail is a pretty reasonable mail client.
• Standalone Calendar is a fork of the AOSP calendar (now replaced by the Google Calendar app on most devices). The UI is not great, but I've not found any mobile calendar app that is. I mostly just use the Calendar Widget on my home screen to look at upcoming events and DAVDroid to sync with my CalDAV / CardDAV server (which also syncs with my laptop).
• Open Camera is definitely a geek's calendar app: far more configurable settings than the stock one, but the UI isn't quite as polished.
• KQSMS provides a nicer interface to SMS. For backups, SMS Backup+ will sync SMS with an IMAP server.
• AnySoftKeyboard provides a configurable set of keyboard layouts and, unlike the Google version, doesn't appear to be spyware.
• Firefox on Android is actually pretty nice, and the addition of the Self Destructing Cookies addon makes it a lot nicer than any other Android browser I've tried (cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from a page, tracking cookies are deleted periodically while on the page. There's an undo button if you realised that you actually wanted them for one site, and and you can then whitelist just those ones).

I'd love to have a company adopt some of these, polish the UI a bit, and provide an Android phone that ships with them by default, instead of the Google stuff.

• OSMAnd, which is actually the reason that I'm still using Android. Best mobile maps app (Nokia's Here is better for driving, but not for walking): offline vector maps that are small enough that you can fit a few entire countries on the phone, offline routing, and so on. The version on the Play store is not as good. I used to use the free version on Play, but actually donated $10 to them after discovering the F-Droid version.
• K9 Mail is a pretty reasonable mail client.
• Standalone Calendar is a fork of the AOSP calendar (now replaced by the Google Calendar app on most devices). The UI is not great, but I've not found any mobile calendar app that is. I mostly just use the Calendar Widget on my home screen to look at upcoming events and DAVDroid to sync with my CalDAV / CardDAV server (which also syncs with my laptop).
• Open Camera is definitely a geek's calendar app: far more configurable settings than the stock one, but the UI isn't quite as polished.
• KQSMS provides a nicer interface to SMS. For backups, SMS Backup+ will sync SMS with an IMAP server.
• AnySoftKeyboard provides a configurable set of keyboard layouts and, unlike the Google version, doesn't appear to be spyware.
• Firefox on Android is actually pretty nice, and the addition of the Self Destructing Cookies addon makes it a lot nicer than any other Android browser I've tried (cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from a page, tracking cookies are deleted periodically while on the page. There's an undo button if you realised that you actually wanted them for one site, and and you can then whitelist just those ones).

I'd love to have a company adopt some of these, polish the UI a bit, and provide an Android phone that ships with them by default, instead of the Google stuff.

• OSMAnd, which is actually the reason that I'm still using Android. Best mobile maps app (Nokia's Here is better for driving, but not for walking): offline vector maps that are small enough that you can fit a few entire countries on the phone, offline routing, and so on. The version on the Play store is not as good. I used to use the free version on Play, but actually donated $10 to them after discovering the F-Droid version.
• K9 Mail is a pretty reasonable mail client.
• Standalone Calendar is a fork of the AOSP calendar (now replaced by the Google Calendar app on most devices). The UI is not great, but I've not found any mobile calendar app that is. I mostly just use the Calendar Widget on my home screen to look at upcoming events and DAVDroid to sync with my CalDAV / CardDAV server (which also syncs with my laptop).
• Open Camera is definitely a geek's calendar app: far more configurable settings than the stock one, but the UI isn't quite as polished.
• KQSMS provides a nicer interface to SMS. For backups, SMS Backup+ will sync SMS with an IMAP server.
• AnySoftKeyboard provides a configurable set of keyboard layouts and, unlike the Google version, doesn't appear to be spyware.
• Firefox on Android is actually pretty nice, and the addition of the Self Destructing Cookies addon makes it a lot nicer than any other Android browser I've tried (cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from a page, tracking cookies are deleted periodically while on the page. There's an undo button if you realised that you actually wanted them for one site, and and you can then whitelist just those ones).

I'd love to have a company adopt some of these, polish the UI a bit, and provide an Android phone that ships with them by default, instead of the Google stuff.

• OSMAnd, which is actually the reason that I'm still using Android. Best mobile maps app (Nokia's Here is better for driving, but not for walking): offline vector maps that are small enough that you can fit a few entire countries on the phone, offline routing, and so on. The version on the Play store is not as good. I used to use the free version on Play, but actually donated $10 to them after discovering the F-Droid version.
• K9 Mail is a pretty reasonable mail client.
• Standalone Calendar is a fork of the AOSP calendar (now replaced by the Google Calendar app on most devices). The UI is not great, but I've not found any mobile calendar app that is. I mostly just use the Calendar Widget on my home screen to look at upcoming events and DAVDroid to sync with my CalDAV / CardDAV server (which also syncs with my laptop).
• Open Camera is definitely a geek's calendar app: far more configurable settings than the stock one, but the UI isn't quite as polished.
• KQSMS provides a nicer interface to SMS. For backups, SMS Backup+ will sync SMS with an IMAP server.
• AnySoftKeyboard provides a configurable set of keyboard layouts and, unlike the Google version, doesn't appear to be spyware.
• Firefox on Android is actually pretty nice, and the addition of the Self Destructing Cookies addon makes it a lot nicer than any other Android browser I've tried (cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from a page, tracking cookies are deleted periodically while on the page. There's an undo button if you realised that you actually wanted them for one site, and and you can then whitelist just those ones).

I'd love to have a company adopt some of these, polish the UI a bit, and provide an Android phone that ships with them by default, instead of the Google stuff.

• OSMAnd, which is actually the reason that I'm still using Android. Best mobile maps app (Nokia's Here is better for driving, but not for walking): offline vector maps that are small enough that you can fit a few entire countries on the phone, offline routing, and so on. The version on the Play store is not as good. I used to use the free version on Play, but actually donated $10 to them after discovering the F-Droid version.
• K9 Mail is a pretty reasonable mail client.
• Standalone Calendar is a fork of the AOSP calendar (now replaced by the Google Calendar app on most devices). The UI is not great, but I've not found any mobile calendar app that is. I mostly just use the Calendar Widget on my home screen to look at upcoming events and DAVDroid to sync with my CalDAV / CardDAV server (which also syncs with my laptop).
• Open Camera is definitely a geek's calendar app: far more configurable settings than the stock one, but the UI isn't quite as polished.
• KQSMS provides a nicer interface to SMS. For backups, SMS Backup+ will sync SMS with an IMAP server.
• AnySoftKeyboard provides a configurable set of keyboard layouts and, unlike the Google version, doesn't appear to be spyware.
• Firefox on Android is actually pretty nice, and the addition of the Self Destructing Cookies addon makes it a lot nicer than any other Android browser I've tried (cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from a page, tracking cookies are deleted periodically while on the page. There's an undo button if you realised that you actually wanted them for one site, and and you can then whitelist just those ones).

I'd love to have a company adopt some of these, polish the UI a bit, and provide an Android phone that ships with them by default, instead of the Google stuff.

• OSMAnd, which is actually the reason that I'm still using Android. Best mobile maps app (Nokia's Here is better for driving, but not for walking): offline vector maps that are small enough that you can fit a few entire countries on the phone, offline routing, and so on. The version on the Play store is not as good. I used to use the free version on Play, but actually donated $10 to them after discovering the F-Droid version.
• K9 Mail is a pretty reasonable mail client.
• Standalone Calendar is a fork of the AOSP calendar (now replaced by the Google Calendar app on most devices). The UI is not great, but I've not found any mobile calendar app that is. I mostly just use the Calendar Widget on my home screen to look at upcoming events and DAVDroid to sync with my CalDAV / CardDAV server (which also syncs with my laptop).
• Open Camera is definitely a geek's calendar app: far more configurable settings than the stock one, but the UI isn't quite as polished.
• KQSMS provides a nicer interface to SMS. For backups, SMS Backup+ will sync SMS with an IMAP server.
• AnySoftKeyboard provides a configurable set of keyboard layouts and, unlike the Google version, doesn't appear to be spyware.
• Firefox on Android is actually pretty nice, and the addition of the Self Destructing Cookies addon makes it a lot nicer than any other Android browser I've tried (cookies are automatically deleted when you navigate away from a page, tracking cookies are deleted periodically while on the page. There's an undo button if you realised that you actually wanted them for one site, and and you can then whitelist just those ones).

I'd love to have a company adopt some of these, polish the UI a bit, and provide an Android phone that ships with them by default, instead of the Google stuff.

SnoopSnitch
Karsten Nohl on mobile self-defense

Android IMSI-Catcher Detector
More information here.

F-Droid's Inclusion Policy states that it distributes only apps whose source code is in a publicly readable version control repository and distributed under a free software license. Its Inclusion How-To states that all executables come from its own build farm and that new apps are suggested by forum users. This would at least give other forum users a chance to review apps' source code for obvious "anti-features". Or are you arguing based on the same phenomenon that caused OpenSSL defects not to be detected for years despite its source code being available?

F-Droid's Inclusion Policy states that it distributes only apps whose source code is in a publicly readable version control repository and distributed under a free software license. Its Inclusion How-To states that all executables come from its own build farm and that new apps are suggested by forum users. This would at least give other forum users a chance to review apps' source code for obvious "anti-features". Or are you arguing based on the same phenomenon that caused OpenSSL defects not to be detected for years despite its source code being available?

There exists free (as in DFSG) solitaire for Android.

Fennec FDroid seems to work fine for me, I'm not sure what I would get from Chromium Android that I don't already get from this. (Not saying chromium shouldn't be included too, if it's feasible, just not sure it'd be any better than what's already available).

They flag git apps for having github integration with giant "promotes non-free services" ads, even if there is no actual promotion, just API support, and yet they have versions of things where the effort has been made to compile without google libs, but that still ask for device ID. For example, their version f the google sky map app, they go to the trouble to compile with certain libraries replaced, but they leave in the part where it asks for the device ID, etc. It is a totally passive app with no legit use at all for device ID. No warnings.

I've just done a search in F-Droid for 'git' and looked through all the results. I found the following:

• Github, the "official Github Android App" has a red warning that says "This app promotes non-free network services."
• OctoDroid, described as a "GitHub Client" (not a "git client," a "GitHub client") which says that it "supports all the basic github.com features" does NOT have a red warning.

Having never used either app I don't know how fair F-droid's choice to display the warning in one case but not the other actually was, but it at least seems plausible to me that the "official" app would be more likely to "promote" the service than other apps.

As for Sky Map, if the program is indeed using the Device Id for some nefarious purpose, I'd expect a red warning saying "this app tracks and reports your activity" (or whatever message was appropriate). In the absence of such a message, I would assume that either the app isn't actually doing anything (and the F-droid people think it's sufficient to let the Android permissions dialog handle informing the user of a permission that doesn't matter) or the lack of warning is an oversight on F-droid's part (I mean, clearly, if F-droid has an tracking anti-feature, failing to mark an app that does tracking with it is certainly a bug).

I would also say that even if we don't *know* that the app is doing something nefarious, the existence of unnecessary permissions itself merits a red warning message (or at least a yellow caution message), and would like to see such a policy/feature implemented. However, I don't think the lack of such a feature constitutes "false claims" on the F-Droid maintainers' part.

The bottom line is that if your allegations about F-droid are true, then you're justified in being upset, but I'm not sure those issues deserve to be ascribed to malice when there's still enough reasonable doubt (IMO) to ascribe them to accident.

F-Droid excludes all non-free software. And by default, it hides apps with antifeatures such as advertisements and reliance on non-free add-ons or services. So how are the developers of an app on F-Droid supposed to keep a roof over their heads? And would your suggestion also work for games?

F-Droid is a true friend. And that's a rare thing in these circles.

If one is is interested in privacy then the continuous monitoring by Google is clearly a malicious invasion of it. This is built into the core of Android though, so there aren't many good alternatives other than to avoid it altogether.

A halfway house is to avoid some of Android's insecurity by design and and the privacy leakage of Google Play by installing only free and open source apps from F-droid. While this can provide some confidence that apps are not phoning home and other malicious things, it does nothing about the core operating system itself. Big Brother Google is still in charge.

Maybe one day Schmidt will have his Android device hacked and will then tell Google techs that they have to do something about Android security, especially add a firewall and jail all apps in individual Linux containers.

What he's never going to do though is to give users total control over what applications can do post-installation, because their lack of control is what empowers app developers and hence brings in Google profits. That conflict of interest is at the heart of Android's security/privacy problems.

I see that their definition of "potentially harmful app" doesn't include those which send whatever personal data they can get access to into the "cloud". IMHO there are hardly any Android apps that are not potentially harmful, except those in the open source F-droid.org "app store". Of the top 40 apps in the Google app store, only Avira Antivirus and WhatsApp don't have one of the ad trojans embedded, but of course one is snake oil and the other is an app that only an exhibitionist wouldn't find offensive.

The VideoLan website still says VLC for Android is a beta at version 0.9.10.

Someone is talking bollocks and, this time, it's not me...

It's listed at 1.1.0 at the Google Play Store, which might be considered more authoritative that what it says on a web page someone forgot to update.

F-Droid was a 1.0.1 a month ago, so same argument. F-Droid lags a bit behind with their releases, so I suspect they will be updating to 1.1.0 soon.

https://f-droid.org/repository...