This Week in F-Droid
TWIF curated on Thursday, 23 Jan 2025, Week 4
Element – Secure Messenger was updated to 1.6.28, small fixes, yet big changes ahead. Last week we casually mentioned that Element users should test try other apps too, say like Element X or the fork SchildiChat Next, but we did so since we’ve seen what’s coming. The gist of it is that Element is being sunsetted and this version already is being impaired to force users to switch, as the app will “prevent creation of new accounts on server with MAS support, and redirect users to Element X”. Critics already pointed out that: “Element X is still very much incomplete, no support for spaces, no support for threads, and no support for validating other users”, so do shake these new clients thoroughly before jumping for good. We will add more news as we come across them.
For now SchildiChat, the Element fork, will not block any in-app features, so users still have options.
Emacs was updated to 30.0.93 as the first version that is specifically improved for Android. Potential users might shriek while reading the permissions list, and we’d like that pruned as much as possible too.
FOSDEM 2025 is a week away, and after you finish reading about the billionaires future dramas at the conference, do check the updates for FOSDEM 2025 Schedule, now at 1.69.0-FOSDEM-Edition, and FOSDEM Companion at 2.2.8. When you reach FOSDEM do try to find us, we might have stickers!
KDE Connect was updated to 1.32.10, and for a second we had a flash-back from October 2023 as we’ve seen this worrying report. We hope it’s just a glitch…
PeerTube, Federated video platform, is finally here and built reproducible. We host several apps that might be considered 3-rd party PeerTube clients or Fediverse clients that can access it, but now we have the so called official app. There has never been a better time to embrace federated services, and it’s getting better.
Still in federated news, Pixelix was updated to 3.2.1, did it replace your use of some big corporate siloed photo sharing site/app? Maybe take a look at it, as for a little while it was the best selling social network app in some other store. F-Droid offers it for free, but you can thank the developer on their Buy Me a Coffee donation page. And if you want to improve the app, there’s no easier way to contribute than translating it.
Podcini.R – Podcast instrument was updated to 7.3.5 for one last time, as the developer stopped its work on the app. We guess the integration with some big video site from a known monopolist corporation is proving problematic, once again.
But all is not lost, the developer will continue to work on the newly added Podcini.X – Podcast instrument, Modern, feature-rich, podcast instrument, app instead.
VPN Hotspot, Tethering/Wi-Fi repeater, a new fork of the old VPN Hostspot app was added and since the old one has not been updated for a long time it will be archived soon. Do try this one and replace the vanishing one.
Write On: Simple Notepad was updated to 1.2, yet you have it and you don’t see the update? Unfortunately the developer lost the key, no joke, bad things happen. Hence you’ll need to uninstall the app and reinstall the fresh one.
/PS: We’ve updated the RSS link in the footer to point straight to the feed. While the plain link was useful for both browser users and feed apps users, not all RSS apps would pickup the feed correctly unfortunately. Now the link is for app use only.
Removed Apps
2 apps were removed
- LibrePass: Take control of your passwords
- Mull: Privacy oriented web browser (Just.Get.Fennec!)
Newly Added Apps
19 more apps were newly added
- AddictoLogs: Activity tracker for your bad habits
- bicyweather: A simple weather forecast for german cities
- DCC++Throttle: Application to drive DCC-EX command station via Bluetooth
- Droid Pad: Create control interfaces for BLE, WebSocket, MQTT, TCP, and UDP protocols
- ExHale: Track the time since you last smoked and see the progress you’ve made
- Kuaizi IME: Kuaizi IME is an efficient and fast Chinese Pinyin input method
- Lotus: Music player designed with Material You
- NFC Alarm Clock: Customizable and feature-rich alarm clock app
- Pocket ReadLex: Shavian spelling dictionary
- Praktika Vortaro: Offline Esperanto dictionary
- Round Sync – Rclone for Android: A file manager for Android, using rclone for the heavy lifting
- ScanBridge: Effortlessly scan documents, photos, and more with your network-enabled scanner
- Seemless: Offline speech to text translator (Note that the app will be renamed to Seamless in the next version)
- Stateful Speedometer: Stateful speedometer & GPS viewer
- Stay Put – Unplug Alert: Stay Put is an app that helps prevent casual theft of your device while charging
- Sunrise Signal: Morning wood tracker app for men’s health
- Sunup: UnifiedPush provider using Mozilla’s push server
- Todo: Offline, secure, To-Do app with encrypted storage, fingerprint lock
- 聚在工大: All-in-one school service app for Hefei University of Technology students
Updated Apps
217 more apps were updated
(expand for the full list)
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