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One new, one broken, one beta, more updates

Posted on February 10, 2024 by Michael G

Author: Licaon_Kter
Source

TWIF generated on Thursday, 08 Feb 2024, Week 6

F-Droid core

Last week we talked about FOSDEM and the newer Client update. FOSDEM has ended, and we have a news post for that. So let’s focus on the Client for a bit.

The big news was that 1.19.0 brings “unattended updates for everyone”, and we described it as “On Android 12 or later, apps will be autoupdated after the first install or first update, no root, no unlocking, no PrivExt needed”, so let’s break down what this means so our Fediverse fans are not confused any more:

  • Why Android 12 or later only? Because Google said so! In short they’ve added a bunch of useful functions starting with this version that F-Droid (and other app stores or random plain apps) can use to make unattended updates of other apps or themselves. (Why they would Google add such a nice thing you ask? Well… see TWIF 50 in 2023 for some very long informative links, but in short, it rhymes with “*opoly” and “trials”).
  • So no more root, unlocking, PrivExt needed? Yes, basically in the past we used Privileged Extension as a helper. Installed as a system app, it would grant to certain apps only, like F-Droid, the power to update other apps. But to be able to setup it as a system app one would need to either unlock the device and manually install it (flash a ZIP file, use a Magisk module, etc) or unlock the device and get an Android version that already includes it (random ROMs or Calyx). Also note that Calyx already moved away from PrivExt for newer devices.
  • But why will apps be autoupdated only after the first install or first update if I am on Android 12 already? Each app has a new property about which app installed it last creating a bond between them. This property is set on install or on the next manual update. You can check this for your apps now, go to: Android Settings -> Apps -> Pick one, scroll all the way down. (NOTE: Currently Google Play behaves erratically and tries to update F-Droid installed apps without the user approval. Please use the “Submit Feedback” button and report this to Google!)

How does this look in practice? You’ve enabled autoupdates in F-Droid -> Settings, once the index is updated, you’ll see some apps, you’ll get the annoying pop-up to update them one by one. Next index update, you press update for some other apps, but not the previous ones. Each new cycle that brings new updates will have you press fewer buttons, even none. If you’ve enabled the “update notification” you’ll see that apps were updated, if not, everything will happen seamlessly in the background.

You want to know which apps were updated, will you feel nostalgic about reading changelogs? Well, you lose some, you gain some. Remember you can still see the latest updated apps in the Latest screen, pressing Search or by subscribing to the TWIF RSS feed in your favourite application.

Community News

@linsui sees that one app finally live:

Acode editor – Android code editor was updated from 1.8.7 to 1.8.8, yet the newer version will fail to start. Luckily we fixed the build recipe and the next version should be fine. In the meantime, affected users can uninstall and re-install older 1.8.7 by expanding Versions in F-Droid Client and then skipping the broken update from the upper right menu.

F-Droid hosts some big apps, say the “huge” Gao&Blaze at 166Mb, or the “immense” Tux Paint at 142Mb (down from 250Mb back in January!) but those are truly lightweight compared to the newly merged Katawa Shoujo: Re-Engineered, A fan-made modernization of the classic visual novel, weighting a whooping 456Mb. KSRE is a visual novel based on Ren’Py. We have gone through the mess of building Ren’Py so if you know any other FOSS visual novel apps based on Ren’Py, feel free to submit them, maybe they are easier to include now that we have the experience.

Given the way F-Droid downloads and installs apps, and the way Android works, one might need at least 2.5Gb of free space on system storage (not SD card!) to be able to actually install KSRE.

By the way, the smallest app package in F-Droid is only 6Kb!

Back in TWIF23 week 47 we explained why Androidacy Module Manager was no longer in F-Droid, but the app had no replacement readily available. That is until this week as MRepo, A Manager for Magisk Modules, was merged, so take a look at which module updates you’re missing.

PiliPala, A third-party Bilibili client developed in Flutter, was included back in January but its recipe needed more work: was initially built from a problematic commit and had no launcher intent, then it was disabled, then the next version was built successfully in our local tests but failed later on the buildserver due to a Flutter bug. And now after all these adventures in compile-land, it’s finally live.

While the newly added SiYuan, A privacy-first, self-hosted knowledge management app, is a local-first note-taking app, remember you can’t simply disable its network permission. It runs a server on background and the UI is a simple WebView. Without network permission it can’t connect to its local server and won’t work.

@Licaon_Kter might use betas:

For K-9 Mail as the app was updated to 6.715 but many will still use currently deemed “stable” 6.603 as the developers like to bump versions when ready. If you want to try the latest version you might know how to already. 😏

Rocket.Chat was updated too, but by the time you read this the app might already be gone from F-Droid. Two issues were raised: users being worried about the new server conditions and limitations (see the forum thread with all the info), and second, based on that, we digged deeper and found non-FOSS licensed code in the client also, hence all the app versions were disabled pending upstream development. (#3183)

SimpleX Chat was updated from 5.5 to 5.5.1 and now in reverse of last week’s situation armv7 is live but arm64 is postponed one more cycle. FYI, this app uses the Nix build system and takes more than 8 hours to build all the tooling (Haskell!) needed for one architecture only, and sometimes not all the ducks are in the same row.

Spring Cleaning ⛅

  • Asgardius S3 Manager and Asgardius S3 Music were removed as they depended on a non-FOSS library, the developer focused away from the apps too. (#3177)
  • Clipious is back, after a two weeks pause.
  • Currencies: Exchange Rate Calculator was downgraded from 1.21.1 to 1.15.0 since a dependency was non-FOSS. This was fixed already and next version will come on release. (upstream issue)

Newly Added Apps

6 more apps were newly added
  • KUKSA Companion App – The Companion App for the KUKSA Databroker
  • Micro Timer – A tiny, microwave-inspired timer app for Android
  • Obtainium – Get android app updates directly from the source
  • Swatch .beat clock – Internet Time clock and converter
  • Tempo – An open-source and lightweight music client for Subsonic
  • whoBIRD – Recognize birds by their sounds, anywhere in the world!

Updated Apps

140 more apps were updated
  • 37C3 Schedule was updated from 1.63.0 to 1.63.1
  • AAAAXY was updated from 1.4.137+20240106.3156.7c674330 to 1.4.160+20240129.3179.55340166
  • Aard 2 was updated from 0.55 to 0.56
  • Al-Azan – Prayer Times was updated from 1.17.4 to 1.17.5
  • Alovoa was updated from 1.8.1 to 1.8.2
  • Amethyst was updated from 0.83.7 to 0.83.9
  • AndBible: Bible Study was updated from 5.0.794 to 5.0.801
  • Audile was updated from 1.2.3 to 1.3.0
  • AuthPass – KeePass compatible Password Manager was updated from 1.9.7 to 1.9.10
  • Aves Libre was updated from 1.10.2 to 1.10.3
  • Barcode Scanner was updated from 1.19.0 to 1.20.0
  • Blazed Cloud – Encrypted Storage was updated from 1.3.3 to 1.3.4
  • Boxcars was updated from 1.2.7 to 1.2.9
  • BusTO was updated from 2.1.3 to 2.1.4
  • CPU Info was updated from 5.1.0 to 5.2.0
  • CTU Menza was updated from 1.3.2 to 1.3.4
  • Casio G-Shock Smart Sync was updated from 11.9 to 12.0
  • Catima — Loyalty Card Wallet was updated from 2.26.0 to 2.27.0
  • Circles was updated from 1.0.24 to 1.0.25
  • Clock You was updated from 7.0 to 7.1
  • Connect You was updated from 8.1 to 9.0
  • Cuscon was updated from 4.0.0.3 to 4.0.0.7
  • DankChat was updated from 3.9.9 to 3.9.10
  • Deku SMS was updated from 0.37.0 to 0.39.0
  • Delta Icon Pack was updated from 1.8.7 to 1.8.8
  • DetoxDroid: Digital Detoxing as Your New Default was updated from 2.0.5 to 2.0.6
  • Diaguard: Diabetes Diary was updated from 3.12.1 to 3.12.2
  • EVMap – EV chargers was updated from 1.7.1 to 1.8.1
  • Easter Eggs was updated from 2.2.2 to 2.3.0
  • Encointer Wallet was updated from 1.11.6 to 1.12.0
  • Endless Sky was updated from 0.10.4-39 to 0.10.5-41
  • EngineDataLogger-Dashboard was updated from 1.5 to 1.6
  • Exodus was updated from 3.2.0 to 3.2.1
  • F-Droid Build Status was updated from 5.0.6 to 5.0.7
  • FOSDEM 2024 Schedule was updated from 1.63.0-FOSDEM-Edition to 1.63.1-FOSDEM-Edition
  • FOSDEM Companion was updated from 2.2.4 to 2.2.6
  • FairEmail was updated from 1.2152 to 1.2154
  • FastLyrics was updated from 0.5.1 to 0.5.2
  • Fedilab was updated from 3.27.1 to 3.28.0
  • Files was updated from 0.5.8 to 0.5.9
  • Filester was updated from 2.2.0 to 2.3.1
  • Fulguris Web Browser was updated from 1.9.22 to 1.9.24
  • Graded – Grade tracker was updated from 2.6.3 to 2.6.4
  • Grocy: Self-hosted Grocery Management was updated from 3.5.0 to 3.5.1
  • Guileless Bopomofo Keyboard was updated from 1.9.45 to 1.9.46
  • Home Assistant was updated from 2024.1.2-minimal to 2024.1.5-minimal
  • Hourly Reminder was updated from 3.5.11 to 3.5.12
  • Hydra was updated from 3.6.2-open to 3.7.1-open
  • Iconeration was updated from 1.3.0 to 1.3.1
  • Immich was updated from 1.93.2 to 1.94.1
  • Infomaniak kDrive was updated from 4.4.2 to 4.4.3
  • Jami was updated from 20240126-01 to 20240131-01
  • Jass board was updated from 4.0.2 to 4.0.3
  • KPassNotes was updated from 1.2.0 to 1.3.0
  • Kanji Dojo was updated from 1.7 to 1.9
  • Keep Alive was updated from 1.1.1 to 1.1.2
  • Keyoxide was updated from 1.6.0 to 2.0.0
  • Kodi was updated from 20.2 to 20.3
  • Kotatsu was updated from 6.6.6 to 6.6.8
  • Linwood Butterfly was updated from 2.0.1 to 2.0.2
  • Linwood Butterfly Nightly was updated from 2.0.2-rc.0 to 2.0.2
  • Loop Habit Tracker was updated from 2.1.3 to 2.2.0
  • M3U was updated from 1.14.0-alpha13 to 1.14.0-alpha15
  • MIFARE Classic Tool was updated from 4.2.0 to 4.2.1
  • Mattermost Beta was updated from 2.11.0 to 2.12.2
  • MediLog was updated from 2.7.0 to 2.7.1
  • Mercurygram was updated from 10.6.1.1 to 10.6.1.3
  • MetaGer Search was updated from 5.1.6 to 5.1.7
  • Migraine Log was updated from 0.10.4 to 0.10.5
  • Mill was updated from 4.0.3 to 4.0.4
  • Miru was updated from 1.7.2 to 1.8.1
  • Money Manager Ex was updated from 2024.01.23 to 2024.02.02
  • Morse was updated from 2.0 to 2.1
  • Moshidon was updated from 2.1.4+fork.103.moshinda to 2.1.4+fork.104.moshinda
  • NOVA Video Player was updated from 6.2.50 to 6.2.54
  • News Reader was updated from 1.0.1 to 1.0.3
  • NextDNS Manager was updated from 4.8.3 to 4.9.1
  • Nextcloud Cookbook was updated from 0.14.5 to 0.14.6
  • Nextcloud Dev was updated from 20240127 to 20240129
  • NoNonsense Notes was updated from 7.1.6 to 7.1.7
  • Notesnook – Private notes app was updated from 2.6.14 to 2.6.15
  • Nunti was updated from v2.3.0 to v2.4.0
  • Oinkoin was updated from 1.0.43 to 1.0.46
  • OnionShare was updated from 0.1.18-beta to 0.1.19-beta
  • Orgro was updated from 1.37.4 to 1.37.6
  • Pachli was updated from 2.1.1 to 2.2.0
  • Pagan Music Sequencer was updated from 1.3.15 to 1.3.16
  • Persian Calendar was updated from 9.0.0 to 9.1.0
  • Phonograph Plus was updated from 1.4.3 to 1.4.4
  • PianOli was updated from 1.24 to 1.25
  • Pixiv for Muzei 3 was updated from 3.6 to 3.7.2
  • Reader for Selfoss was updated from 124010191-github to 124010301-github
  • Record You was updated from 7.2 to 7.3
  • Remote Video Camera was updated from 2.8 to 3.0
  • Revengate was updated from 0.11.5 to 0.11.6
  • SCEE was updated from 56.0 to 56.1
  • SMS Import / Export was updated from 2.3.0 to 2.3.1
  • Shattered Pixel Dungeon was updated from 2.3.0 to 2.3.1
  • Simple Crypto Widget was updated from 8.5.3 to 8.5.4
  • Simple Money Tracker was updated from 0.8.9 to 0.8.10
  • Smart AutoClicker was updated from 2.4.1 to 2.4.2
  • Spotube was updated from 3.4.0 to 3.4.1
  • Squawker was updated from 3.6.4 to 3.6.5
  • Squeezer was updated from 2.3.4 to 2.3.5
  • Standard Notes was updated from 3.186.1 to 3.188.1
  • Stocks Widget was updated from 3.9.832 to 3.9.834
  • Street­Complete was updated from 56.0 to 56.1
  • Table Habit was updated from 1.10.2 to 1.10.4
  • The Light was updated from 3.78 to 3.79
  • Threema Libre was updated from 5.2.2l to 5.2.3l
  • Timed Shutdown [No Root] was updated from v2.2 to v2.3
  • Translate You was updated from 8.0 to 9.0
  • Tux Paint was updated from 0.9.31 to 0.9.32
  • Unciv was updated from 4.10.3-patch1 to 4.10.6
  • Unitto — calculator and unit converter was updated from Popstar to Quick Silver
  • Unstoppable Wallet was updated from 0.37.2 to 0.37.3
  • Untracker was updated from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3
  • Vernet – Network Analyzer was updated from 1.0.1 to 1.0.2
  • Vibe You was updated from 2.0 to 3.0
  • Vinyl Music Player was updated from 1.6.3 to 1.7.0
  • VoIP.ms SMS was updated from 0.6.25-fdroid to 0.6.26-fdroid
  • Voyager for Lemmy was updated from 1.37.3 to 1.38.0
  • WG Tunnel was updated from 3.3.4-test1 to 3.3.5
  • Wall You was updated from 6.2 to 7.0
  • Welefon was updated from 1.2.1 to 1.3.0
  • WiFi Widget was updated from 1.3.04 to 1.4.04
  • WiVeWa was updated from 1.3.0 to 1.4.0
  • Wikipedia was updated from r/2.7.50466-r-2024-01-09 to r/2.7.50467-r-2024-01-22
  • Windscribe was updated from 3.74 to 3.75
  • Xray was updated from 4.1.0 to 4.2.1
  • Xtra was updated from 2.27.4 to 2.28.0
  • aTalk was updated from 3.3.2 to 3.3.3
  • monocles chat was updated from 1.7.8.7 to 1.7.8.8
  • moreDays was updated from 1.0.20 to 1.0.21
  • neutriNote CE was updated from 4.4.9f to 4.4.9g
  • openHAB was updated from 3.9.0 to 3.10.0
  • openHAB Beta was updated from 3.9.1-beta to 3.9.2-beta
  • personalDNSfilter was updated from 1.50.55.1 to 1.50.55.2
  • plees-tracker was updated from 7.6.5 to 24.2.0
  • pretixSCAN was updated from 2.6.1 to 2.6.3

Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂

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