this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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Oh man I see so much criticism of F-Droid's policies incoming...
Is there anything controversial about them?
There are those who believe that F-Droid's role as a "middle man" vetting and building packages from source instead of blindly shipping builds provided by upstream makes it a security risk, because you're trusting F-Droid in addition to (some say instead of) the upstream developer. Perhaps telling is that none of these critics can offer an alternative solution.
Before anyone mentions Obtainium and Accrescent, these are not alternatives to F-Droid, they solve completely different problems.
I personally like F-Droid's vetting process. It's true that updates always arrive a few days later, but you can be sure they don't contain any malicious code. Furthermore, they specify all of the antifeatures a program has, which makes it easier to avoid them. If you want faster updates, you can always download a program through Obtanium.
I am not an F-Droid maintainer, but as far as I know the code is not vetted by F-Droid after the initial app submission process. Updates are pulled in, built and distributed automatically. The long delay is just because there are a lot of apps to build, and F-Droid is a volunteer-run operation.
I had no idea. Thanks for telling me! In that case, im going to try to use the ones from IzzyOnDroid if avaliable
Edit: According to their docs, they do take some special security measures and I couldn't find a case of an app offered on FDroid which had malware.