A roundup post usually loses me by the third bullet. F-Droid’s weekly TWIF (This Week in F-Droid) post is the one exception, because the list is the news and the news is the list. The week of 07 August 2026 shipped a 2.0 release candidate, a long backlog of catch-up updates, and thirty-seven brand-new apps that have never been in the index before.
If you use Android and you have ever wanted a curated list of apps that are not going to phone home to Google, F-Droid is the closest thing to a default answer. The weekly post is the closest thing to a changelog you will find. This is a tour of what shipped, what is interesting, and where I think the project is heading.
What F-Droid actually is
F-Droid is a catalog of free and open source Android apps. Every app in the catalog has source code that anyone can read, and most apps are rebuilt from source by F-Droid’s own infrastructure before the APK (the Android installable file format) is signed and served. That last part matters: it means the APK you install is the APK the project built, not the APK a third party wrapped and re-signed. It is not the only Android app store that builds from source, but it is the one with the broadest catalog and the most consistent publishing rules.
The “F-Droid Basic” variant is a stripped-down version that drops the anti-feature warnings and a few extras for users who want a smaller install. Both clients are now in 2.0-rc0, which is the release candidate (a version that the developers believe is feature-complete and is shipped for final testing before the stable tag). The official guidance is to flip “Allow beta updates” on the app details page and update.
What was new this week
The interesting items, in roughly the order they appeared in the TWIF post:
- F-Droid core 2.0-rc0. The release-candidate builds are out for both the main client and Basic. The changelog is short on details and long on invitation: “hello and welcome, so many things have changed.” For long-time users this is the rewrite that has been queued for a few years. For new users it is the version they will install first.
- Mirror sync fix. A mirror permission issue was resolved. Anyone who has had an app refuse to install from a third-party mirror will want to re-pull the index update. If the issue persists after the index refresh, the TWIF asks that you ping the maintainers.
- Rethink: DNS + Firewall + VPN 0.5.5z marked unstable. This is an open source network firewall / DNS tool. The 0.5.5z release had user-reported crashes, so the recommendation is to avoid updating for now and to wait for the next stable. F-Droid disabled the version in their repo while the developers sort it out. This is the kind of responsive handoff you want from a curated index.
- Session messenger update. The Session developers published two pieces: a “Future of Session” roadmap post and a “Protocol v2 development” update. Session is an end-to-end-encrypted messenger built on a fork of Signal’s protocol that routes traffic through an onion-routing network. The fact that the developers are still actively writing protocol-v2 design notes is the relevant signal here.
- 萊姆輸入法 (Lime Input Method) catch-up update. The F-Droid auto-update had not picked up a source change for three years. The package is now current at 7.4.0. The team is now actively monitoring the index for other apps that may have similar drift.
- FrOSCon 2026 schedule app. The official schedule XML (a structured data file F-Droid apps can read directly) is supported, and Giggity (an open source conference schedule app in the catalog) will read it. If you are heading to FrOSCon and want to plan your weekend, this is the easiest path.
What was newly added
Thirty-seven apps were new to the catalog this week. A sample, with the kinds of apps that catch my eye:
- AnDraw: a touch-based image tracing app, useful for artists who want to sketch from a printed reference.
- Celestia 1.9.22: the real-time 3D space simulation that has been in the catalog forever, updated to current. If you have ever wanted to fly to Mars in your phone, this is the app.
- Aerial: an open source Apple TV aerial screensaver port for other platforms.
- AliasVault 0.30.3: a self-hosted password and alias manager.
- Acode IDE 1.12.7: a terminal-friendly Android code editor with AI integration.
- AirPlay Server 0.0.30: a small AirPlay-compatible media server.
- baresip 88.1.1 and baresip+ 77.1.1: VoIP clients that have been around for a decade.
The list is longer than this and I am leaving a lot out. The point is that there is no single category dominating. There are utilities, games, media apps, developer tools, and a handful of long-running open source projects that just had new releases. The diversity is the catalog’s main feature.
What was updated
A great many existing apps got version bumps. Naming every one would be its own article. A few that are worth noting:
- Celestia 1.9.22 (also listed above as new-to-catalog): actually an existing app in the index, just newly added to the roundup because it has not been listed in a TWIF before.
- 99Managers Futsal Edition 0.8.5: a long-running football management sim.
- addy.io 6.4.0: the self-hosted email aliasing service.
- Braincup 2.32.0: an open source brain-training app.
- Conceal Mobile 6.0.1: an encrypted camera and gallery for sensitive photos.
- Amaze File Manager 3.11.3: the long-standing Android file manager.
The full list is in the TWIF post on f-droid.org. The number of updates is the real signal. F-Droid is not a graveyard catalog. It is actively maintained.
What the project is doing right
Two things in this week’s post stand out as the kind of operational hygiene that other app stores should copy.
- Honest unstable-flagging. Rethink’s 0.5.5z was pulled from the recommended channel after user reports, with a public explanation. This is the right thing to do and it is rare.
- Index-drift monitoring. The 萊姆輸入法 3-year stale catch-up was a real bug. The fact that the team is now actively scanning for similar drift is the kind of small operational improvement that prevents the catalog from quietly rotting.
Both of these are unglamorous. Both of them are exactly what a curated index needs to keep being curated.
Trade-offs
F-Droid is not the right store for every Android user. The catalog is smaller than Google Play, the build pipeline is slower than a developer’s direct APK, and some apps that are open source still end up shipping through Play first because that is where the users are. The 2.0-rc0 release is also a release candidate, not a stable, and the recommendation to enable “Allow beta updates” is exactly the kind of thing that breaks casual user expectations.
The biggest trade-off is the curated catalog itself. If your favorite open source app is not in F-Droid, the path to getting it added is real work: a maintainer has to apply, the metadata has to be clean, the build has to reproduce. That is exactly the friction that gives the catalog its credibility, and it is also the friction that makes it harder for new apps to land.
If you are an Android user who wants apps that have source you can read, and you are willing to install from a catalog that is not the default, F-Droid is the easiest place to start. If you are an Android user who wants the app that your friend sent you a link to from Play, F-Droid will sometimes not have it. Both are true.
Bottom line
The August 7 TWIF is a useful snapshot of where F-Droid is right now: a 2.0 release candidate shipping after a long rewrite, an active update pipeline, a curated index that catches and reverses stale entries, and a catalog that adds real apps every week. For users who want their phone to run software that someone can audit, F-Droid remains the easiest answer. For developers shipping open source Android apps, the path into the catalog is real work, but the work pays off in users who trust the install.