F-Droid package manager

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Introduction: In front of the Google shop where personal data is traded and license freedom is not filtered, F-Droid is an excelent alternative for the free/libre software on Android, to gain privacy and save compromises with Google corporation. This guide will help you to install and use it.

Get the independent package

The most reliable applications don't require you to subscribe to Google Market, then F-Droid can be directly downloaded from its official web. It has the license GNU GPL.

You can do it opening f-droid.org with the web browser in the same Android device, where in the second paragraph says: «You can install the latest version from here» (the word «here»). An .APK package will be downloaded, and you will find it in the downloads list, and from there you can open it directly to install the application.

Programs finding with F-Droid

F-Droid works in the same way as a GNU/Linux traditional package manager, where the packages are classified by theme and also you can add other source's repositories (Manage deposits). With the menu button you can update the catalogue to see all available and the upgradable ones.

Everytime you will have visible the license type for each application in the catalogue.

Opening the sheet of a program you can see a despcription (usually in english), and with the menu button install the last version, access to the official web or to source code too.

Explore programs via web

All the packages are downloadable directly from the web of the repository, but is recomendable to use the application F-Droid to have the most stable version and its updates.

With any web browser you can go over the catalog (for example of the same F-Droid repository) and additionally to the anonimily downloadable package you will find details as expected of the application. Also, links to make contributions to the project.

Recomendable applications

(few selection)

• Remote control: androidVNC
• Instant messaging through Jabber/XMPP: Beem
• Graphical schema of the disk space: DiskUsage
• Lost or stolen device locator: FindMyPhone
• Conventional web browser: Mozilla Firefox
• Complete electronic mail: K-9 Mail
• News reader: Sparse RSS

Other related guides

• Liberate your device (Free Software Foundation)
• Replace Android for CyanogenMod (unlock to be free)
• Ubuntu on Android (Complete PC operating system)
• Open permissions in Android (root)
• A dpkg package manager: BotBrew