The Free Android app store
It surprises me how many people still don’t know about this free, open-source friendly app store for Android mobiles.
If you use an android smartphone, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the Google Play Store. It’s THE app store for android devices that’s available by default on just about all android phones. If you’ve purchased a Samsung device, you probably also are familiar with the Samsung app store that contains the Samsung specific apps but also apps from other developers looking to get their apps out there. I’m sure other phone manufacturers have their own similar things probably.
Most of the apps available on these stores are either paid, or monetized with ads and similar. Now, I have no problems at all with developers monetizing apps to help cover the time and effort to develop the application, but often the ads are over the top and it can sour an otherwise good app.
But, these apps stores aren’t the only players in town. Another app store exists, and it’s filled with free and open source software of all sorts. Free to install and use, free of ads and most if not all are open-source so the code can be checked and verified by anyone with the capability. It’s called F-Droid.
It may not be as slick and streamlined as the other app stores, and there may be some permissions adjustments to be made to allow it to install things that you never had to make with the built in ones… but, if you can handle that, then you have available an ever growing catalog of free and open source software for your android device.
With the way things are going in terms of AI and it’s ever increasing ability to use our data for training and things like Microsofts Recall privacy nightmare, open source software is becoming more and more popular. F-Droid is a great source of free and open source software to run on your android smartphone.
Who knows, you might find your next favorite app on there.
