The F-Droid project, developing a catalog of open applications for Android, has published the official mobile application F-Droid 2.0. This new version includes a modern design in the Material Design style, key components have been rewritten, the system for dividing applications into categories has been redesigned, and the processes of searching and installing applications have been simplified. Despite these changes, the project code is distributed under the GPLv3 license.
By default, navigation is carried out through the free software directory f-droid.org, but connection to any other F-Droid compatible repository is supported. The program allows users to be notified about the availability of updates, automatically download and install updates, filter out programs that are incompatible with the installed version of Android, search for necessary programs, and check integrity using a digital signature.
Among the changes in the F-Droid 2.0 application:
- The application has been completely rewritten in Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, simplifying maintenance and lowering the barrier to entry for new developers.
- The design has been updated to comply with the Material Design concept while maintaining the corporate style.
- Navigation has been streamlined into three sections: Review, Search, and My Apps. Settings and the function of transferring applications to other devices (Nearby Swap) have been moved to the top panel.
- Searching can now be done not only by names, but also by descriptions and categories. The feature to save the history of past search queries has been implemented.
- Application categories have been expanded with the addition of meta categories. For example, the Games section is now divided into 17 subsections according to game genres.
- Support for filtering output by category, device compatibility