F-Droid 2.0 Is Here — Android’s Open App Store Gets Its Biggest Update in 10 Years

Virtually every Android phone ships with the Google Play Store. But there’s always been another way to get apps — one with no accounts, no tracking, and no ads. It’s called F-Droid, and after ten years without a major update, it just got rebuilt from the ground up.

F-Droid 2.0 rolled out on September 24, 2026, and the team isn’t being modest about it: they call it the biggest update in a decade. The app was rewritten from scratch, the interface is completely new, and the way apps get installed has changed. Whether you’ve used F-Droid for years or never heard of it, here’s what changed and why it matters.

First, What Is F-Droid?

Quick primer in case you’re new: F-Droid is a free, community-run app store for Android that only distributes open-source apps. You install the F-Droid app itself (as a download, not from Google Play), and from there you can browse and install thousands of apps — every one of them built from public source code that anyone can inspect.

People use it for different reasons. Some want to avoid Google’s ecosystem. Some care about privacy — F-Droid doesn’t track what you tap or install to push ads and recommendations. And some just like knowing exactly what the software on their phone is doing. If any of that sounds appealing, version 2.0 is the best excuse yet to take a look.

What’s New in F-Droid 2.0

A complete visual rebuild

The entire client was rewritten in Kotlin using Jetpack Compose — the modern toolkit Google itself recommends for building Android interfaces. The result is a faster, more responsive app that actually looks like it belongs in 2026. Navigation is now built around three simple areas: Discover, Search, and My Apps. Settings moved to the top bar, and the clutter is gone.

Actually being able to find apps

This was F-Droid’s quiet superpower problem: it had thousands of apps, but finding the right one was painful. Version 2.0 attacks that head-on. Discover now groups categories, new apps, recent updates, and popular downloads in one place, with far more granular categories — including dedicated sections for VPNs, firewalls, password managers, and launchers, plus 17 separate game genres.

Search got smarter too. Instead of matching only app names, it now searches descriptions, categories, and translated content — and it handles Chinese, Japanese, and Korean queries far better than before. You can also filter by category, device compatibility, and “anti-features” (like dependence on non-free services), which is exactly the kind of transparency F-Droid users care about.

Installs that don’t make you wait

Under the hood, F-Droid 2.0 uses a single unified installer built on Android’s newer installation APIs, including pre-approval. In plain terms: on supported devices, you can approve an install almost immediately after tapping it, instead of waiting for the download to finish first. Updates can now be checked, downloaded, and installed automatically in the background, respecting whatever preferences you’ve set. The old pull-to-refresh gesture is gone — manual checks live in the My Apps menu now.

What Got Left Behind

Not everything survived the rewrite, and you should know what’s gone:

Android 6 support is dropped. F-Droid 2.0 needs Android 7.0 or newer (up from 6.0). If you’re running a truly ancient device, you’re stuck on the old 1.x line. For everyone else, this is a non-issue — Android 7 is from 2016.

The Privileged Extension is gone. This was the power-user tool that allowed silent background installs on rooted devices. It’s been removed in 2.0, with the new pre-approval API covering most of what it did, minus the root requirement.

Tor moved. The standalone Tor setting is now tucked into the proxy settings, with Tor VPN recommended as the way to route F-Droid traffic through Tor.

None of these are deal-breakers for most people, but if you relied on the Privileged Extension, plan accordingly before upgrading.

Why This Matters Right Now

The timing isn’t accidental. Google has been tightening its developer verification and app installation policies, and the changes threaten not just F-Droid but independent Android developers who’d rather not register with Google or submit to its verification regime. F-Droid’s team is blunt about it — there’s a banner on their site saying as much.

That’s what makes 2.0 more than a facelift. It’s a statement: after more than a year of development and 14 test builds shaped by community feedback, the project is doubling down on Android freedom at exactly the moment that freedom is under pressure. A modern, maintainable codebase (the team says the Kotlin rewrite will let them “deliver improvements more quickly in the years ahead”) is how a volunteer-driven project survives the next decade.

The rollout is phased over several weeks, so if you don’t see it yet, it’s coming. And the team is upfront that this isn’t a finished product — Nearby Swap (direct device-to-device app sharing with no server) is still getting a more reliable version, and more iteration is planned based on real-world use.

Should You Try It?

Here’s my honest take. If you live entirely inside Google Play and never think about it, F-Droid 2.0 probably won’t convert you overnight — and that’s fine. But it’s worth trying if:

You care about privacy. No account, no tracking, no engagement metrics. F-Droid helps you find apps and gets out of the way. Pair that mindset with good habits — like the ones in our guide to backing up your phone and laptop — and your mobile setup gets meaningfully more resilient.

You want apps Google doesn’t carry. Ad blockers, firewall tools, privacy-focused keyboards, automation apps — entire categories live more comfortably on F-Droid than on Play.

You like owning your software. Every app on F-Droid is built from public source code. You (or anyone) can verify what it does. In an age of increasingly opaque apps, that’s genuinely rare.

Getting started takes five minutes: download the APK from f-droid.org, allow the install, and browse the Discover tab. Our roundup of mobile app trends is a good companion read for thinking about what belongs on your phone in the first place.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is F-Droid safe to use?

Yes — arguably safer than typical third-party app sources. Every app is built by the F-Droid team from publicly available source code, so what you install matches the published code. Stick to the official f-droid.org download to get the real client.

Is F-Droid 2.0 free?

Completely. The client is free, and every app in the catalog is free and open-source. There’s no premium tier and no ads.

Will my banking apps and games be on F-Droid?

Probably not. F-Droid only hosts open-source apps, so most commercial apps and games aren’t there. Think of it as a complement to the Play Store, not a replacement — at least for most people.

What Android version do I need for 2.0?

Android 7.0 or newer. Devices stuck on Android 6 can keep using the older 1.x releases, but they won’t get the new features.

Does F-Droid track me?

No. Unlike mainstream app stores, F-Droid doesn’t track your taps and installs for ads or recommendations. That no-tracking stance is deliberate and remains intact in 2.0.

The Bottom Line

Ten years is a long time to wait for an update, but F-Droid 2.0 makes the wait look worthwhile: a modern interface, genuinely better discovery, smoother installs, and a codebase built for the next decade. It arrives at a moment when open Android distribution actually needs defending — which makes this more than a redesign. It’s the open-source app store growing up, right on schedule.

Source: The Register — “F-Droid app store thumbs its nose at Google’s dev crackdown”