Android App Store F-Droid 2.0 Released With Major Overhaul

F-Droid, an Android app store focused on free and open-source software, has launched version 2.0, marking its most substantial restructuring in ten years. The update aims to streamline the user experience by improving app installation, search functionality, and the overall interface.

The new version integrates Material Design principles while retaining F-Droid's core interaction logic. The main navigation has been simplified into three primary modules: Discover, Search, and My Apps. Settings and the Nearby Swap feature have been relocated to the top bar, reducing clutter in the main navigation.

App discovery is enhanced through a revamped "Discover" page that highlights newly added and recently updated applications, alongside lists of the most downloaded apps. The categorization system has been expanded to include 17 gaming genres and introduces "meta categories" to aid users in quickly finding specific applications.

Search functionality now supports querying app descriptions, categories, and multilingual content, with particular optimizations for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean search experiences. Recent search history is maintained for quick recall, and filters allow for combined criteria, such as sorting by device compatibility or feature tags.

The installation experience has been modernized, leveraging new Android APIs that enable a unified installer. This allows for pre-approved, automatic installations after user confirmation, eliminating the wait for download completion. Technically, F-Droid 2.0 has been rewritten in Kotlin and Jetpack Compose to lower the barrier for new contributors. Support for Android 6 has been discontinued, with the minimum system requirement now set to Android 7.0. Older versions of F-Droid remain available for use on older systems.