Keep Android Open

Hacker News · Feb 20, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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This Week in F-Droid TWIF curated on Friday, 20 Feb 2026, Week 8 F-Droid core During out talks with F-Droid users at FOSDEM26 we were baffled to learn most were relieved that Google has canceled their plans to lock-down Android. Why baffled? Because no such thing actually happened, the plans announced last August are still scheduled to take place. We see a battle of PR campaigns and whomever has the last post out remains in the media memory as the truth, and having journalists just copy/paste Google posts serves no one. But Google said… Said what? That there’s a magical “advanced flow”? Did you see it? Did anyone experience it? When is it scheduled to be released? Was it part of Android 16 QPR2 in December? Of 16 QPR3 Beta 2.1 last week? Of Android 17 Beta 1? No? That’s the issue… As time marches on people were left with the impression that everything was done, fixed, Google “wasn’t evil” after all, this time, yay! While we all have bad memories of “banners” as the dreaded ad delivery medium of the Internet, after FOSDEM we decided that we have to raise the issue back and have everyone, who cares about Android as an open platform, informed that we are running out of time until Google becomes the gate-keeper of all users devices. Hence, the website and starting today our clients, with the updates of F-Droid and F-Droid Basic, feature a banner that reminds everyone how little time we have and how to voice their concerns to whatever local authority is able to understand the dangers of this path Android is led to. We are not alone in our fight, IzzyOnDroid added a banner too, more F-Droid clients will add the warning banner soon and other app downloaders, like Obtainium, already have an in-app warning dialogue. Regarding F-Droid Basic rewrite, development continues with a new release 2.0-alpha3: Updated Translations Export installed apps list as CSV Add install history feature Add mirror chooser setting Add prevent screenshots setting Show tool-tips for all app bar buttons Create 3-dot overflow menu for My Apps for less frequently used actions Persist sort order of My Apps Adapt strings according to Material Design 3 guidelines Apply string suggestions (Thanks Lucas) Fix missing icon bug in pre-approval dialog Note that if you are already using F-Droid Basic version 1.23.x, you won’t receive this update automatically. You need to navigate to the app inside F-Droid and toggle “Allow beta updates” in top right three dot menu. In apps news, we’re slowly getting back on track with post Debian upgrade fixes (if your app still uses Java 17 is there a chance you can upgrade to 21?) and post FOSDEM delays. Every app is important to us, yet actions like the Google one above waste the time we could have put to better use in Gitlab. Buses was updated to 1.10 after a two year hiatus. Conversations and Quicksy were updated to 2.19.10+free improving on cleaning up after banned users, a better QR workflow and better tablet rotation support. These are nice, but another change raises our interest, “Play Store flavor: Stop using Google library and interface directly with Google Play Service via IPC”. Sounds interesting for your app too? Is this a path to having one single version for both F-Droid and Play that is fully FLOSS? We don’t know yet, but we salute any trick that removes another proprietary dependency from the code. If curious feel free to take a look at the commit. Dolphin Emulator was updated to 2512. We missed one version in between so the changelogs are huge, luckily the devs publish highly detailed posts about updates. So we’ll start with “Release 2509” (about 40 mins to read), we side-track with “Starlight Spotlight: A Hospital Wii in a New Light” (for about 50 mins), we continue to the current release in “Release 2512” (40 more minutes) and we finish with “Rise of the Triforce” delving in history for more than one hour. Image Toolbox was updated to 3.6.1 adding many fixes and… some AI tools. Were you expecting such helpers? Will you use them? Luanti was updated to 5.15.1 adding some welcomed fixes. If your game world started flickering after the last update make sure to update. Nextcloud apps are getting an update almost every week, like Nextcloud was updated to 33.0.0, Nextcloud Cookbook to 0.27.0, Nextcloud Dev to 20260219, Nextcloud Notes to 33.0.0 and Nextcloud Talk was updated to 23.0.0. But are you following the server side too? Nextcloud Hub 26 Winter was just released adding a plethora of features. If you want to read about them, see the 30 minutes post here or watch the one hour long video presentation from the team here. ProtonVPN - Secure and Free VPN was updated to 5.15.70.0 adding more control to auto-connects, countries and cities. Also all connections are handled now by WireGuard and Stealth protocols as the older OpenVPN was removed making the app almost 40% smaller. Offi was updated to 14.0 with a bit of code polish. Unfortunately for Android 7 users, the app now needs Android 8 or later. QUIK SMS was updated to 4.3.4 with many fixes. But Vishal praised the duplicate remover, the default auto de-duplication function and found that the bug that made deleted messages reappear is fixed. SimpleEmail was updated to 1.5.4 after a 2 year pause. It’s just a fixes release, updating translations and making the app compatible with Android 12 and later versions. Removed Apps 5 apps were removed Chord Shift: Shift plain text notes OpenAthena™ for Android: OpenAthena™ lets common drones spot precise locations Tibetan Keyboard: Keyboard for Tibetan script Tibetan Pad: Read Tibetan script Tomdroid: Note taker Newly Added Apps 1 app was newly added NeoDB You: A native Android app for NeoDB designed with Material 3/You Updated Apps 287 more apps were updated (expand for the full list) AAAAXY was updated to 1.7.12+20260209.3971.fc2186af Activity Manager was updated to 5.4.17 addy.io was updated to v5.9.2 Alarmetrics was updated to 2.4.0 AliasVault was updated to 0.26.4 Amber was updated to 4.1.2 AndroidCrypt was updated to 2.0.2 AndroidMic was updated to 2.2.5 ANeko Reborn was updated to 1.6.1 Anx Reader was updated to 1.12.0 Arcticons was updated to 14.3.3 Arcticons Black was updated to 14.3.3 Arcticons Day & Night was updated to 14.3.3 Arcticons Material You was updated to 14.3.3 Aurora Store was updated to 4.8.1 AVNC was updated to 3.2.0 Bangle.js Gadgetbridge was updated to 0.89.1-banglejs baresip was updated to 77.1.1 baresip+ was updated to 65.1.1 BeeCount Knitting Counter was updated to 2.7.5 Binary Eye was updated to 1.68.0 Birthday Adapter was updated to 3.11.4 Blue Line Console was updated to 1.2.24 Bold Bitcoin Wallet was updated to 2.1.15 Booming Music was updated to 1.2.1 Breakout 71 was updated to 29519142 Breezy Weather was updated to 6.1.3_freenet Butterfly was updated to 2.4.4 CalcYou was updated to 4.0 Calisthenics Memory was updated to 1.19.0 CAPod - Companion for AirPods was updated to 3.0.5-rc0 Capy Reader was updated to 2026.02.1195 Carburoid was updated to 1.4.1 Cartes IGN was updated to 3.4.7 Cavity was updated to 1.11.0 ccgt was updated to 1.53 CClauncher was updated to v10.6.2 Celestia was updated to 1.9.9 Chess was updated to 10.0.7 CineLog was updated to 3.0.0 Cirrus was updated to 4.5 Clash Meta For Android was updated to 2.11.22.Meta CleanSlate was updated to 1.0.43 Com-Phone Story Maker was updated to 1.8.2 CoMaps - Hike, Bike, Drive Offline with Privacy was updated to 2026.02.09-4-FDroid Commons was updated to 6.3.0 Copy SMS Code - OTP Helper was updated to 1.20.4 Critical Maps was updated to 3.1.0 Crossword was updated to 1.26 CuteMusic was updated to 3.1.6 DanXi was updated to 1.5.0 DAVx⁵ was updated to 4.4.11 Deepr was updated to 1.0.26 Delta Icon Pack was updated to 2.12.0 DigiAgriApp was updated to 0.5.0 DobbyVPN was updated to 1.1.15 DoliDroid was updated to 3.0.69 Droid Pad was updated to 3.12.0 DSub2000 was updated to 5.7.2 DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser was updated to 5.266.0 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup was updated to 0.34.0 DuressKeyboard was updated to 4.7 Element Classic was updated to 1.6.50 Element X - Secure Chat & Call was updated to 26.02.0 Encointer Wallet was updated to 1.18.11 EnigmaDroid was updated to 1.7.2 Ente Photos - Encrypted photo storage was updated to 1.3.13 Escapepod - Podcast Player was updated to 1.6.4 Exclave was updated to 0.17.14 F-Droid Build Status was updated to 5.14.0 FairEmail was updated to 1.2312 FairScan – PDF Scanner was updated to 1.14.0 Fedilab was updated to 3.36.1 Feeder was updated to 2.17.0 Feeder (Play version) was updated to 2.17.0 FeedFlow - RSS Reader was updated to 1.10.0 Fitness Calendar was updated to 2026.02.1 Flare was updated to 1.2.1 Flexify was updated to 2.1.50 Fluffy was updated to 4.1.2 Flux was updated to 3.0 Food You - Calorie Tracker & Food Diary was updated to 3.4.3 Forkgram was updated to 12.4.2.0 Forkyz was updated to 78 Fossify Calendar was updated to 1.10.3 Fossify File Manager was updated to 1.6.1 Fossify Gallery was updated to 1.13.1 Fossify Launcher Beta was updated to 1.10.0 Fossify Music Player was updated to 1.8.1 Fossify Voice Recorder Beta was updated to 1.7.1 FossWallet was updated to 0.39.0 FreeOTP was updated to 2.0.6 Fucks Given was updated to 1.1.0 Fulguris Web Browser was updated to 2.0.9 Gadgetbridge was updated to 0.89.1 Gallery for PhotoPrism was updated to 1.42.1 Game Counter was updated to 2.6.0 Gauguin was updated to 0.48.3 GCompris was updated to 26.0 GDF HEMA Timer was updated to 1.1.2 Geo Share was updated to 5.16.0 GeoWeather was updated to 1.2.4 Goals Tracker 24/7 - timeto.me was updated to 2026.02.15 GPTMobile was updated to 0.7.2 Grazer Linuxtage was updated to 1.8.27-glt-Edition Hammer was updated to 2.1.4 Harp was updated to 1.5.0 Hate It Or Rate It was updated to 1.5.1 HFUT-Schedule was updated to 4.19.3.5 Home Medkit was updated to 1.9.3 HTTP Request Shortcuts was updated to 4.2.0 Immich was updated to 2.5.6 Immich Uploader was updated to 2.1.0 Inbox Pager was updated to 8.0 Infomaniak kD