What is the fastest way to install f-droid apps compatible with android 4.2? The f-droid app doesn’t work and all the browsers I have tried are incompatible.
I am able to eventually upgrade the phone to custom firmware but for now have to run ‘stock’ for someone and would like an upgraded browser running on android 4.2 as a bare minimum.
F-Droid 1.12.1 is the most recent F-Droid version that support Android 4.2 (it is 4.0 and up). It is still available through the archive: https://f-droid.org/archive/org.fdroid.fdroid_1012051.apk
Given it’s an old version, we can’t give any support whatsoever with bugs or even certainty that it’ll keep working in the future. Maybe there are alternative clients supporting Android 4.2 as well, but I don’t know any from the top of my head. You may also want to make sure to enable F-Droid Archive in the repositories screen, given for most apps only old versions of the apps will still support Android 4.2.
For a browser, see https://community.brave.com/t/what-release-of-brave-for-an-old-android/287742
While it is not the latest (which won’t run on Jellybean any more), it is better than the stock browser from that long ago. I am using that one on android 4.3
Others that also work, though less preferable are
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.zirco/ (for me this one is crash prone on Jellybean, though much preferred for other even older androids running FroYo where an older version is even my almost crash-proof go-to browser)
Tint Browser | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository (much lighter, but less protected from nasty javascripts; this is my go-to for when Brave is too “heavy”)
JumpGo | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
Lightning | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
BeHe Pro | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.stoutner.privacybrowser.standard?repo=archive (look for version 1.6)
if you insist on a firefox based browser there is https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid?repo=archive look for version 68.12.0
I haven’t had much luck with the fdroid app itself on these older androids though. Despite being possible to install and launch, the older versions give me lots of crashes, hangs, slowdowns, nonsensical search results etc and it is so much easier to just use a browser.
In my opinion, the f-droid.org page should offer the option to download old versions.
Offering always a link to old version and/or trying to detect the phone OS from useragent and offering a compatible version to user.
F-droid contains many useful apps, that can enable the usage of old devices for decades.
Keeping it working in an easy way doesn’t require a big effort from the f-droid community.
So, why so much focus in the last version of the client and apps for modern devices?
We don’t track/profile the users.
Enable the Archive repo…install what you want.
Because the old devices are unmaintained. Whatever good you gain from using an F-Droid app, the unknown bad of an old/vulnerable device might cancel it.
We are not leaving old device behind, we are not focusing on them.
Isn’t there any newer custom ROM for your old device?
Understood 
Not user friendly, it requires previous knowledge about this.
I am sure that there alternatives to enhance the UX
Even modern devices are used to be unmaintained after few months.
These old devices only are vulnerable if they are online. I don’t think that many people are using these devices as a daily driver and even if they are still doing maybe better that they use opensource.
I think that these old devices are great for offline usage mediaplayers, offline gps tracking, dictionaries,…
At the moment, the current process to find compatible version and download requires more than “basics” skills.
I had many phones, some from big brands, most of them had a single update in the 1st year but not anymore including 1st brands, just a high specs samsung had updates during around for 4 years.
You know that’s not what I meant… users usually cry about 9 years (kinda like 108 months) old Android 4.4.x.
SMS attacks are a thing… so they have no SIM at all? They’re basically just offline text readers?
Then why bother raising this an issue here? Why are we discussing it if it’s not an use case? Who are you helping then?
Maybe not as a daily driver but I still have 2 devices with Android 4.2 and I appreciate that f-droid still keeps packages which can be installed on them
For most people SIM goes on the daily driver device but not on additional devices.
Daily driver usually is quite modern device with a recent whatsapp, bank app or a webbrowser compatible with modern pages.
It is use case, most people has old tablets or phones that can still be used for many tasks, games for kids, ebook reader,…
Also I just realize about another use case, Jolla C has a updated OS but it is compatible with android apps through the execution of an android runtime (below v5)
Thoroughly agree 
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