The main problem in the F-Droid store is that you will see a lot of apps without support or not updated long time ago, which means are not maintained anymore by depveloper.
If F-Droid want a be a real store solution, should have this kind of rules, apps without update in 4 years should be delete of the store.
Apps without update suppose a risk for security because Android evolve every year and the apps should be adapted to the new Operating System
Suggestion, clean the store and make a purge, delete all apps with no update or support since 2018.
For me it’s not so much the existence of the apps but that the user is exposed to all of them with very little assistance.
I might need to explain. There are currently about 3500 apps in the store. The only pre selection the user can easily do is the selection of one of 17 categories.
No chance to filter for e.g. apps updated since 2018 or updated at least twice, app size, permissions (e.g. read_calender, receive_boot_complete). And no chance to sort either.
So the user has to linearily check through all apps within the category…
An example of an easier problem (of comparable size) in a different context is addressed here: Op Amp Selection
Much more assistance for the user…
If F-Droid want a be a real store solution, should have this kind of rules, apps without update in 4 years should be delete of the store.
even google play doesnt delete these - neither has any special provision (like filter etc) for these iirc, so which “real store solution” are u referrring to?
Suggestion for ability to filter them makes sense, making it an anti-feature and ability to disable showing those make some sense too.
But Please stop making ridiculous extreme requests of “purging” all old apps when u dont understand its after effects. Just please. Be considerate, inclusive and check ur assumptions. Latest is NOT always greatest (but increasingly quite the opposite of this pop belief these days).
i also dont understand why ppl are saying “for fdroid to be a real store soln, have this/that” what does that even mean? Like what is definition of real here? GPlayShit? Their is a need for having the tone of “this improvement would be great” or the like. Fdroid is very real store solution in its current state too.
Some may say i am being pedantic or overreacting or whatever, but i dont care. I will actively protect the things that protect my rights in this choking era of “planned obsolescence”.
Note that we regularly archive unmaintained apps (usually if they are not useful anymore, for example if they depend on a service that does not exist anymore).
But being old is not always a good criteria to remove an app because some old apps are still useful to people with old devices.
Also, we are a small team and we are not able to check every existing app in the repository.
Feel free to open an issue if you think a specific app should be archived.
Why not add a filter in F-Droid to filter by Android API level (aka targetSdkVersion)?
TL;DR
I also see the problem that @anon3527118 describes.
It is actually quite time consuming to find an app (if you don’t know the name) in F-Droid - and having outdated/unmaintained/“you name it” apps there makes it even less fun.
But I also see the argument that some thing do not need updates.
And I also agree.
Nevertheless, recently Android introduced some really important security features that are enforced by targetSdkVersion (e.g., READ/WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE cannot be used for API30+).
So, from a security perspective it is actually quite important against which API-level an application got compiled as Android behaves (may) differently then (depending on actual Android version, vendor etc).
Many of the apps that haven’t been updated are fine as they are. For example, there are calculator apps that are just as good as when they were written, keyboards, and the like.
It would perhaps be nice to have some sort of indicator that showed when an app is abandonware, but I think that mass purging would be a mistake.