F-Droid is a nice app store that provides free and lean software. The idea of using old phones with modern software from F-Droid is quite obvious. There are several problems with e.g. F-Droid and Android 4.x but there are also several hints in this forum. Please help to collect them. This is a wiki thread, that means, most users can edit this post.
Helpful android apps
- F-Droid Classic version 1.1 (2021-02-15) supports Android versions >= 4.4
- Mounts2SD is a script for devices with low storage capabilities, but It can be used for a lot of things and is useful on almost any device, even those without external sdcard. It needs root and can configure swap, zram, mount optimzations and other things.
Using the PC to get F-Droid apps
- with Izzy’s repo browser you can browse the archive repo and there you get a download link
- GitHub - mvdan/fdroidcl: F-Droid desktop client (from Does Fdroid works on old devices, such as android 4.2? - #13 by petit.boeuf )
- fasheng/deplaydroid: 在PC端利用F-Droid开放仓库一键部署和备份Android应用程序, 可替代钛备份 - Deploy and backup Android applications from F-Droid repository in PC side - deplaydroid - Gitea: Git with a cup of tea (from Does Fdroid works on old devices, such as android 4.2? - #13 by petit.boeuf )
About android, F-Droid and other versions
- Dropping support for Android 4.x
- Running on old Androids · Wiki · F-Droid / wiki · GitLab
- Bumping the minimum supported Android version to 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich aka android-14)
- Why is the android requirement for some applications so high?
- Izzy’s repo browser shows the min Android version in the details
Firefox/Android version history
A list of Firefox versions and comments which Android version support has ended is available at
Firefox for Android - Wikipedia , e.g.:
- Version 68.11.0: July 27, 2020. Last version to support Android 4.1–4.4,[233] also the last version to display the about:config page in consumer releases…
The certificates (and ssl versions) can be too old
- Ship our own CA certificates for old devices by ByteHamster · Pull Request #4497 · AntennaPod/AntennaPod · GitHub
- No trusted server certificate error (Android 2.1)
- Gpg signature - No more SHA1 please!
Repositories
- The F-Droid archive repository is included, but not activated, in F-Droid and F-Droid classic. (it crashes my Galaxy J1, maybe because of low ram (512MB). If your phone has no problems, you may get the old apk versions which can be used by old Android versions)
- https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721