F-Droid on old android 5.0.1 shows f-droid update despite being impossible

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Hello,
I am using the F-Droid client on an Android 5.0.1 smartphone and I know the newer versions of F-Droid (>=1.13) need Android >= 5.1. But in my updates tab of the app, the notification of a new version for F-Droid appears and it proposes me the update. But when I try it fails.
Would it be possible to just not propose the updates on non-compatible devices?
Thanks for your help!

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Just to make sure, you don’t have “Include incompatible versions” enabled in F-Droid settings, right?

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Yes this feature is disabled!

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Known issue, use upper right menu->ignore all updates for the affected apps

Ref: Incompatible apps are listed in my client (#41) ¡ Issues ¡ F-Droid / Client ¡ GitLab
Ref: Prevent incompatible apps from being installed (#1570) ¡ Issues ¡ F-Droid / Client ¡ GitLab

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Thanks for your answer! I have already seen that it is possible to “ignore all update” for one app :wink:
I think that this solution is not very user friendly. For me it is not a problem, but for someone who is not very tech savy, this could be a frustrating issue.
I hope we can get this fixed :smiley:

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Maybe it could be useful to just display a short popup message saying something like:

“You have [this] app installed. The next update is incompatible with your device android version: you are using a too old android version (5.0), at least version 7 required. Your app will continue to work on your device, but you will not get the next update. Contact the developer for more informations”

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And apps that won’t run without G Play services (Router Keygen) shouldn’t install if you don’t have G Play services, and apps that require root shouldn’t install if you don’t have root, or ask you to download and install updated “core services” before saying it can’t run without root (Csploit). Sheesh, Kali.

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In the past some apps might have been allowed that might need Play, but recently (eg 6 years) I don’t know any since they need to use closed source libs to do that. I’ve installed said app… not sure what I should see or not see?! Care to explain?

Users should be able to choose, also it’s not F-Droid’s job to check root access. Do we need to defeat MagiskHide too? Maybe implement SafetyNet lol

Those are not currently part of the repo, not sure what ‘core services’ are exactly

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Sorry, yes, they are from Kali Nethunter’s repo’, so not F-Droid’s problem exactly. Yes, they should at least include “needs root” or “needs play services” in app descriptions, although it is probably understood by most Kali Nethunter users.

But, as a full service app’ installer, what does F-Droid do to protect users from, or give warnings for other repo’s apps? Nothing? Only signature cheecks?

Router Keygen

So it sounded fun and educational to see if my Router’s password or key could be recovered, in case it was forgotten.

I saw a popup “Router Keygen won’t run without Google Play services, which are not supported by your device. OK” Don’t you see it too? :confused:

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The official f-droid repo does very strict checks for app inclusion and reports any anti-features. The izzyondroid repo (which could be considered semi-official) also checks for included apps and flags anti-features. For the other third-party repos it is up to the individual maintainers to check for and possibly report anti-features. Also, when adding a third party repo it is up to the user to decide if it is reliable or not.

As operating system on my pc I use debian and I consider the official f-droid repo the equivalent of the main debian repo, izzyondroid could be considered as the contrib repo, and the others are just third party repos.

I think, but I’m not sure, that nothing in theory prevents the distribution of proprietary software through third-party repos as long as the maintainer has the license to legally distribute it.

An interesting case is session: session is not in the official repo because it depends on google services for push notifications. It is found on the izzyondroid repo where some anti-features are reported. An issue was opened on session’s github asking for the distribution of the app on f-droid and in response they created a repo of their own that distributes the official version of session without any changes and that does not report anti-features. In the end it was pointed out that the request implied that the distribution should be on the official repo because it guarantees that the app is completely free. And, personally, if I were to install session from their repo or from izzyondroid I’d prefer to install it from the latter because it reports anti-features.

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But, as a full service app’ installer, what does F-Droid do to protect users from, or give warnings for other repo’s apps? Nothing? Only signature cheecks?

Again, what is a “full service app installer”, I don’t understand what you mean.

I have microG so that might answer any queries for Play things. Then again, if it works with microG, a FOSS replacement, non sure why F-Droid should warn about anything. It uses what you have or doesn’t work at all, no harm done.

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Again, what is a “full service app installer”, I don’t understand what you mean.

It does more than just the basic system APK installer, provides anti-feature warnings, etc. From search results page:

Although APK downloads are available below to give you the choice, you should be aware that by installing that way you will not receive update notifications and it’s a less secure way to download. We recommend that you install the F-Droid client and use that.

but maybe even more could be helpful at times.

It uses what you have or doesn’t work at all, no harm done.

Time and data download data wasted, a little harm.

Oh, there is also Router Keygen Yolosec from main F-Droid repo, but it also does not work for me. “Scanning Failed!” even with Wifi scanning enabled in OS settings. Download dictionary fails with “Impossible to write to the selected folder” but no folder was selected, and storage permission was given. I know, app issues probably.

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This has nothing to do with f-droid, but f-droid gives you links to go directly to the repository with the app’s source code and to the issue tracker where you can report bugs (if the problem you’re experiencing hasn’t already been reported).

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The Antifeatures feature (lol) will get an update in the next version to some degree. fyi

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