Separate (non-free) Firefox repo

[rfc2822]

I have also noticed that. Do you have an idea how to change that?

[spaetz]

Sorry no, I have never used droidserver myself so I do know even know
what criteria fdroid uses to determine the “newness”:

[chrysn]

@rfc2822, thanks for running this. May I suggest a commit to include the beta series as well here? The idea has been contributed by Seburo in the Mozilla support thread where I’m trying to push that issue upstream.

[rfc2822]

I have now

• added the beta version download (thanks @chrysn – btw, I’m not a “he”)
• added the whole F-Droid repo to the CI runner cache so that the packages hopefully won’t be “added” every day (from now on)

[spaetz]

Thanks a bunch for investing the time to make this even better!

[olf]

@rfc2822, thank you for setting up this F-Droid repository for “Firefox for Android” and its Beta. This way one can avoid using “FFupdater” or Aptoide an a Google-free device: Cool!

But unfortunately something is slightly wrong with it: When I manually check for updates in the F-Droid client, it always is “Saving application details” (which takes quite long on a slow device) for this repository in contrast to all other repositories (9 in total on my phone), even if it has just been updated minutes before.

Side note:
Some nitpicking about language: It should be “unofficial”, not “inofficial”, as long as there isn’t a play with language involved, which I fail to understand. You may change that in fdroid/config.py · master · Ricki Hirner / fdroid-firefox · GitLab (twice) and in the README.md

[rfc2822]

I have enabled merge requests

[olf]

Thank you, I created a PR/MR WRT the wording and a few more solely textual enhancements.

As I still have no idea what is causing the F-Droid client app to always do a “Saving application details” (and presumably a “Downloading repository data” before that, but with just two APKs that is likely too quick to be noticeable), even though I was thoroughly comparing https://rfc2822.gitlab.io/fdroid-firefox/fdroid/repo/index.xml with some other fdroid-index.xml, e.g. https://f-droid.i2p.io/repo/index.xml, I am giving up on this one and hope somebody with higher F-Droid repository skills will have a look into this and ultimately resolve the issue.

[rfc2822]

Thanks, will merge it.

@olf

As I still have no idea what is causing the F-Droid client app to always do a “Saving application details” (and presumably a “Downloading repository data” before that, but with just two APKs that is likely too quick to be noticeable),

As soon as I have noticed, it’s not always, but once per day, and this is because the repository actually is update once a day by the Gitlab runner (even if no packages were updated).

[olf]

@rfc2822

Thanks, will merge it.

Thank you for merging.

@rfc2822

As soon as I have noticed, it’s not always, but once per day, and this is because the repository actually is update once a day by the Gitlab runner (even if no packages were updated).

I know, this is O.K. and this is not what I am trying to address.

Steps to reproduce the issue:

1. Disable all repositories, except the “Firefox F-Droid (unofficial)” one.
   This measure is only to exclude any other repositories from interfering with this test (i.e. it also happens exactly the same way, when other repositories are enabled).
2. Refresh repositories manually by hitting the “” button: The F-Droid client app emits a notification “Saving application details”, which is expected (once a day).
3. Hit the “” button again: The F-Droid client app emits the notification “Saving application details” another time; well, maybe the daily repo update just ran, so this could be correct.
4. Hit the “” button a third time: The F-Droid client app emits another notification “Saving application details”; now, this cannot be caused by the daily repo update!
5. One can hit the “” button a fourth, fifth and so on time: The F-Droid client app always emits another notification “Saving application details”; this is the issue I am trying to address.

When carrying out the same test sequence with any other well working F-Droid repository (e.g. F-Droid, F-Droid Archive, Guardian Project Official Releases, Guardian Project Archive, but also third party repositories as microG F-Droid Repo, I2P F-Droid Repo or Öffi - Public Transport Buddy) this does not happen, i.e. the F-Droid client app does not always emit the “Saving application details” notification and does not take a long time to do so.

[olf]

Note that the time the F-Droid client app takes to perform “Saving application details” has been drastically reduced in recent releases of it, especially when using the new (v1) index format. But unfortunately:

• The Öffi repo does not offer an index file in the new format, so I am stuck at the old one.
• On my “production” phone I am stuck at the F-Droid client release 0.102 (for technical / maintenance reasons), which takes ages to perform “Saving application details”.
• Technically the issue is present with any release of the F-Droid client app, i.e. the Unofficial Firefox F-Droid repo is the only repository always triggering a “Saving application details”.

[bgiesing]

@rfc2822 Any way you can add Firefox Nightly to the repo? I’ve looked but it doesn’t look like Mozilla offers a “bouncer” URL like the ones you used for Release/Beta (I opened a bug so maybe they will add it) so you might have to implement it slightly differently.

Instead the only URL for Nightly is something like this https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/mobile/nightly/latest-mozilla-central-android-api-16/fennec-59.0a1.multi.android-arm.apk which has the version number in it. You can pull the version code from the JSON here.

[rfc2822]

Please just send a merge request If you add nightlies, I guess the repo archive policy and how long the APK is kept in the APK directory should be checked, too.

[bgiesing]

I don’t know anything about GitLab CI so the most I could do is add the current URL, have 0 ideas on how to implement the version tracking or the other stuff you mentioned.

[rfc2822]

I have just added Firefox Focus/Klar to the repo

[spaetz]

Hi,
I just noticed that my f-droid client says about the unofficial Firefox repo:
"This paket source has never been used…W
And indeed, all pages under https://rfc2822.gitlab.io/fdroid-firefox/ lead to a 404 error,
however, I still have Firefox 58.0.2 in my list of available apps, so the change must have been a recent one.

[rfc2822]

Repo seems to work here (just updated FF Klar) and https://rfc2822.gitlab.io/fdroid-firefox/fdroid/repo/index.xml is no 404…

[spaetz]

Weird, it works now here as well. Sorry for the noise.

[anon18732596]

“Add this URL to F-Droid:
https://rfc2822.gitlab.io/fdroid-firefox/fdroid/repo?fingerprint=8F992BBBA0340EFE6299C7A410B36D9C8889114CA6C58013C3587CDA411B4AED”

But that doesnt work.
It only works if i enter “https://rfc2822.gitlab.io/fdroid-firefox/fdroid/repo” in F-Droid. Enter the fingerprint in the optional fingerprint field, works.

[TPS]

@rfc2822 Are you following

Making it easier for F-Droid to package Mozilla Firefox

Hi folks, My name is Nick Alexander; I work for Mozilla and own the Firefox for Android build system. Judging by the forum posts and a little digging, it looks like there’s a lot of interest in keeping Firefox for Android current in F-Droid, and that @relan is doing some of the hard work to make this happen. I can’t find a way to talk to @relan directly, so I’m posting here. (Also, if I’m not crediting somebody or incorrectly crediting @relan, please accept my apologies.) There are a few ti…

If not, maybe chime in. That’s being led by the official Ff Android lead @ Mozilla, so maybe you won’t have to host this yourself anymore.

Until then, I do get updates, but the repo still seems to have some structural issues, e.g., I don’t see any versions under any of the Ff apps (indeed, when I try to do so, F-Droid crashes!) & also receive same error as @spaetz above.