#f droid

Starting September 2026, you will no longer be able to control what apps you get to download to your device unless the developer pays a fee and gives their ID to Google. This will further contribute to Google's monopolistic practices, raises the vulnerability of our IDs to a company that has a poor track record of keeping it protected, dismantles our right to privacy AND right to own, and in extreme cases where someone lives in an authoritarian regime, would mean that Google can be bought into putting vulnerable people in extreme danger.

Read this page, spread the word, send developer feedback to Android, and contact your representatives to prevent this from happening.

Follow this link for solutions for your device (requires technical knowledge, consult with someone who KNOWS what they're doing before attempting these measures)

It did not occur to me until just a half hour ago, but I wondered about the AI (a.i.) settings on the Mobile Mozilla Browser, specifically, in my case for Android and the Fennec / IronFox variants specifically. They both were set for AI to be on by default.

If this is a problem for you, as it is for me (limited resources on mobile, mostly) type about:config into your URL bar to begin.

Once you are there search for browser.ml and set the following to false:

browser.ml.checkForMemory

First of all, I'm definitely not the best person to explain this. You should look up more well versed articles about this!

but basically

Google is trying to make it so any and all apks you download have to be from the play store and nowhere else. Any developer that wants to share their project will have to sign up with Google, give them their ID & main passkey and pay a fee. This means a lot of opensource, hobbiest or ternage developers are fucked from the get go. This is a nonconsenual update you can't opt out of. And this is Google, not your operating system. So not updating your phone won't save you.

Of course we can! There's a store born just to distribute FOSS mobile apps, F-droid! On there you'll find only open source apps with a link to the source codes! I personally use another client to browse Foss applications, Drod-ify. It has a more modern look and gives you the ability to add more repositories other than the default F-Droid one!

I've been in a de-googling process for a few months now, adn F-Droid played a very important role in it! Here are some of the apps that I use the most, all coming from F-Droid/Droid-ify:

Fossify Phone, a replacement for the stock Phone app. It's part of the Fossify suite of apps;

OuterTune, a music player with local files and YouTube Music support;

Organic Maps, a Google Maps replacements based on OpenStreetMap;

Fedilab, a client to browse the Fediverse with support for Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube and Friendica.

Eternity, a client for Lemmy, the Fediverse form of Reddit;

GrayJay, to watch YouTube videos without ads! It also support Twitch, PeerTube and others video and audio platforms.

Download and install F-Droid for Android phones and tablets. Get latest versions of F Droid apps first using F Droid App Store.