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bboygravity

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Install F-Droid apps over USB straight from the browser

droidstore.megahard.pro
4 points·by bboygravity·vor 21 Tagen·3 comments

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bboygravity
·vor 19 Tagen·discuss
Canadian fraud is on another level. When I worked for a Dutch company my boss forced me to take a sales pitch from some Canadian startup. They claimed to have some new magic wireless electricity technology using new unreleased quantum physics principles or whatever and had actually managed to get a significant contract from some part of the Canadian government (that was the only part of the pitch that was not a lie). The website was screaming scam with: crypto AI quantum compute, etc. The sales pitch was an actual live videocall where they just told us a bunch of lies straight to our face.

First and last time I ran into something so blatant. We didn't fall for it btw.
bboygravity
·vor 21 Tagen·discuss
Unfortunately, yes.

My own daily driver is Firefox, so I basically only open Brave just for this website. I personally prefer managing apps on my phone through a browser on my laptop instead of fiddling with F-Droid on the phone.
bboygravity
·vor 21 Tagen·discuss
DroidStore is a web catalog of open-source Android apps drawn from F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid, and curated GitHub releases.

Talks to the Android phone over USB. Open the page, and install APKs from the browser. It drives ADB over WebUSB, so there is no client to install, no account, and no telemetry.

I built it (vibe coded) because of Google's Android developer verification requirement. From 30 September 2026 in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand, with a wider rollout from 2027, any app installed on a certified Android device must be registered to a developer who has verified their identity with Google. That can mean handing over legal name, address, phone number, and a government ID, plus registering every app's package identifier. Apps whose authors have not verified by the deadline will not install through the normal flow in those regions.

F-Droid has refused to comply for very practical reasons. It cannot force the thousands of independent developers it distributes to register with Google, and it cannot claim those apps' package identifiers for itself without seizing exclusive distribution rights to other people's software. By its own account, the requirement would end the project and leave its users unable to install or even update apps.

The one install path Google has committed to keeping open is ADB/sideloading, for local development and power users. DroidStore wraps that in a browser so installing a known, auditable open-source app stays a single click over USB, with no command line and no F-Droid client. It is a stopgap to keep these apps reachable after the deadline. At least until Google also decides to block that route I guess.

I haven't put it on Github yet to publish the source and have others self-host this, but will do if people turn out to be interested in this. So far there was only one user (me) :P
bboygravity
·vor 6 Monaten·discuss
It's really not that complicated: do you prefer to work at a tiny desk or a huge desk?

Same with monitors.

Either you stack huge piles of papers and work through the piles (with everything in the way all the time) or you spread them out in front of you.
bboygravity
·vor 6 Monaten·discuss
SpaceX is doing fine woth that approach?
bboygravity
·vor 6 Monaten·discuss
Kinda like photoshop 2 decades or so ago.
bboygravity
·vor 6 Monaten·discuss
The reason it's not recommended for all ages is money. Not safety concerns.

Same reason you can't get Shingrix under a certain age.
bboygravity
·vor 7 Monaten·discuss
Why is "no early returns" not a good rule?

I do early returns in code I write, but ONLY because everybody seems to do it. I prefer stuff to be in predictable places: variables at the top, return at the end. Simpler? Delphi/Pascal style.
bboygravity
·vor 8 Monaten·discuss
I've been in towns in Mexico where the kids ONLY speak a Mayan language. No Spanish or English.

I asked for directions and just got blank stares until someone who spoke Spanish in the village explained, lol.
bboygravity
·vor 9 Monaten·discuss
Meaningless. You can replace socialist by capitalist and it would be equally meaningless.

The correct word is democracy. The people (or "workers") having a say or not has nothing to do with socialism or capitalism IMO.
bboygravity
·vor 9 Monaten·discuss
AI progress has slowed down?! By what metric?

Quite the statement for anybody who follows developments (without excluding xAI).
bboygravity
·vor 9 Monaten·discuss
"make speculative statements"

isn't this 99 percent of modern infotainment "journalism" though? making speculative statements, omitting and lying..
bboygravity
·vor 9 Monaten·discuss
What are the chances that Signal is an op ran by the NSA?
bboygravity
·vor 9 Monaten·discuss
A single malicious infotainment outlet can fool thousands or perhaps millions of real people as that fact gets repeated in different forms and amplified with nobody checking for a valid source.

Llms are no more robust.
bboygravity
·vor 9 Monaten·discuss
Feel free to accuse the Germans. Russian bribes is basically why they have some of the most expensive energy in the world now. They're surprisingly corrupt for a "developed" "high tech" nation.

Search Gerhard Schroder for more info.
bboygravity
·vor 9 Monaten·discuss
Not if you consider that you need to either renew or add battery capacity (and panels and power electronics) after x years? Or did you take that into account?
bboygravity
·vor 9 Monaten·discuss
The good news is: there are still off-site backups.

The bad news is: they're in North Korea.
bboygravity
·vor 9 Monaten·discuss
This could be a quote from some Roman around the year 100 :p
bboygravity
·vor 10 Monaten·discuss
Another fun fact: you can remove all of the brain of a cat on threadmill except the brainstem and he'll keep walking.
bboygravity
·vor 10 Monaten·discuss
I can highly recommend aluminum tape or copper tape. Doesn't let any light through and super easy to apply.