Products · Product
F-Droid
Raised as a usability problem by 48 people on Hacker News over 10 years (2017–2026), in 33 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Each app update needs separate install, waiting, and OK tapsUnreviewed
20172026- Checking for app updates takes six nonintuitive clicks2026-09-25
- Updates are so slow that the user had to sideload an app manually2026-09-24
- Selecting app updates now requires clicking through each app individually2026-09-24
Search rarely returns the app the user is looking forUnreviewed
20172026- Internal search hides apps even when searched for by exact name2026-09-15
- Apps were removed from search results by default, so users can't find them2026-03-01
- Search results rarely return the app the user is looking for2023-03-03
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Unclear which areas scroll versus which trigger actions, risking accidental taps2026-09-25
- Checking for app updates takes six nonintuitive clicks2026-09-25
- Sections and tappable elements are not visually distinguished, so users can't tell what they can tap2026-09-24
- Updates are so slow that the user had to sideload an app manually2026-09-24
- Cursor gets lost and focused option is hard to see on TV remote2026-09-24
- F-Droid's interface is terrible to use, pushing the user toward a third-party client2026-09-24
- Cluttered, non-standard controls where a plain dropdown would do2026-09-24
- Selecting app updates now requires clicking through each app individually2026-09-24
- The official F-Droid app is described as an unusable mess, too confusing to use.2026-09-16
- Internal search hides apps even when searched for by exact name2026-09-15
- Apps missing from the phone app that appear on the website, and updates never detected2026-09-01
- Install stuck on 'Waiting to start download' with a 404 toast that vanishes too fast to read2026-08-02
- Repo updates hard to observe, downloads hang, updates fail with no feedback2026-07-02
- Apps were removed from search results by default, so users can't find them2026-03-01
- Install link buried two clicks deep under docs; instructions don't say to open on the device2025-11-26
- Search is hard to use and poorly designed2025-02-05
- Pipeline fails without explaining why; docs contradict actual submission steps2025-01-23
- Can't tell which of several similar apps is actually good without installing each2025-01-23
- Smartphone F-Droid app is nearly impossible to navigate with a TV remote2025-01-23
- Completely unusable on Android TV devices2025-01-23
- Searching for new apps often hits a rate-limit error, needing about 10 tries2023-10-14
- Sticky update notification stays stuck and tapping it does nothing2023-03-10
- Search results rarely return the app the user is looking for2023-03-03
- Giant download button above version list is confused with the per-version APK button2023-03-03
- Downloads get stuck and download status changes randomly2023-03-03
- Large icon grid is less efficient for finding apps, especially when icons are unfamiliar2023-03-03
- Auto-update failed and manual update in the app refused to load, forcing a browser download2023-03-02
- Downloads freeze in a state that can't be stopped, and progress shows wrong values2023-03-02
- Installing each app update requires tapping through install, waiting, and OK for every app2023-01-21
- Some browsers lack scrolling or pinch-to-zoom and have dated, hard-to-use interfaces2022-12-26
- Updates fail to install more than half the time, with a poor experience2022-11-04
- Updates are slow to download or the site is unavailable2022-04-20
- Search is terrible, making it hard to find apps on F-Droid2022-03-31
- The site is slow to load for the commenter2022-03-23
- Must approve a separate popup for each update, waiting between each2022-03-01
- Updating apps means manual clicking each time, and update notifications often show errors2022-02-28
- Tapping update notifications gives a 'problem parsing the package' error, unfixed for years2021-10-12
- F-Droid's app store is described as completely broken for user experience2021-08-27
- Must manually check for newer beta builds to opt into2021-07-24
- Update notifications don't lead to a working install; users get errors instead2021-01-30
- Search fails to surface the keyboard app itself, only its language packs2021-01-07
- F-Droid's UI is clunky and hard to use2020-11-04
- Hard to tell what apps do when browsing the store2020-05-26
- Can't tell what many apps do; apps require extra installs or only work in some setups2020-05-26
- Search sometimes returns nothing and sometimes too many results in random order2020-01-20
- Website is so slow it's almost unusable for search or browsing2020-01-20
- Icons stay blank when scrolling back up, and screenshots take 15+ seconds to load2020-01-20
- Icons load very slowly, sometimes failing to load at all2020-01-20
- Newer redesign makes it hard to categorize and find apps2020-01-20
- No auto-updates or update-all; user must update each app one by one2019-10-16