page_title: F-Droid
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: F-Droid / History
context_page_description: F-Droid is a community-maintained software repository for Android, similar to the Google Play store. The main repository, hosted by the project, contains only free and open source apps. Applications can be browsed, downloaded and installed from the F-Droid website or client app without the need to register for an account. "Anti-Features" such as advertising, user tracking, or dependence on nonfree software are flagged in app descriptions.
  The website also offers the source code of applications it hosts, as well as the software running the F-Droid server, allowing anyone to set up their own app repository.
context_section_description: F-Droid was founded by Ciaran Gultnieks in 2010. The client was forked from Aptoide's source code. The project is now run by the English nonprofit F-Droid Limited.
  Replicant, a fully free software Android operating system, uses F-Droid as its default and recommended app store. The Guardian Project, a suite of free and secure Android applications, started running their own F-Droid repository in early 2012. In 2012, Free Software Foundation Europe featured F-Droid in their Free Your Android! campaign to raise awareness of the privacy and security risks of proprietary software. F-Droid was chosen as part of the GNU Project's GNU a Day initiative during their 30th anniversary to encourage more use of free software.
  In March 2016 F-Droid partnered with The Guardian Project and CopperheadOS with the goal of creating "a solution that can be verifiably trusted from the operating system, through the network and network services, all the way up to the app stores and apps themselves".
caption: Development of F-Droid data over time from 2010 through 2018[6]
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