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 libre software apps. Applications can be browsed 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 descriptionsThe 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.

Scope of project
The F-Droid repository contains a growing number of more than 2,000 apps, compared to over 1.43 million on the Google Play Store. The project incorporates several software sub-projects:

• Client software for searching, downloading, verifying, and updating Android apps from an F-Droid repository
• fdroidserver – tool for managing existing and creating new repositories
• Jekyll-based website generator for a repository

F-Droid builds apps from publicly available and freely licensed source code. The project is run entirely by volunteers and has no formal app review process.New apps are contributed by user submissions or the developers themselves. The only requirement is that they be free of proprietary software.

Client application
To install the F-Droid client, the user has to allow installation from "Unknown sources" in Android settings and retrieve the APK (installable file) from the official site. Installation is not available through the Google Play store due to the non-compete clause of the Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement.

The client was designed to be resilient against surveillance, censorship, and unreliable Internet connections. To promote anonymity, it supports HTTP proxies and repositories hosted on Tor onion services. Client devices can function as impromptu "app stores", distributing downloaded apps to other devices over local Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Android Beam.The F-Droid client app will automatically offer updates for installed F-Droid apps. When the F-Droid Privileged Extension is installed, updates can also be conducted by the app itself in the background.The extension can be installed via rooting, or by flashing a zip file on the device.

Key management
The Android operating system checks that updates are signed with the same key, preventing others from distributing updates that are signed by a different key.Originally, the Google Play store required applications to be signed by the developer of the application, while F-Droid only allowed its own signing keys. So apps previously installed from another source have to be reinstalled to receive updates.

As of 2017, Google Play encourages developers to let Google Play manage the signing keys,offering a similar service to what F-Droid has offered since 2011, and F-Droid now lets developers use their own keys via the reproducible build process.

Specifications

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