Updating Apps - Appstore / F-Droid

Using /e/OS Applications
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Hello everybody,
I am still new to my Fairphone and /e/.
I recently noticed that I can update apps from the F-Droid store via the build in Appstore and sometimes the other way round (example: Nextcloud).
Is this procedure ok or should I update apps from the F-Droid store only via F-Droid and apps from the build in Appstore via Apps?

Thanks in advanced.

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it is better to make updates for apps from F-droid, also via F-droid.

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Hi @Bigsby. The all apps from F-Droid you can find as well in AppsStore. You can update them in both stores without any difficulty - it just might be that in F-Droid you might find already a newer version that is not (yet) available in AppsStore.

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If you think so, you don’t seem to have any problems with it. I can only advise against mixing the two stores.
you can use both but never update in one store if the app is installed from the other store.

i have my opinion about the /e/ app store. i have no confidence in it. so i avoid it like the devil avoids holy water.

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I can confirm that I never had problems updating/installing apps from F-Droid/Apps and interchanging (what I am doing myself).
This is what the initial question was about.

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/e/'s Apps gets it’s apps from an website called cleanapk.org who state that

Most of open source applications available through our API are mirrored from F-Droid.

So, for these apps, they are essentially providing the same .apk files (signed with the same signing key) as F-Droid, which is why it is possible to update these apps in either F-Droid or Apps. Unfortunately they use the word “most” which implies that not all open source applications available from Apps come from F-Droid.

If the app can be updated by both apps, then it is probably safe to do so. However, I avoid using /e/s Apps because

  1. F-Droid is a more mature, less buggy app than /e/'s Apps
  2. cleanapk.org are very secretive about themselves: there is no information available about who owns and operates the site, where they are based, or where they get their non-open source apps (and the open source apps that don’t come from F-Droid), and I don’t like not knowing who I am doing business with :slight_smile:
  3. The effort /e/ put in to creating and maintaining Apps would be better spent (in my opinion) on other parts of the /e/ software whicy are not freely available elsewhere
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Cleanapk is the biggest loss of confidence /e/ has.

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Thanks a lot for the answers! So to be on the safe side I’ll update apps separately.

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For the reasons petefoth laid out, I’d personally go for F-droid and Aurora Store. You can get all apps from there. Aurora Store can be installed from F-droid. I’d also disable e-os App Store’s auto-update feature in the settings for that app.
I find the App Store to be a security hazard because of its blind trust in a third-party which no one really knows anything about. That is probably a controversial opinion to hold on here, but that’s my thoughts.

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