F-Droid

F-Droid is an Android app store. Unlike Google Play or other app stores in China, F-Droid only includes free and open-source software (FOSS) and places a strong emphasis on privacy and security. Every app is verified.

F-Droid offers a huge range of free and open-source software covering themes, graphics, multimedia, communication, development, finance, navigation, games, system, networking, and more.

We can download the offline Android APK file directly from its web version, or install the F-Droid store on our phones for online installation and updates.

How to use

1. Download and install from the F-Droid Android store

Official F-Droid website: https://f-droid.org/zh_Hans (not directly accessible from mainland China)

Github ：https://github.com/f-droid/fdroidclient/releases/

Gitlab ：https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/releases/

The three channels above are all official channels, while the Quark Cloud Drive link below is a reupload downloaded from GitHub. Download and install it according to your own situation.

Quark Cloud Drive: https://pan.quark.cn/s/d2e28fa4a068

2. Configure the image registry

After installing the F-Droid store on your Android phone, you most likely won’t be able to download apps directly unless you have special network access. In that case, you’ll need to configure a mirror repository. I recommend the Tsinghua University Open Source Software Mirror Site.

Open the F-Droid app, go to Settings, select Repositories, then tap the Add button in the bottom-right corner, copy the link for Tsinghua University's mirror repository, and add it.

3. Download the offline APK file from the web version; this method does not support online updates!

Open the official F-Droid website, search for the app you need, open its details page, scroll all the way to the bottom, find the latest version of the app, and you’ll see a button to download the APK.