Download Thor

Before you pick a channel

Thor runs on Android 9 (API 28) and newer.

Thirty seconds, then go

Most people → IzzyOnDroid. Add https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/repo to an F-Droid client. The FOSS build, automatic updates, and a rebuild-from-source check that is not mine. Some clients already carry that repository, so look through your client’s repository list before adding it by hand. If you have no client yet, Neo Store and Droid-ify both work — but not f-droid.org, where Thor is not listed.
No F-Droid client, or you want a release the day it lands → GitHub. foss-release.apk is the same file IzzyOnDroid republishes. You update it by hand.
You want Play to handle updates → Google Play. Not reproducible, and signed with a key you should assume differs from the others.
You want the newest code, breakage included → the GitHub pre-releases. Look for GitHub’s Pre-release badge, not the tag name. A tag that looks like a development build is not the signal; the badge is.
Skip the .aab attached to every stable GitHub release — Android cannot install one — and skip f-droid.org, where Thor is not published.

Two moves need an uninstall first

Everything installs over everything else in place, with two exceptions.

Moving between Play and any other channel, in either direction. I have never obtained the certificate Play signs with, so assume it does not match mine — and Android refuses to install a package whose signing certificate does not match the one already installed. That is how Android package signing works and it is protecting you — it is a property of the platform, not a penalty for changing your mind, and it costs exactly the same going to Play as coming from it.

Going from a pre-release back to an older stable. Android will not install an older build over a newer one.

Both mean uninstalling first, and an uninstall costs you what the next section describes — so read that before you start, not after.

What an uninstall costs you

This is not a switching-channels problem. It applies to any uninstall — a new phone, a factory reset, or “I’ll put it back later.”

Frozen apps stay frozen. Removing Thor undoes neither freeze mechanic. Thor switches the package off in place; on the devices that refuse to allow that, the Shizuku path removes it for your Android user while keeping its data. Dhizuku is the exception: it removes a preinstalled package for your user every time, refusal or not, and does not keep its data. Android has no reason to undo any of that just because Thor is gone.

Suspended apps are not in that position. The Freezer’s optional Suspend mode is a different mechanic, and Android only lets the package that recorded a suspension lift it again. Under root Thor records its own package as the suspender, so a suspension is tied to this install of Thor in a way a freeze is not. Unsuspend before you uninstall.

What you get back. The apps themselves. Reinstall Thor and the Freezer offers to import the disabled apps it finds. That prompt covers the disabled shape only, because nothing in a package read distinguishes “Thor removed this for your user” from “the vendor shipped it that way” — but the app list enumerates those packages too, so both shapes of frozen app are still reachable.

What you do not get back. Your Freezer watchlist and your saved profiles. Both live in Thor’s database, and Thor’s Auto Backup ruleset covers one file — the preferences store holding your settings — so the database is out of scope by design. There is no export for either. Screenshot them before you uninstall. That is the entire mitigation.

If you have already uninstalled with apps still frozen: reinstall Thor, accept the Import Disabled Apps prompt, and use the app list, which shows packages uninstalled for your user too. You can unfreeze from there. You have not lost them.

The channels

	Build	Signed by	Reproducible	Updates
IzzyOnDroid	`foss`	me	yes, checked by IzzyOnDroid	automatic, once IzzyOnDroid has picked the release up
GitHub Releases	`foss` and `store`	me	yes for `foss` — the same file	manual
Google Play	`store`	Google	no, by design	automatic; promotion is manual and Play review adds an unbounded delay

IzzyOnDroid — recommended

The foss APK, republished by IzzyOnDroid, who rebuild it from the published source and check that the result matches what I shipped. Their check, not my claim — which is the entire point of it.

If you would rather verify than take it on trust, the listing links the build Recipe and the Log for each verified build. The file they hash is the same foss-release.apk attached to the GitHub release.

GitHub Releases

The identical APK, direct. No client, no repository to add, and no automatic updates — you check back yourself, watch the repository’s releases feed, or follow the Telegram channel, where builds get announced.

A stable release carries three files: foss-release.apk, store-release.apk and an .aab. The .aab is for Play. Android cannot install one, so it is not a download for you. A pre-release carries the two APKs and no .aab.

Google Play

The store build. CI uploads an Android App Bundle to Play’s closed-testing track, and Play generates the install for your device from it and signs what it generates — so the file Play installs is not a file I built, and it is not reproducible. That is Play working as designed, not a shortcoming of the build.

I have never obtained the certificate Play actually signs with, so assume it differs from mine rather than treating the two as the same. Either way, plan for the uninstall described above when you move on or off Play.

Other places you may see Thor

Mirror sites and APK aggregators repackage GitHub releases, and some of them strip or replace the signature. Check the certificate yourself — if it does not match the one on the file attached to the GitHub release, it is not my build, whatever the page says.

Not available: F-Droid

Thor is not on f-droid.org, and there is no date to promise. IzzyOnDroid is the FOSS channel.

The two builds: `foss` and `store`

One functional difference, and it is the support sheet. The store build links Play Billing, declares com.android.vending.BILLING, and puts four support subscription tiers in a Play Store tab beside the direct links. Play Billing is scoped to store with storeImplementation, so the foss build never links it: it compiles a no-op billing implementation instead, and its sheet offers GitHub Sponsors, Patreon and PayPal and nothing else.

Three others worth knowing, all of them in app/build.gradle.kts:

Locales. The foss build ships five — English, Arabic, Spanish, French and Chinese — because it is one universal APK, and trimming the unused library translations out of resources.arsc saves real size. The store build keeps them all, because Play serves per-locale splits anyway. This is a flavour difference and not a Play-versus-GitHub one: the store-release.apk on the same GitHub release also carries the full set.
Version string. The foss build carries a -foss suffix, which is how you tell the two apart on-device.
An extra ProGuard file for the foss flavour.

Everything else is the same code in both: the same privilege engines, the same app-management actions, the same behaviour. Which key an APK carries is a property of the channel, not of the flavour — the store-release.apk attached to a GitHub release is signed with my key, the same one the foss APK carries.

What reproducible builds prove — and what they do not

They prove the APK you downloaded was built from the source in this repository, unmodified. Nobody inserted anything between the code you can read and the file you installed.

They do not prove that the source is good, that I am trustworthy, or that there are no bugs. Reproducibility removes one specific attack — a compromised build — and nothing else.

Verify what you downloaded

Print the signing certificate

apksigner verify --print-certs -v foss-release.apk

That prints the certificate the file is actually signed with. The APK on IzzyOnDroid and the APK attached to the GitHub release are the same file, so they print the same certificate; anything from a mirror that prints something else is not my build.

This does not apply to a Play install. Play signs what it generates, so what you would see there is Play’s certificate rather than mine.

Build it from source

Build the FOSS release

git clone https://github.com/trinadhthatakula/Thor.git
cd Thor
./gradlew assembleFossRelease

You will need JDK 21 — Zulu, to match CI — and the build pulls Android SDK 37 and an alpha Android Gradle Plugin, so expect the first sync to take a while.

The APK lands in app/build/outputs/apk/foss/release/. Run ./gradlew copyFossReleaseApk instead and you also get a copy renamed foss-release.apk in app/build/distribution/foss/ — that is the task CI runs, and that file is what gets attached to the release. An unsigned local build will not match the published certificate. That is expected: you signed it, or did not, and I signed mine.

Supporting the project

Thor is free on every channel and stays free. If you want to support it, the in-app support subscription in the Play build is one route and not the only one — GitHub Sponsors, Patreon, Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee and PayPal all work regardless of where you installed from. Choosing Play for that reason alone would be choosing an install you have to uninstall to leave, for something you can do from any channel.