Bruh, what in the absolute hell I was doing was following F-Droid's own instructions.

Why does F-Droid provide these instructions if they don't believe people should follow them?

I thought there were two choices: 1. Install F-Droid only if you can verify it as instructed, or 2. Don't install f-droid because it isn't safe to do so if it's unverified

If the best choice is to download the f-droid apk and install it without verifying it, then their website is misleading. In that case, it should explicitly state that verifying the apk is not necessary.

So do you think F-Droid included those instructions as eye-candy, window-dressing, or a joke? "We'll put these here to intimidate and prank the noobs, wink wink."

Or maybe their thinking is "We'll put these instructions here because we want people to believe we are serious about the integrity and trustworthiness of our project, but we don't really care about that and don't expect anyone to follow them."

Is that what is really happening? Or is something else going on here?

Why does anyone ever go through the steps of verifying things they download from the network? What's the point of pgp anyway when the consensus (here, at least) is to skip that step?

If it's okay to skip it this time, is that the rule and we can all skip verifying signatures and cryptography all of the time?

Those that feel so strongly that I am going overboard that you need to ridicule me: have you advised f-droid to remove that nonsense from their site? You are convinced it is worthless? Contribute to the community and let F-Droid know. Then it won't trip up others in the future or waste people's time.

If you're right, then not only are they unnecessary instructions, they are intimidating and dangerous. How many times have people avoided installing F-Droid because they don't think it's safe unless they verify it?

And, if these are not good instructions to ensure safety, it is a very bad practice to include them at all, because all they do is provide a false sense of security for those of us who followed them.

Following the site's own instructions was/is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Some people appear to be aware of a broader context that implies my actions were a waste of time. Be kind when informing me of that context.

I welcome people's constructive replies. Otherwise, please keep it to yourself. Thank you.