I've never used f-droid or fiddled around with my android phone too much so apologies if I'm asking stupid questions. Do I need to do anything special to get f-droid?
See the other reply - I could only answer for the store I use on my google-free phone. F-Droid is just an alternative (free) app store that you download as APK & install, which does not require your phone number or payment info like fcking google pieces of sht