Is there any proprietary Android app for which you wish there would be an open-source alternative?
Basically, what the title says. Do you use any app, that is proprietary, but either has no OSS alternatives or they're all not good enough? If there is an alternative, what keeps you from switching?
My banking app ಠ_ಠ
And mine. And probably everyone else's since the only banking app I can find on F-Droid is something called Varengold.
Bitwarden. Most people think that their application is open source, but more and more of their code has shifted from the GPL/AGPL licensed code to code in their SDK, which is under a proprietary license. This led to their new Android app being disqualified from being hosted in F-Droid repos.
Keyguard was supposed to be an open source Bitwarden client, but the dev chose to use a custom proprietary license, so that is source available as well.
Oh!! I didn't know that … :/
Well fuck me.
I've been a paying bitwarden customer for years but i through they were moving more towards free software and not away from it... Makes me consider quitting my subscription. Why do they do this?
Just yesterday I deployed it locally, and was about to migrate from my keepasDX (+syncthing)...
Don't get me wrong: BW is still a pretty good service, and the proprietary code is still readable by anyone, but the fact that they're moving a bunch of their previously open source licensed code to something that's source available is definitely unfortunate.
KeePass, on the other hand, has tons of actually open source clients, which definitely gives them an edge for people that don't mind syncing their own DB.
Vaultwarden ?
Edit: Nvm, that's just the server part
That's actually a good point too: Vaultwarden is fully open source. The official Bitwarden server also has proprietary components.
Yea but I didn't realize the vaultwarden project didn't also release client software.
I had looked into running my own vaultwarden, but without open source clients it's maybe a bit moot. Although I guess the web interface can be considered a client, OS or browser integration is a convenient feature.
They are remaking all apps as native apps so maybe this problem gets addressed too.
Their new, native android app is also using more and more of their proprietary SDK. It's not something they're trying to fix.
thanks for getting the word out!
Makes me wish Proton had their own password manager.
I don't know much about Proton. Isn't their back end proprietary though?
Proton Pass is a thing mate take a look it might suit your needs
Pedantic, but Google Messages' RCS. And it's all Google's fault because they are holding the API hostage, probably because they want to create familiarity with the app so that people don't switch once they finally open up.
Not pedantic at all. Google lied about RCS being an open standard.
The pedantic point would be saying that RCS, the protocol, is technically open, but the specific implementation that Google is pushing and being adopted is proprietary 🤓
So yeah. Totally fair point and fuck Google for their RCS bait-and-switch.
For anyone wondering:
Rich Communication Services. It is a protocol designed to enhance traditional SMS. RCS allows users to send messages that can include high-resolution images, videos, audio messages, and group chats, as well as features like read receipts, typing indicators, and location sharing.
Not just that, but they are actively hostile and hypocritical about it. Every 1-3 months they prevent RCS from working on rooted phones or phones running alternate ROMs. The fact that they spent so much time complaining that Apple wouldn't comply with the "open" standard while limiting users' options on their own platform is very frustrating.
I'm glad Google is exposing how crappy RCS is.
It's been fifteen years, and all they have is a "protocol" that's still completely dependant on a phone number.
What good is that? Why would I want that?
There are numerous systems that don't rely on a phone number, e.g. XMPP did everything RCS is trying to do, in 2010 (I ran it on my phone then, with a desktop client that kept in sync).
Teleguard works on every platform, no phone number required, as does MATRIX, Simplex, Wire, Threema, etc, etc.
Not to mention the issues people have with it. It's unreliable.
RCS is not another chat app.
It's the NEW SMS. That is why it is so important, and that is why it works ONLY IF YOU HAVE A PHONE. Because that's literally the point.
Having your mom, grandpa, and everyone automatically use encrypted, modern comnunication just because they have a phone is extremely important.
Realise that in places where SMS has been historically free, SMS is the standard.
XMPP, Matrix or whatever will obviously still have its place for more "incognito" conversations. But having a phone number should also give you access to a better alternative than SMS.
as I understand a phone number "gives you access to" RCS as much as it does to Signal. at that point it's just about what was pre-installed
RCS is supposed to be a distributed protocol, just like SMS, but using data. It is not the same as Signal. Tho, currently, Google is the main provider for almost all phone companies.
Google Pay/Wallet
Right now tap and pay is completely and hopelessly corporate
The issue is that the digital tap-to-pay cards are actually reissued cards with their own unique numbers. They also require significant security measures to protect from cloning attacks.
So banks need a party that they can safely issue a digital card to, knowing that the card data will be stored safely.
Even a FOSS app that covers all the user's needs is going to have a lot of trouble actually getting a card loaded into it under current standards.
I hate to say it, but crypto wallets are likely the closest thing we're ever going to get to a FOSS tap-to-pay system. Banks are inherently corporate and capitalist, so it's not really in their nature to make things open source.
Perhaps if there were an industry standard for issuing digital cards, instead of banks partnering with centralized wallet apps, we could procure our own digital cards to load onto our phones and watches, or integrate into other devices. But that's a whole other battle that nobody is fighting right now.
A FOSS app for digital payments, must have a company front to sign deals with country retail store chains. Although customer kyc can be avoided, the payments from the front company to retail chains would be thru a corporate structure.
... maybe convenience is the wrong path
The advantages of PoW crypto, over digital (and PoS), it's possible to force between seller and buyer:
With the goal of fostering our own private communities. Over time, might spawn a sub-culture, identity, and ultimately people hood.
Google Play Services
MicroG works really well
MicroG works well if you let it leak some data to Google.
I would like a free-as-in-free-from-Google Google Play Services reimplementation that lets me use any app that depends on it without hitting any Google server.
OP asked about Open Source not about privacy.
MicroG minimises connections to google servers, here you can read what addresses it still connects to and why: https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/wiki/Google-Network-Connections
Free software (not open-source, it's really free software that's important) that depends on a single for-profit vendor is not free.
MicroG is open-source but it's not free. It fails to address two problems:
I don't think OP cares about getting the source of the apps they run so much as the apps being free-as-in-libre in his original question. Many people mistake open-source for free software and MicroG is not truly free.
(I reread ops question and I can only see the term open source 2 times, but whatever, I understand what you say, and I don't want to debate about semantics.)
The point with microG is it's still the best way if you want to use android. The other options are:
btw I'm perfectly fine without even MicroG. When I was installing my phone it asked whether I want that too, said no, and didn't fell the need to then it on yet
Huh? Which rom asks this? Usually you have to go through hoops to get microg, and only a handful of roms have it builtin. It can only ask if you want to enable microg not installing it or not, microg to correctly work it should be installed in
/system/priv-app, to do that after boot on device, you have to be root.Do you use any app from aurora or outside fdroid? If your answer is no, than you can use android without a GMS package.
Also as I wrote, location won't work for you underground or inside concrete buildings. If you are fine with these kind of limitations than you can obviously.
Marwin (the main developer of microg) said in some interview that he doesn't want microg to exist, and in a perfect world we shouldn't need such workaround. I would be also happy if android wouldn't depend this muhc on google
CalyxOS does. It asks in a setup similar to what most common phones use with their stock ROM. MicroG is probably installed, but it's services are turned off.
Yes, there's a few. My favorite music player, a local public transport app, a file manager.. such things. They work fine. I was already not touching "corporate apps" with a 10 feet pole for a long time, so I don't get to experience their issues.
How would it otherwise? Network based location?
I totally agree. This is part of the reason I don't want to turn it on, ever. I don't want to use apps that support that shit, even unknowingly.
Yes. Your phone could triangulate its location from nearby celltowers ane wifi networks. Google has a database of wifi routers (actually that was the point of google streetview, they collected wifi bssids alongside taking photos, they also collect this data from android devices).
With microg you can select from different dbs for this, they are called 'UnifiedNlp backends': apple has a similar db from iphones, mozilla used to collect this data with a separate app for MLS (they shut down the project in 2024 march). Microg builds an on device private db as well, it will remembers the wifi networks and celltowers you were close to, and next time you are there it won't need gps, saves a ton of battery life. This was called Deja Vu, I love this name. Search for UnifiedNlp on fdroid you can find some more options.
Since MicroG 0.3 you don't have to install these separately, Mozilla and Deja Vu are builtin, and they are more than enough
And maybe tomorrow we'll see UP grow up, removing one more piece from google. And the day after, another piece.
Dating apps.
We need an open source completely free dating app.
No paying for matches, no limits ...just they're in your town, you look at their photos, you can talk, anyone can block anyone.
I don't really care for online dating, but I remember coming across this. They claimed to be open source.
https://alovoa.com/?lang=en
I'm honestly pleasantly surprised to see that this project seems to be rather actively developed.
Which is completely separate from having a meaningful user base (near you), so 🤷
Yep, this unfortunately seems to be a much hard problem
I'm with you, but see a million obstacles (aka. reasons for why things require payments).
You would need some form of moderation, to weed out illegal content as well as simply bots, spam, and dead profiles. Also for message content. I've given it some thought and suspect it can be crowd sourced to some degree, but also needs counter balances. Instead of limiting a profile to be live/banned, you could have a percentage score of peer-reported subjective legitimacy (ditto for message responses, heck you could even have a section of outright reviews of the person's behaviour - although that, again would be subject to abuse and moderation).
Hosting, traffic, etc. would be an unavoidable cost, but can be mitigated with low resolution photos (VGA should be "good enough" for an initial impression, no?)
For sure, an open source solution would offer way more fine grained filtering.
Great, but creating such an app would require someone to foot the bill for hosting user data, the web app and this can easily amount to quite a substantial sum. Not to mention that supporting this app would also be quite time consuming.
So write it to be decentralized, like BitTorrent or limewire, but for dating.
Then do it yourself if you think this can be done so easily.
I don't think it would be easier, I think it's my answer to the question asked. Look at the post again.
It's nothing personal dude, it's just someone's question on the Internet. The question isn't about whether it would be easy.
i will never understand why people think this is a sensible response, just because someone says "it's not an unsolvable problem" doesn't mean they think it's trivial for a toddler to implement in an evening.
Not to mention you'd need moderation for all kinds of scams or even pedo stuff... It's a risky one.
Legal waiver (no one under 18) and six picture limit, you can only change your pictures once a week.
@DarkCloud create a Mastodon instance, write your instance rules, moderate. That's it. Plus you'll be connected to the whole fediverse, existing client apps will work.
A keyboard with swipe typing, multilingual autocorrect and speech to text support that actually works.
Other than that, my only proprietary apps are from commercial services I use and pay for (banking, Spotify, Carsharing and public transport). I'd love for them to become open source, but it's probably not ever gonna happen, cause they rely on verifying my identity.
I've had a good experience with HeliBoard
Japanese has been an open issue for months now, so it's a nope from me.
X2. I don't like it, but I still use that libswype Google blob to get swipe-writing. I wish they could produce their own in the future.
I went with FUTO Keyboard. It's the only keyboard that ticks all my boxes to replace GBoard so far.
I wish the swiping predictions were a bit better though.
FUTO keyboard is proprietary.
It is not. FUTO calls it "source first" which just means "open source but with rules against bad actors". Certainly far from proprietary.
It is not open source, because it does not meet the definition of open source.
If the license doesn't meet the OSD and does not protect four freedoms, then it is not open-source.
It is by FUTO's definition.
Jokes aside, I find that attitude not very healthy. Whether you want to call it open source or not, as I said, it's far from proprietary, and certainly more than just source available. Dismissing it for that reason is quite unreasonable.
Calling a source-available license "not proprietary", this is what not very healthy.
"Source-first" or "fair code" are just a fancy ways to say "proprietary".
FUTO changing the definition of open source to suit their business model is like that time US Congress decided that pizza was a vegetable because it has tomato sauce.
FUTO's EULA may superficially resemble a true free software license (and may be good enough for you, personally) but it fundamentally undermines core tenets of the free software movement in order to preserve their business interests. All pseudo-FOSS licenses (whether of the "ethical" or the "business" variety) do this, because they prioritize the interests of the rightsholder above those of the community and the user. If important free software projects like Linux and Firefox were released under this license the free software world as we know it would not be possible.
As proprietary licenses go, it's certainly far from the worst.
Does the futo keyboard allow you to paste content yet?
I briefly used it but found the lack of content pasting too much of a hindrabce.
Has options for pasting, and even a clipboard history feature? Although have not enabled that or tested it.
By pasting content, I meant pasting images. I've just checked it and it doesn't do it yet. I often will take a screenshot but only copy the image because saving it pointless.
Have you tried openboard? Admittedly it doesn't the text to soeech
yes, tried it.
HeliBoard in combination with FUTO Voice Input is recommended. Unfortunately, the word prediction isn't too good.
@Kasupke are we recommending proprietary software here in the open-source lemmy community?
I'm not sure if this fits but here is mine:
I want to get away from Samsung but the "Sound Assistant" app let's me control the volume of every app, kind of like a mixer. Sometimes an app doesn't have a mute option, I can set the volume of that app to 0 without effecting the volume of whatever music I'm listening to.
I also like to listen to my local police scanner and music at the same time. I can set the volume of the scanner app low enough to not really bother the music but loud enough that if something happens I can still hear it and pause the music.
I can't believe Samsung and their app is the only way, but I haven't found an alternative.
My Motorola has it built into the sound settings so you should be able to find other alternatives
Good to know, thank you for the heads up.
This is something I've taken for granted as per app volume control is integrated into the OS on Motorola phones and I've been using mid range Motorolas since the Moto G 4 in 2016 (they offer a reasonable price, reasonable performance, microSD card and headphone jack).
Then I was setting up a Samsung tablet last weekend and was horrified to see I had to use the Samsung store to download Sound Assistant for something I had just assumed was a standard OS feature for close to a decade.
I'm using audio changing Magisk mods on my phone, and recently stumbled upon an issue (already fixed by a setting) that made me realize that audio mods work on an app-by-app basis.
The reason I wanted to tell this is if you are fine with tweaking your phone a little, an audio mod could do what you need.
A quick search has shown me these:
I'm not super well versed in the world of app development, but I would assume due to the way apps are sandboxed, this isn't something that could be done with a third party app.
system apps can do it. android has an API for audio mods that allows such things
Right, that's what I meant when I said "third party app". Samsung can write an app to do this, but your average app installed from the play store likely cannot.
you can have third party apps as system apps. you can even write your own, but the API docs are somewhat harder to find. nowadays you install them with magisk modules (not all of them contains an app), so that it is easier to revert and also to hide from those looking for it with a bad intent
There are so many. By usage however:
Smart Audiobook Player: None of the apps I tried had all the features in one, like reading my complex audiobooks folder structure and auto grouping the books based on that. Timer to pause audiobook that is automatically reset by moving the phone.
Maps: No foss solutions work better where I live than GMaps
YTMusic: So this is a tough one to beat because of the nature of the platform itself.
Notes: I am looking for a P2P syncable note app that can also have a web interface or atleast a Linux version of the App. Allows drawing your notes on an android phone or tablet using stylus, and other usual features. Can also use cloud storage as a backup or sync source. I know this one is a really tall order.
OSMAnd works really well. For YTMusic, you can instead pick LibreTube and use it in music player mode.
If you live in an area that's missing the data, it doesn't matter how good the app is. I regularly upload in my area, but it will be years before it is reliable as a primary app. I usually search in Organic Maps first, then in Google Maps. OSM gets me where I need about 10-20% of the time at most. Google Maps is about 99%.
There are multiple front-ends for YT Music. Song Tube is good, Libre Tube is good, Inner Tune, Musify, Vibe You, etc. I haven't used them all so I can't testify to them, but it is a deep bench.
There are always people claiming Organic Maps or other OSM apps are perfect replacements for GMaps and I'm just curious what other tool these people were using for location based searches. Because it apparently wasn't GMaps?
If you live in a big liberal city with a lot of tech people, then you probably have a really well organized team creating detailed maps. In that case, there's no reason to think that Google is any better than osm. In a lot of cases it's worse, especially for walking and cycling.
If you're in a smaller, poorer city or a rural area, there's a good chance that 80% or 90% of the addresses are just not there yet. Compare this random park in Berkeley, CA with labels for individual trees to this neighborhood in nearby Stockton, CA, which is assuredly more than 3-4 houses.
OSM usability really depends on where you live.
OSMand is amazing for the most part but trying to locate a business is next to impossible. Then if you do, the store hours are either not there or incorrect. I'm trying real hard to make it my primary map app but too often I find myself having to open google maps in the end.
Edit: They also combined Caravan POI's with Tourist destinations, which really really fucked things up for people wanting to just see those and not thousands of other locations they want nothing to do with. Why are churches also mixed in there too? Makes no damn sense.
I use OSMand alongside GMaps WV (a webview for Google Maps, wipes all data automatically after closing). Works well enough for me, but in GMaps you can't rotate the map or provide your location
You can edit those out, though I agree them being there by default is fucking stupid, full stop
Yeah, Osm is really good where I live, actually sometimes better/more up to date than Google Maps but finding businesses is more difficult.
I resolve this for my self by going to the website of the business, finding the address and putting it manually into Osm. Yes it's more work but it works and is worth it for me.
@Sir_Kevin Have you ever corrected the incorrect store hours?
Not while driving a 30 foot RV in the middle of the night, no.
@Sir_Kevin missing the point on purpose?
Yes you're missing the point. If I'm on the freeway in the middle of the night and take an exit to some town I've never been to only to find out the location is closed the app has failed. I needed accurate information in that moment. Not years later when the community gets around to correcting the hours. I absolutely need to be able to depend on the data the app is presenting. If I can't I'm not going on a crusade to fix all the errors, I'm using a different app.
@Sir_Kevin I never said "Have you ever corrected the store hours while driving off a highway in another city" - obviously that would be a stupid question, don't assume I'm stupid. I asked if you ever came back home, rested in front of Netflix and opened the app to update the store hours that you noticed during the day - because that's the only way they will be updated, and if you aren't doing it, then somebody will have to do it for you, so you owe them.
I fucking owe them??? They presented me with wrong info and wasted my time, fuel and stress. I don't owe anyone shit! Make a good product and I will gladly pay for it. Send me off to a dead end, I owe nothing. What kind of stupid ass logic is that? Fuck out of here. That argument is fine if we're talking about a video game or some shit. What if we were trying to find a hospital?
I'll mention organic maps and rimusic.
There's a lot of FOSS music apps that just use YTMusic, like ViMusic or the ones other people mentioned in their replies. For maps, I use Organic Maps, the only thing I feel like is missing from it is traffic jams but I think you can see why that would be hard to add. It does have features that Google Maps doesn't have tho.
For ytmusic you can try innertune
Logseq and syncthing could work for your notes. Logseq has a whiteboard feature that can be used with a stylus, and syncthing is p2p.
I use audiobookshelf. You need to have some (self hosted or not) server to use the client, but I find that software incredibly well made.
Symfonium. There are plenty of music apps, and I've used a lot of them, but none combine the UX and functionality that Symfonium offers to anywhere near the same quality :/
https://github.com/CappielloAntonio/tempo
You know? Doesn't look like it's quite there, but it's the closest I've seen by far, I'll have a good look I think! Thanks for that!
Edit: Tempo has Podcasts, Symfonium does not. Time will tell, but that may be the feature that pushes me over the edge.
yea considering its FOSS it was good enough compared to a lot of the other clients for me to move away from Symfonium
I was so pissed the other day while pulling out of the driveway that my paid copy of Symfonium wouldn't work at all. It needed permission from daddy google to start but didn't have an internet connection at the moment. Fuck that shit I gave you my money!
Synfonium is the only thing that I could get to work with my selfs hosted jellyfin server and with downloading of music. I haven't had any problems with it though.
Tasker: I haven't used it, but I've seen useful automations over the years from people online and I would probably use a good FOSS alternative.
I use "Automation" (on fdroid) - the UX could do with some improving but it thoroughly covers the basics.
Newer versions of Android make it difficult to automate certain things though, I find root helps to get around that in some cases
There is something called auto clicker(?) Such is simpler but similar. It's on fdroid.
I used to be a heavy Tasker user. I think I hit a wall with building more complex rules using their interface, which made me stop using it. Maybe they have a way to just write a script instead now, but I haven't looked into it.
Whatsapp. I know signal, simplex, matrix, (a billion other things), etc exist that are much better, but where I live, no one uses them, for context, basically everyone, like if you have a phone, you use whatsapp, some government things even happen through whatsapp bots, when people say the word message here, they mean whatsapp. There are about 20-30% (among younger folks) who use telegram, but that is mostly for easier piracy, and larger file sharing (before whatsapp allowed 2 GiB, now they do it habitually). My mom has about a 1000 contacts, and less than 10 of them actually use signal (there are many more who signed up(there was another thing, basically when elon said "just use signal"))
At this point it is not worth getting everyone to switch, the best i have done, is just reducing the number people i communicate with (on whatsapp), and try to just meet in person
I use Matrix with a WhatsApp bridge. Best of both worlds.
Which bridge do you use? do you self-host it?
mautrix-whatsapp and, yes, self-hosted.
Is there any way i can host the whatsapp bridge but not the matrix instance itself, or something simpler. Even then, it does not really make my situation better. It would be adding one more layer between me and whatsapp, but not much more. As I understand, bridges help when you have multiple platforms, and you want to have one way to access them all, for me, only benefit would be the client would be free
I'm currently on holiday in Croatia and my car rental company, one apartment as well as one tour guide have communicated/provided info through WhatsApp.
signal has proprietary blobs, you want Molly-FOSS
I personally do not use them anything else now, i do have element installed, but when you have no one to talk to, you might as well write messages in a notepad
Honestly, Google Keep notes. Trilium server runs as a UWA on Android but it's pretty ass. And things like Obsidian are way too much for something me and my (non-technical) SO use to share notes
Obsidian is not open source any way
Quillpad. It looks and feels like Keep, but sync to nextcloud
X2. Great note-taking app.
Agreed. Plenty of notes apps; none with decent collaboration features.
Nova launcher.
I Haven't found one that works so well with KLWP or has good app drawer organization. I like having folders and tabs to split everything up. Having one big list of apps (70% I dont use often and another 10% bloat) isn't useful.
I recently switched launchers. Have you tried Kvaesitso? It's the best I've tried. It allows you to create categories in your app drawer, and organize that way. I've really been liking it.
https://github.com/MM2-0/Kvaesitso
Thank you for your suggestion.
Having just tried it, it is not for me. The categories is there, but having the search/app drawrr on the top won't work me, especially with these stupid large phone everyone makes. (I'm guessing theres a way to change it, but I didnt get that far)
The ultimate reason its not for me is how widgets are a scrolling thing. It's a different idea, but I like the widgets on my home screen where I can passively see them.
If there's a way to change that, I didnt see it. I didn't even find a way to get rid of the big clock at the bottom.
I've used several launchers but there seems to be a halt developing them. For the most time, I used to use recently Neo Launcher, but it feels dated now, they are working on a rewrite and it's still beta (if not still alpha). Kvaesitso is a good launcher, but I'm too accustomed to the swipe up gesture to show apps and Kvaesitso just decided to make it upside down for me, and it feels odd even if you can change this to your preference. Finally, KISS launcher, which had halted development a bit but I find light and customizable enough. Not gonna lie here, as soon as Neo launcher gets to a stable state, I'm coming back.
Edit:
I wanted to mention a couple of killer features of KISS that you might probably like:
We need a NOVA replacement with how they've recently restructured the company. It looks like NOVA is getting squeezed for the last few cents they've got to offer by whom ever bought the company 1-2 years ago.
I've tried every other launcher I could find. In my opinion they all seemed to be minimalistic by design or they just lacked features.
fwiw lawnchair beta works absolutely fine for me, i guess it can't do anything fancy with the app drawer but like, that's why you have a home screen..
I tried, and tried to like it. We all work differently. I like widgets on the home screen, swipe up for apps. I guess it's the "start menu" mentality.
Same. I've been attempting to de-Google and stick with FOSS where possible, but only Lawnchair has come close to Nova Launcher, but it's not without its limitations like setting a primary home screen, and better widget padding and removing round corners.
I'm still experimenting with others, but many are no longer under active development either.
@FuryMaker @helpImTrappedOnline
nova launcher has been the last app without foss replacement for me until I found neolauncher.
Using the option 'categorize apps as tabs' I have the great drawer behavior as with Nova.
Though development is slow, you can get in contact with them on the matrix channel.
(Oh, just remembered that I still have one non foss app for my Yamaha receiver)
#neolauncher
Cool, first impressions are pretty good.
It took a minute to find, the play store has some not free thing. But I found the github page.
https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher
File Manager Plus:
It connects to all my SFTP servers effortlessly, and it's an absolutely stellar file Manager.
JuiceSSH:
Manages all my SSH servers and identities, and has an extremely usable terminal. It's got extensions too.
Try Material Files file manager. It's the best file manager I've used, connects to remote servers, and is open source
https://github.com/zhanghai/MaterialFiles
Yeah, it works, but it's really quite clunky...
Obsidian
Logseq
Logseq is good but it doesn't have all the obsidian features: it handles markdown a bit differently, does not just use the file tree and has no tags.
logseq but without electron
That's emacs with org-roam
ok, but on a smartphone, with touch screen?
Fair enough. But IIRC there's a couple well made org mode android apps. I think orgzly was the name
Edit: also emacs does run on android!
People have hit on most of them here, but here is another big one:
Fitness apps. Mainly calorie tracking, workout tracking and heart rate tracking
Health app
Sleep as Android
(No, gadget bridge is not a replacement for 99% of cases and doesn't even support the gold standard for heart rate tracking, polar H10)
For calorie tracking, the massive food databases required, barcode scanning, and crowd sourcing are generally not compatible with the open source community's privacy ideals. OpenNutriTracker has promise though!
For workout tracking, none of them have any device support and most of them are dead and abandoned. Not to mention heart rate zones, stats and training trends, etc... FitoTrack and Opentracks are good starts though.
And then a google fit alternative. Something that can integrate sleeping, workouts, heart rates, sensors, etc.. Data all in one aggregates place. It is a huge task and it makes sense that there is no open source alternative for it. Especially when the components aren't individually there to aggregate.
Sleep As Android is hands down the #1 app on my phone I cannot give up. It's THE reason I could never switch to Apple. I've gone beyond basic use and now have it automating things based on sleep actions and I kind of love it.
I was looking for Sleep As Android too!! Separately to this I saw a comment on R a while ago asking for FOSS alternatives, and to say the dev's response was out-of-touch would be an understatement. They just complained about not being able to make a living from a FOSS app...
Regarding Gadgetbridge though, those devs and contributors are running into more and more accessories using encrypted protocols which is a bit worrying. Right now I've settled on the BangleJS which has official support, just wish it had a more accurate heart rate sensor!
My dream FOSS health app would be some concoction of OpenScale and Gadgetbridge 😂
I hadn’t heard of opennutritracker before but it seems cool. Cleanslate is also good, and you can even self host it (although tbf I haven’t tried). Seems like people are working on the calorie tracking side of things!
Tasker, because there's no alternative.
MiXplorer (file manager), because even if not counting the features that should be a different app, it's much better than material files.
OpenCamera is good, but could do better. But I'd say video editing is the biggest void.
Also, gesture typing keyboards are an empty niche of foss alternatives. HelioBoard requires loading some proprietary blob unfortunately.
I guess the most heavy machine learning use cases are not filled in.
FlorisBoard is on the way to implement swype-typing. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to be very soon.
wasn't the last update 2 years ago?
Latest release candidate was released a few days ago.
oh, that's nice!
For gesture typing I use AnySoftKeyboard and it's quite ok. It has a lot of options that make it very convenient for me, despite it's reputation.
The FUTO keyboard has swipe tying, but it's not as fluid imo
isn't this one proprietary?
You're right, it's some FUTO license and has some limitations that make it not FOSS.
License
Poweramp
There's nothing else out there that's really an equal, foss or not. The closest it gets is neutron, and that's a hot mess of an app.
It's the sound quality that's standout. It doesn't hurt that it's a decent player in every other way too, but even apps built for audiophiles don't match it in real use, in every situation.
None of the foss players are worth a damn sound wise; might as well use whatever comes with the device on that factor alone.
I can't say I've ever noticed any significant audio quality difference between this and something like Vinyl even on very good headphones.
But I would say that I've been trying to find equivalent equilizer functions that this app has on desktop. The bass boost function is the best one I've ever used. It even turned my very neutral etymotics er3se into solid thumpers.
Have you tried RootlessJamesDSP?
The headphones, and any other gear, probably make some difference; I'm balling on a budget, with some tin t2s for iem, and beyer 770s (80 ohm) for cans, through a fiio DAC for the cheaper devices (but my main player is an old lg g7). Now and then I'll break out the portapros, and it's more prevalent since they tend to be a little muffled in the mids and highs no matter what they're plugged into.
But just the difference between something like gmmp, phonograph, musicolet, vanilla, etc, it can be a huge difference for me. Gmmp is decent, but there's static where there shouldn't be, and using the eq tends to distort on the low end even at low amounts of boost.
Can't recall if vinyl stood out from the rest of the pack or not, since it's been a couple of years since I did an extended comparison. All of the ones using the standard android audio processing were prone to some degree or another of mudiness to my ears. Some would get distorted playing through anything other than headphones, particularly with hip-hop and house tracks. That was with multiple aux cables, Bluetooth, and on multiple devices.
But, yeah, I would love it if max ported his eq app to other platforms.
I agree.
I try to use as much FOSS as I can, but nothing even comes close to Poweramp.
I love you can set eq per device. My phone speaker, headphones and car all have their own settings. Its fantastic.
I would like to find alternative to Garmin app. It is bad if you don't want to use the cloud features, also you can't plan routes without internet connection like wtf that's the only reason I bought it for.
Have you tried Gadgetbridge?
It didn't worked.
It didn't work. (not being snarky, or a dick, honestly trying to help)
It hasn't worked. It worked. It didn't work.
For some reason getting tense correct on words like "work" is confusing for ESL. (or autoincorrect got you)
Sorry not native speaker, thanks for correction.
Thanks I give it a try, problem for me is that I need to plan route and then put it in cyclocomputer. I don't need any other bs.
Oh fuck I hate that
Yes for the basic thing most people buy it and it is this fucked up. Also it uses Google maps, they are bit useless for cycling.
I have more mapping apps and all of them have offline planning.
I really need a libreoffice calc on my android phone. Not just opening (where currently only Microsoft Excel on Android works for me) but also editing and saving to my connected nextcloud (where I have also problems with Excel)
Have you tried
calibrecollabora office? It not 100% there, but could work. (No idea how well it'd work with next cloud)I cannot find callibreoffice. Where can I get it to try? Or do you mean Collabora?
My bad, it is collabora
Edit: I figured out what happened My brain combined LibreOffice and Collabroa and got Calibe the fantastic eBook managar.
I think OnlyOffice has an Android app and I suppose it’s open source, but I could be mistaken.
Bank clients. Taxi aggregator clients.
Basically every app that is related to a proprietary service. Amazon, Battle.net and Steam authenticators, banking apps, Spotify, etc.
FYI, you can replace Steam Guard. There is a plugin for Keepass that can generate Steam OTP codes and it's built in in KeepassXC (IIRC) and in KeepassDX on android.
for steam authenticator Aegis works too. For google's and microsoft's custom app too, and a bunch of others, even some non-standard ones
Android Auto
There already was a post like this this year but now my answer is "a standardized push notification system (most likely federated) that's actually possible to be implemented in a user friendly way". Google doesn't want to encrypt theirs afaik and apparently some people are concerned about the traditional "every app is responsible for its own notifications" approach consuming much more battery, even though I didn't notice it myself (I guess it's possible if you have 50+ apps installed but it's not something that should be a thing in the first place).
This ready exists. I forget what it's called.
https://unifiedpush.org/
I know about that but afaik almost nobody uses it. The only app I know that supports it is Mercurygram which is a Telegram client.
How does Element and Signal implement push notifications?
Idk about Element but Signal uses the Google's insecure implementation if the device has gapps installed and it uses the traditional system which is not push if gapps are not installed.
Molly (a hardened Signal mobile client fork) has a UnifiedPush version.
I was just thinking, how does one stop signal from sending the notifications to google, when moving to Molly with UP? is that automatic somehow?
Molly FOSS and Molly with UP replace the Google's notification system with websocket and UnifiedPush respectively for its own notifications. Google (hopefully) doesn't have access to all notifications you get on your phone but only to those sent to apps that utilize their push implementation which Molly doesn't use.
yes, but while you use the official signal app, doesn't it work so that signal servers always send the notification to google's appropriate servers?
if that's right, how is it being stopped?
on Matrix, the Element mobile app has a menu for manually unregistering the push targets.
Afaik Signal servers have nothing to do with it. There are 3 possible situations depending on what app you choose.
Official Signal app. It asks Google to check Signal servers for notifications and to send them to you if there are any.
Molly FOSS. It connects directly to Signal servers without any push middleman.
Molly UP. It asks the push notifications provider you choose (but not Google) to check Signal servers for notifications and to send them to you if there are any.
Ultimately, it's the apps and not the servers who decide if they want to use Google's services or not.
I don't think that's how push notifications work. It would not be instant, and very frequent polls are very resource intensive, even more if you had to do it for the servers of a million different apps.
UnifiedPush has a diagram here, and the popular proprietary push providers should work the same way too.
Ah okay, thanks for the insight. I don't have Gapps (MicroG or otherwise), so I do wonder how these services deliver their notifications.
If it's not using GCM then it must be long polling, unless signal servers are set up to use a 3rd form of push (APNS for iOS, GCM for Android)
Element and Davx5 supports it too
Unified Push?
I'm actually pretty happy to be using mostly FOSS apps. The exception are banking or services apps, which I'd never expect to be available as open source.
The default Samsung messages app. It allows custom backgrounds for each text conversation. All apps I find only allow custom colors, no custom wallpaper. Eben Google messenger had this feature... Then they took it out and replaced it with pre selected 'color themes'
Strava, komoot and a calorie tracker that's actually decent
Picsart. I'd like something that can do a bit of photo editing, adjust brightness/contrast/curves, work with layers, and conveniently slap together collages, but that doesn't interrupt me in between every other operation with an ad or a request to sign up for a subscription to the app.
Have you tried Image Toolbox? It might not tick all the boxes, but it's fairly good for me
All these mouse cursor touchpad for big phones-apps. They seem pretty easy to do and are quite handy.
Kde connect has that I think
No, KDE connect has a very different purpose.
Oh, I see what you mean. I thought you meant using your phone as a trackpad sorry
Termius
Not just Android, I want a cross-platform ssh client that shares keys. Termius is probably overkill for that, but I haven't found anything else that works on Linux and Android. The real issue that made me stop paying for it is that for rpm based Linux I have to use the snap version and snap is buggy as heck with multitasking.
I was in same boat, I ended up going with Tabby for my Linux clients.
It is by no means a like for like replacement BUT you can someshat backup and sync profiles and config across machines.
Is a huge shame it doesn't work on android though
That one DAW for electronic music... The logo had a hexagon or something.. Caustic maybe?
Some apps that I don't understand why no OSS exists:
Teleprompter app that allows you to read a scrolling script while recording video
basic photo editor to crop, rotate, color correct, add text
basic video editor to crop, clip, and combine video
visual voicemail
And just for fun, here are some OSS apps that are better than any non-free alternative: SD Maid, Firefox/Fennec, Aurora Store (OSS front-end for a very proprietary Google store), RTranslator, Syncthing, OSS Document Scanner.
ImageToolbox can do almost everything you described.
Have you tried Open Video Editor?
@JustMarkov @gedaliyah
Promising! HEIC/HEIF formats are still a challenge for this tool.
Image tool box doesn't seem to be able to arbitrarily rotate or add text. Some nice features, though.
Open Video Editor doesn't seem to be able to combine videos. I'm thinking something like CapCut, which allows combining photos, videos, and audio. It would be an ambitious project to be sure, but it seems like it should be doable.
There are so many of these it's not even funny, and yes FOSS ones. Same for video
Also Mull > Fennec and Mulch > Chromium
Great to hear! Can you name one for me?
Maybe Niagara Launcher, though I'm quite happy to pay the dev a bit of money (not required for most stuff actually, I only login on my phone)
Until recently I'd have said Symfonium for music playback from Jellyfin, but the Finamp beta gave me an OSS alternative.
Ideally banking apps, booking.com and TripAdvisor all had FOSS alternatives, but that's not realistic.
Fatmap. It was freemium, but now it's moving into Strava, who knows how much of it they'll hide behind subscriptions.
There's so many great FOSS maps, but I haven't seen any that give you the 3D view that Fatmap does. It's essentially Google Earth with overlays of routes for various activities.
Two apps in particular:
- Test me Anything*
- I can't wake up
E: formatting
*You could create your own types of test (because sorry, not sorry, Anki sucks): Typing Practice, Multiple Choice, True/False, Fill-in-the-Blank, Matching, Short Answer.
I think that app dead now, but I'm sure there are similar apps on the Play store.
Universal Copy and Network Signal Guru. former is used to copy on text which usually unable to copy. latter is used to modify some modem setting.
Shazam (or equivalent)
Have you tried Audile or Audire?
Hi, thanks a lot, I'll sure try them both!
All the Life360 alternatives are objectively worse and harder to use.
nzb360. Amazing app and a great developer but I still want a great FOSS alternative.
Ticktock