What Are Your Favorite FOSS Android Apps?
Here's what I'm rocking:
- Aegis
- App Lounge
- AntennaPod
- Bitwarden
- Dicio
- Doodle
- F-Droid
- FeedMe (Not FOSS. Open to suggestions)
- Firefox
- FNG
- InvizBox
- Jerboa
- Mastodon
- Music Player GO
- Obsidian
- OpenLauncher
- Organic Maps
- OsmAnd~
- Proton Cal/Drive/Mail/VPN
- RadioDroid
- RedReader
- Signal
- Silence
- Simple Keyboard
- Tasks (Not the built in. I love this one)
- Unit Converter Ultimate
- Wikipedia
This is just about everything I have on my phone. I'm on a FairPhone 4 running /e/OS. What's your load out like?
I'm looking for a new keyboard. Glad for suggestions :D
I use KDE Connect as a media remote and to transfer files between my phone and computers. It has quite a few other functions, like remote mouse control, sms, seems to share clipboards as well.
https://kdeconnect.kde.org/
don't be fooled by the name, KDE connect also works on GNOME and even Windows. It is a truly wonderful app
It's SO good
And MacOS. It'll be the way my wife is open to a non-Apple phone for her next as she doesn't care about iMessage, but uses the share clipboard feature every day
Kde connect is wonderful
I wish the SMS feature worked correctly
What isn't working? It's a little different than the phone app, but it works for me.
All of these list are great as we discover new apps each time.
But, I would suggest to write what is the app about.
That's a good point. Originally, I wanted to get a list without writing too much. I'm going to update my phone with some of the suggestions. I'll update my list with additional explanations.
Not sure about the rest of those, but Obsidian isn't OS either.
I didn't realize that. Thanks!
Joplin works pretty well
Swapped to it a couple of months ago and really like it but, is there a way to go into edit mode by default when clicking on a note?
I use Joplin but I don't love it.
Obtainium is great for updating apps hosted outside the playstore, big upside being you don't need to bother with FDroid releases
what kind of apps cant be updated through playstore/fdroid?
what are the one you are using?
it's not that they can't be (maybe some apps I use can't) but rather that I don't like some things about F-Droid. One of the big things being unreliable app updates. They are often significantly outdated compared to GitHub releases.
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/android/#f-droid
"Due to their process of building apps, apps in the official F-Droid repository often fall behind on updates. F-Droid maintainers also reuse package IDs while signing apps with their own keys, which is not ideal as it gives the F-Droid team ultimate trust."
This is somewhat outdated, developers can now opt in to reproducable builds using their own keys
https://f-droid.org/docs/Reproducible_Builds/
What do people prefer to use for apps that can't be updated through Obtanium?
FOSS app which I use -
Closed Source app which I use :( -
1.Modded
OP You should use Florisboard beta it's good and also Obsidian is not open source.
use instander
I switched to MyInsta just before The_dise released the beta version of Instander because it was constantly being developed. Additionally, MyInsta is based on Instander and does not have encryption in its source code. So, you can use any APK editor to see it.
Do you have a link for Whatsapp beta mod? Thanks!
Here
sorry, dumb question. how reliable is this? And, with this wapp modded installed, have any risk from wapp to ban me? And its possible turn on double check blue mark?
I don't know how safe is this I really don't care about ban. If they ban me then I have a excuse to not use whatsapp. You can turn on double check blue mark in Privacy Setting by Clicking on 3 dots.
ty !
Great list! One suggestion: Try Helium's OpenBoard fork for keyboard. It has tons of features like full Material You theming, glide typing, multilingual language support as well as autocorrect and suggestion support. I've been waiting for autocorrect to be added in FlorisBoard for more than an year now.
Great lists so far. I'll add one that I picked up from a previous thread:
URLCheck
URLCheck is a life changer!
URLcheck has been amazing for me, great for tracking links in apps like Slickdeals (non-FOSS) to skip the tracker especially if you block it on a DNS level
Could you possibly edit in what each of these are for?
Done :)
Holy crap primo edit with links!! Thanks
Yeah, links are very useful :) You're welcome.
Thanks for your links !
Have you tried Obtainium ? This could replace foxy-droid which seems dead with no updates since 2020!
You're welcome :)
Yes, I have. I really liked it, but I didnt like that GitHub blocked me every now and then. I don't have any account there due to privacy reasons.
I somewhat don't mind outdated apps. It depends on what app it is. I wouldn't use Bitwarden if they stop develop their app, as of 1 example.
How does it feel being such a bro?
It always feels great :)
Edit: I'm just wrong, nvm
the other way around, Breezy is still under development and got a release two weeks ago
That's what I thought, too. I've still been getting updates for it and, like you said, just got one very recently. I love that app! I got my mom to use it, and she loves it, too.
Looks like Geometric Weather stopped development back in '22 and isn't in the Play Store anymore.
I'm a sucker for a decent weather app.
Check out yr.no, it is made by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. I think it is pretty good internationally too
Quick Weather - for the radar and day overview.
Forecastie - for the humidity, rainfall, wind, and temp weekly graphs.
Both are in f-droid repos.
I haven't yet found a nicer one than Overdrop. I'm not a big weather geek, so I don't need all the minute details. I think Overdrop is a perfect mix between lots of relevant data and gorgeous, simple design. Paid for pro, haven't regretted it. I have (currently) installed and tried like 10-15 different weather apps. OD is still the only one on my main app page.
Other way around.
Good to know, thanks
I think they're wrong. I use it through F-droid and still get updates. The most recent was within the past couple weeks.
If you use Organic Maps you may be interested in https://streetcomplete.app to help fill out the map
There's also another one called every door.
Wow thanks, I recently installed OsmAnd~ and found it kind of clunky to have to actively look for, and remember to fill in, missing map data.
This gets me to walk new dog walk routes, too!
Best foss maps app imo.
This makes me wish i used an android.
Obsidian isn't FOSS
The RSS or meal planning app? If it's the former I like Feeder. You can probably export and import all your feeds.
I think some of my favorites are LibreTorrent, Session, and NewPipe.
I am a big fan of open source engine recreations, even if I don't play them a ton, so DevilutionX and OpenMW are worth mentioning. I think Xash3D is also open source if you want to play Half Life on the go.
I think OpenRCT2 has an Android app but I haven't bothered figuring out how to set it up yet.
I meant RSS. Thanks for asking. I'll check Feeder out
I only install what i need so i haven't actually installed a lot of apps. The copout answer is Firefox, but if i'm taking the prompt seriously it would be Simple Keyboard or Floris Board, they're highly customizeable keyboards that i really enjoy and i have a hard time deciding which to leave installed.
Just in general though, browsing F-Droid feels so good. I'm in a much simpler mindset where i'll think "oh that's neat i want to try it", which is how i used to feel about tech. Browsing PlayStore makes me think "that's neat, but what's the catch? How are they going to scam me/harvest my data? I'm not installing this"
THANK YOU for antennapod!!! What an incredibly beautiful app, I'm so impressed!!
I was so excited when I discovered this app. To me it's one of the most perfect apps. I wish I could use it on desktop.
I know nothing about FOSS apps, where do I get them?
F-Droid is the best starting point. It's an app that is basically a Google Play style app store, but all the apps are FOSS.
https://f-droid.org/
You can use the f-droid store to find them. Its a play store alternative.
Check out neostore or droid-ify on fdroid These are clients of fdroid but better
Bro I am seeing you after long time but your instance? did kerala.party get shutdown?
https://lemm.ee/post/14432845 Hope he could rehost the whole instance somewhere else. I don't have hope over other kerala communities either; it will get scattered. Anyways Who are you
Ive been using droidify for the last 1-2years, it looks better than fdroid and you can easily add more repositories other than fdroid repository (like izzyonandroid).
(Kinda ironic that I sent you an fdroid link that has the droidify app.)
https://github.com/offa/android-foss
For keyboard I'm currently using OpenBoard and ThumbKey, the latter obviously not for everyone.
Adding to your list:
@themadcodger @wuphysics87
I would add Delta Chat to the list.
https://delta.chat/en/
you sir make sense...been scrolling through this post and see the most bizarre suggestions.
so, what apps do you add to Termux?
FairEmail
Obsidian is Open Source? I switched to Logseq because it wasnt open source. A friend wasnt even allowed to install it on his Work PC becauze Obsidian wants 50€ per Year when not used at home privately.
It is absolutely not open source, it is source available. You can view all the JavaScript source from inside the app in the development console. But that doesn't mean that you have license to reuse the source, or the app for that matter.
Ah ok, well, at least somethinf
yeah, I kinda like it. All my work crap is still in a tiddlywiki tho :)
A developer wanted to earn money for software used commercially? Oh, the humanity!
The topic is about FOSS
Plenty of FOSS projects have commercial licenses. Pfsense, MongoDB, TrueNAS, Elastic, Portainer, Proxmox, Docker...
All from F-Droid. I use Vanadium for pretty much everything else. No google at all except for the bootloader splash screen; almost like a real citizen before freedom was lost to neo-digital-feudalism with hardware I can never own.
Could you please share a link to the app with OCR based on tessaract 5
Only just got this reply bc bugs I guess. https://github.com/SubhamTyagi/android-ocr
Thanks, I've installed it and I'm going to give it a try.
I use Feeder for RSS. Quite a good, constantly improving app. :)
https://github.com/spacecowboy/Feeder
I also use that, it is very good
Love Aegis and Bitwarden, but here's another one that's a must if you're on stock android:
NetGuard
Blocks network access for apps and processes on your phone, great way to ensure apps aren't calling home all the time.
I would recommend RethinkDNS instead of NetGuard, it has the same firewall capabilities but it also lets you change DNS (with Dnscrypt / DoT / DoH) and also lets you connect to a Wireguard VPN. It's amazing.
Oh man that's cool! Going to be switching now, thanks!
Forgot to mention also the possibility of adding blocklists to block ads, trackers and everything you want. It's really the best of its kind!
This is my new app, netguard has been removed, thank you!
Is there anyway to blacklist new apps so they are automatically blocked from network access? I can't seem to find that functionality
Edit: Nevermind there is a toggle saying block newly installed apps, it was actually easy to find, my bad
Man... This one is so good thanks for recommending
How to connect to a wireguard vpn? Is protonvpn one?
In the proxy tab you can add wireguard profiles. E.g. for the protonvpn one you need to download the wireguard configuration files and add it there
Ty so much for showing how. I managed and did it. Do I need to run protonvpn as well? Not sure what comes next. First time using Rethinkdns but I have both installed on my phone and from I can tell I can only use one vpn app at a time.
Yeah Android only lets you run one VPN app at a time, you just need RethinkDNS because it acts as a firewall, (proton)VPN wireguard client, adblocker and DNS resolver
I think I now got it, in the wireguard profile I added an app I wanted to use this profile and checked online for myip and it didn't show mine. So basically, since Android let's you run 1 vpn service, rethinkdns can do this by adding a wireguard profile from a different vpn service like protonvpn in my case. This is very clever and convenient. I hope my understanding is correct.
I played this so much: https://github.com/mjaun/android-anuto
I used to say “how the F do you pass stage 55!?“
I think I now say "How the F do you pass stage 72!?"
Great little tower defence game with tons of character.
Also in the f-droid repos.
Newpipe
Aurora store
Organic maps
PDF viewer
Molly
Audile
Jellyfin
Nova Wallet
Openboard (though seems dead and looking for alternative)
Internxt
There's a fork of Openboard constantly developed. Here its repo.
Thanks. I knomew about it but it's still in beta
Audible doesn't look very FOSSy to me
My mistake, I meant Audile
There's a fork of Openboard that is trying to update it, but AFAIK, it's not published anywhere yet: https://github.com/Helium314/openboard
Chip Defense. A little FOSS tower defense game.
KDE Connect. Tool to transfer files to another device, or vice versa.
Trail Sense. Nice lightweight app that does a variety of things, but I mostly use it for white noise.
Organic Maps. I try to use it instead of Google Maps whenever possible.
FitoTrack. Amazing app to keep logs of your workouts, or motorcycling trips as I use it. Shows you where you went, how fast you want, and how many calories burned where applicable.
Edit: Tried to count down from 5 to 1 as this is my top 5 apps from F-droid, but the auto bullet thing is counting up instead
I love Thumb Key, it's a very unique and actively developed keyboard app.
it took a bit to learn but now its great
Definitely requires time, took me about 3 weeks to get as fast as I was on a standard layout.
I'm running openboard's fork by helium! It supports glide typing, if you download a library! There are instructions in the app 🙂
I also recently found sayboard (available on fdroid), which has been working WAY better than I expected as a speech-to-text alternative 🙂
Mine are:
Florisboard is the keyboard app that stopped me jumping between keyboard apps
Obsidian is the note app and Obtainium is the apk fetcher directly from source. Great list you have here.
Oh sorry, thanks for pointing out. I mixed them up
Thanks for sharing, I'm looking into RethinkDNS, and I'm not surprised it tries to establish a VPN tunnel to perform its duties. Thing is my phone already has a VPN client, which happens to be Mullvad. What exactly do you mean by "I use it with mullvad vpn’s wireguard config"?
I stumbled on the exact same problem as you. Then I read somewhere how to use them together. You can connect to Mullvad's servers using their wireguard config in the RethinkDNS Proxy -> Setup Wireguard section. To do this, you need to login to your account in mullvad's website and click on "wireguard configuration" on the side bar. Select what you need and then you can either download the config file to import it to RethinkDNS directly or select to show a QR code which you can scan in the RethinkDNS app. To do this, in the Setup Wireguard section, click on the plus icon on the bottom left side. Now you basically can connect to Mullvad's servers alongside RethinkDNS's custom DNS and firewall.
Can share some of my favourites
Just begun exploring using:
Btw, I believe Obsidian isn't FOSS.
Since I am curious but lazy enough to search for the description of each one of these apps, I made an experiment. I asked GPT-4 to generate a description for them. I provided the context below:
I tried twice. In the first one I not included the f-droid context above, and the list he generated have some misleading descriptions. The second try I passed the full prompt above, and the resulting descriptions was better.
Interestingly, GPT-4 alerts when he search the internet, but in this second try he did not accessed it, but the resulting list was better anyway, although not perfect:
I posted my most used F-droid apps here:
https://lemmy.world/post/7963793
and if you want to do a deep dive on the F-droid apps that are worth looking at first, check this amazing list:
https://alternativeto.net/list/28655/the-ultimate-f-droid-setup/
May I suggest Tracker Control, allows per-app network access and even restricts certain tracking requests. Only downside is it takes the VPN slot. Very much worth it though I believe
Weather Warbler for weather. It's currently in beta and missing a bunch of stuff, but good so far.
My favourites so far.
Not open-source but the only gallery I found without trackers:
Try florisboard
It has very good haptics and supports swipe typing
I honestly don't use that much foss on my Android phone, but DVD has to be my favourite. I like sharing memes as videos instead of links in chat apps and it lets me download videos from just about any app or site by just sharing the link to the DVD app. It uses yt-dl in the background, so any site supported by that should work.
I also constantly use Bitwarden, Aegis and Home Assistant along with a couple less often used ones. Those three felt so obvious to me that I didn't feel like picking them as my favourite :)
Newpipe, for watching youtube videos without ads or tracking
Openboard keyboard for the one feature I can never be without again: moving the cursor by swiping left or right on the spacebar, it's a godsend for selecting stuff with my wide fingers
Catima - for saving arbitrary barcodes and stuff that are hard to integrate into other wallets. I keep my local library card in there, and it works wonderfully
Nonocross - fun little game that has zero frills and distractions. Also very responsive on their github to suggestions and improvements
Termux - when I need to get into things from afar, this is how I do it
Box, Box! - Formula 1 news, schedules, standings, etc
Coffee - Sometimes I want to keep the display awake, so this comes in handy
Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection includes a game very similar to nonocross, as well as about 40 other puzzle games you might also like.
I like this one, but it's honestly difficult to play on a phone, for anything but small and easy grids. I had to start using a stylus to be able to hit the right cells with reasonable accuracy, and even then it's a bit tough. And you lose context when trying to zoom. Maybe better on tablets....
We have similar lists, so some considerations:
https://github.com/FossifyOrg/Gallery
Simple Gallery was bought by ZipoApps and will be soon flooded with ads and tracking garbage, FossifyOrg forked the whole simple mobile tools suite, and will continue development independently of ZipoApps
Thank you, was losing my mind trying to remember the URL. Of course I now recall its in my history from when I edited my post of a hard fork as a backup.
There's a lot of good recommendations here but I haven't seen anyone recommend Trail Sense yet. I use it to keep track of my steps without worrying about my levels of activity being monitored by anyone else. It also notifies me an hour before sunset since I actually go hiking.
Anyone uses InnerTune?
Obsidian isn't FOSS. I highly recommend Logseq but keep in mind they require CLA signing for contributions
I'd recommend Mull instead of Firefox or Fennec (the deblobbed version) since it's hardened.
It's basically a Librewolf analogue for mobile
Many thanks. I'd been meaning to find an equivalent but hadn't stumbled on this yet.
Nextcloud News I like for RSS since it fetches the full text article. Obtainium lkke others mentioned is a must have for me.
Material Files - the best files app I've ever used! Clean, material design and has everything I need. It can even run an FTP server
I used that but it started to feel bloated after a while.
It's my current FLOSS goto filemanager.
Is there another worth checking out?
I've used mixplorer for ages, its been great.
Edit: nevermind, apparently its not open source.
I actually settled for Files, by Google. It's doing what I need it to do. Official app... I dunno. I don't know of a reason not to use it...
Here are some not mentioned in this thread yet.
https://text.tchncs.de/czars-blogs/apps-i-use The blog itself is foss software writefreely
F-Droid, Voyager, Eternity, Libretube
2FAS, Bitwarden, Firefox are my most used FOSS on Android for me.
Organic Maps, Syncthing and Feeder.
megladon for mastodon
What's FNG? Fluid navigation gestures? Is that FOSS? Can you share a link to the codebase? Can't find it
It's one of my favorites. It lets you set swipe zones that perform actions or open apps on the left roght and bottom edges. You can put up to 4 on each edge with long and short swipes doubling them, so you can have up to 24! It's not maintained any more, but you can find a .apk and install it manually
OpenBoard + predictive text binary
Seriously guys, no one saying Nextcloud?
I switched to Immich for photo backup/management. It's better by miles.
I'm very happy with Nextcloud, and not just for photo backups.
Snapd is something I'm waiting to die to be honest, so things that have it as a prerequisit repell me.
Ente Auth is nice for OTPs, it looks nice and I like that it shows the next code in case it's about to switch.
Neo Store for browsing fdroid
Moshidon for Mastodon
Obtainium is pretty good
Here's a few I enjoy using that I haven't seen mentioned yet:
Fennec, Bitwarden, Droid-ify, and Tutanota are my essentials I need for life.
termux - Terminal and shell, with Linux package environment so you can install and use packages like openssh.
Authenticator Pro. It's like Aegis but supports WearOS devices, so I can get my TOTP codes on my watch instead of having to get my phone out.
FairEmail. One of the best email clients I've used, across any platform. Highly customizable.
Syncthing for syncing photos to my home server.
Readrops for RSS - connects to my FreshRSS server.
Firefox, of course.
FlorisBoard with a custom theme named floristyle to make it look a lot like Gboard (Material You)! There's no auto-suggestions or glide typing (yet), but I somehow already got used to that haha
I'd suggest Feeder for RSS. I haven't found a perfect feed reader, but Feeder is at least no-nonsense.
My MVP FLOSS apps are
All of those are from F-droid; I'm slowly moving to Obtainium from Aurora store to keep a couple of non-FLOSS apps updated.
You should try Mull and Fedilab
I did 🙂 I'm good with my choices.
No love for librera yet. That scroll mode for PDFs saves my life for technical documentation.
https://github.com/deniscerri/ytdlnis
I use a few apps from the SimpleMobileTools suite. They aren't full FOSS, they have basic and pro versions where the basic version is GPL3 and the proprietary extended features cost a few bucks. The basic FOSS tools are still decent, if barebones.
The suite includes:
I use the gallery and file manager the most. Though admittedly I threw a couple bucks their way for the proprietary extensions. It's not FOSS, but if it was going to be proprietary, I think it's one of the fairest deals in software these days. Better than another bloody subscription model, or holding the ad-free experience hostage behind a paywall.
But they sell their app to ZippoApps which gonna add ads and tracker and You have to get subscribtion to remove ads. You can switch to Fossify fork of SimpleMobile tools.
Thank you for letting me know about this.
No Problem
That's disappointing :/ do you have a source you could share?
Also, I'm confused about the versions available. From the comments here, there seems to be a free and paid version. But if I go to FDroid there's obly the "pro version" there. That's what I've been using and I see no ads. Where is the other one at?
If you install from F-Droid you are good to go it have pro features already but if you have play store then don't update at all. And maybe source code of SMT app will be archived in future.
is there a foss alternative to niagara launcher?
I would say KISS Launcher.
I use olauncher which looks pretty similar, no icons tho
I switched from Niagara to KISS launcher and I'm really happy with it. Much better, IMO.
Have redreader integrate with lemmy yet?