okay, it's a slow part of my 24 h shift, so it's finally time to make a thread about the #FOSS apps that I use on my phone, most of them obtainable through @fdroidorg . I've trawled through its repositories many times over years, and managed to find a bunch of great software fitting my needs, so hopefully someone finds this useful as well.
starting off with two of my favourite ways of getting the apps and keeping them updated:
Droid-ify (https://www.f-droid.org/packages/com.looker.droidify/) is a much more pleasant looking F-droid client than the official one. it comes with several third party repositories ready to enable, including one maintained by the one and only @IzzyOnDroid , which serves many apps that either haven't made it to the official repository yet, or ones that don't completely fulfill F-droid's strict requirements.
lets you get apps directly from their GitHub/GitLab/Codeberg sites instead of F-droid repos. it doesn't work with all projects, which is why I keep both it and Droid-ify, but it's often a faster way of getting an update since it can take a few days for F-droid to make updates available, and I'm a spoiled milennial and need shiny new stuff RIGHT NOW
if you look closely at the URL, you can see it's available on the aforementioned IzzyOnDroid repo.
one of the most robust podcast players. I'm not much of a podcast listener, but whenever I feel like pulling something from my tiny (show-wise) huge (episode-wise) backlog, this is the one I fire up. they've been around since forever and only continue to improve.
they've also got a Fediverse account, so make sure to give them some love! @AntennaPod
it's the only keyboard that lets me type in two languages without manually switching between dictionaries. no internet permissions at all. the settings section is a convoluted labyrinth of options, but after I set it up the way it fits me years ago, it's now difficult to switch to anything else. I only wish some of its quirks were more advertised, because I keep finding them by accident every now and then, and they could fill a separate potential thread.
I use a de-googled ROM (by @calyxos) on my Fairphone, but still need to get some apps from Google's Play Store every now and then, and that's what I use. it's a no-frills, no bullshit client that is a breath of fresh air compared to the official Play Store apps that tries to shove promotions and ads down your throat on every screen. I have it set to launch the Updates screen directly, which is what I mostly use ir for.
a two-factor authentication app that isn't made by Google or Microsoft or Authy. I switched to it from Aegis (and before that, from andOTP), mostly because I liked the interface more. I also like how it hides all codes by default, and then reveals AND copies a code on a single tap, which Aegis didn't do. it lets you import databases from multiple other apps, so it's quick and easy to set it up and try it out.
a gallery app. lets you sort photos by albums, add and edit tags, search by any combination of tags, file name, location and date you want, and do some simple file operations. I especially like the "on this day" tag, which shows me photos taken on the same date in precious years - nice way to both revisit memories and remove screenshots and photos of grocery lists that you don't need anymore.
my camera app of choice doesn't support QR code scanning, so this is what I use. it also allows you to read a code from an already taken picture, or even create your own if you need to.
okay, this is a tricky one. it's neither on F-droid's official repo, or Izzy's one, but luckily they host their own repository, which can be either enabled in Droid-ify with two clicks, or obtained through here: https://mobileapp.bitwarden.com/fdroid/ (or Play Store, I guess)
my cross-platform password manager/generator of choice. the free version is perfectly fine for everyday use, but I pay the hefty price of $10 per year for the Premium version simply because they deserve it.
fork of Geometric Weather, which hasn't been updated for a while, presumably due to the original maintainer being located in China. offers several weather sources to get detailed data from, and displays it on a gorgeous, animated, customizable screen, and with several desktop widgets to choose from. also comes with Gadgetbridge integration (more on that later on...)
@noodlejetski dzięki tobie dowiedziałem się że ta apka wspiera Gadgetbridge!!! I bardzo dobrze. Weather notification co nie miał aktualizacji od 3 lat trochę zniechęcał mnie jako jedyna dobra opcja
@rzeczyspisane jest jeszcze QuickWeather, ale i tak irytowało mnie, że mam dwie pogodowe aplikacje, a do jednej z nich nigdy nawet nie zaglądam. na szczęście ktoś wpadł na pomysł żeby poprosić o integrację, a GB wprowadził łatwiejszy sposób jej dodawania :D
a fork of Simple Calendar which emerged after Simple Suite has been sold to an adware company. a straightforward calendar with several widgets to choose from (I'm a big fan of the "monthly view" one). can either store events in its own calendar, or read the ones synced to your device through whatever means.
a contact manager. can either use contacts synced to your device or create its own database. yet another app from the Simple suite that has won me over the default contact app with its Material You-themed UI.
synchronizes CalDAV/CardDAV data. instead of giving Google your contacts list and calendar, you can host it on Nextcloud yourself, or use a provider that does that for you (I've been using Wölkli's free tier for about 5 years for that). DAVx5 helps you then pull them on your device, so that they can appear in your Calendar and Contacts app, just the way Google-synced ones would.
the official app for Matrix, a federated (but not Fediverse-connected) messaging app supporting group and one-to-one, end-to-end encrypted chats and calls. basically a more open and private alternative to Slack/Discord and if Discord could already die and disappear it would be very nice please and thank you
great app for accessing Fediverse. I use my Mastodon account with it, but you can use it with your Pleroma, Pixelfed or Friendica accounts. it's recently been a bit glitchy/crashy for me, but boy is it the Swiss army knife of an app. it comes with a set of unique features, e.g. posting an entire thread at once (which I'm using right now and hopefully it works), or showing replies in threats in a tree view
replies to a post by @vagina_museum. colourful markers along each post along with varying indentation make it easier to figure out at a glance who replied to whom.
F-droid version of Firefox for Android.
Firefox is cool! it lets you install addons on mobile! for the past few years you could only pick from a fairly short list (which does include uBlock Origin, the best ad blocker available), but
now, I'm still stuck with a closed source homescreen replacement (Nova Launcher with internet access cut off) because I'm yet to find a FOSS equivalent with similar features and no, Neo Launcher doesn't cut it for me, but KISS has got another neat trick: you can set it as the phone's default assistant app, so that the long home button press/swipe from corner, instead of invoking Google's Assistant, can now open a searchable list of your apps + web search!
last year I got a Xiaomi fitness band for birthday. instead of using their app that sucks all my data to their cloud, I got this one, which does almost everything the official one does, with the benefit of all of my data staying on my phone. it supports a wide range of devices and keeps adding new ones to the list. can connect to Breezy Weather to display weather info on the band, and has got a few similar integrations for other features
simple image editor. I mostly use it for cropping pictures or drawing over sensitive info before uploading them online, but ir also lets you add filters, stitch several pictures together, resize and perform some other simple edits.
this little gem lets you connect your phone to a Linux, macOS and Windows PC over Wi-Fi. this lets you view your phone's notifications on PC, copy text on one device and paste on another, control music playback on PC with your phone, use your phone as a touchpad or keyboard, send files both ways, and a bunch of other stuff.
despite the name it also works on other DEs, but #KDE is the superior DE anyway. I won't be taking questions at this time
lets you watch Youtube videos proxied through Piped. no ads, no tracking, no algorithm. built-in SponsorBlock support for skipping sponsored segments in videos. free background playback and video downloading. I used to use Newpipe, but I like this one's design much more. you can even log in with a Piped account to sync your subscriptions with other devices without a Google account.
my second Mastodon client of choice. fork of Megalodon, which in turn is a fork of the official Mastodon app, with a few QoL features sprinkled in, as well as Material You theme added. the interface is gorgeous and a joy to use.
an RSS client for Nextcloud News/Miniflux. a bit prettier than Nextcloud's official app. after a few years of break I tried out RSS again, this time without Feedly or Inoreader's commercial services, and I've been liking it a lot.
a notepad app offering cross-platform sync and boasting privacy and security. I have to admit I'm a bit lukewarm about it, but so far it's the best in the FOSS space that I've found after surprise update made Standard Notes' client doodoo a year or two ago. free tier is more than enough for jotting things down with Markdown support.
text recognition from images. I mostly use it for producing alt-text for pictures of text. it's not always 100% correct and gets little hiccups every now and then, but it's good enough for my use case.
a sport tracker that stores data on your phone instead of blasting it to Strava, Endomondo, and dog knows where else. it connects to Gadgetbridge, which I use to track my short cycling trips - without it Gadgetbridge will only record calories and heart rate, but not things like distance or speed. also allows you to view your workouts on a map.
offline maps and navigation. I've been using it as a Google Maps replacement since its conception (and it's commercial predecessor, MAPS.ME before that) with great success. it used data from OpenStreetMap, a Wikipedia-style crowdsourced map of the world. the accuracy varies per region, but so far it worked great both in my home country and on my trips abroad.
an app for Pixelfed, a Fediverse plarform that is to Instagram what Mastodon is to Twitter. while there is an official Pixelfed app available these days, that wasn't always the case, and PixelDroid has got a more native look and feel than the official app with its heavily iOS-inspired UI
you can use Pixelfed with Fedilab or even Moshidon (or just follow PF accounts from Mastodon), but I personally like having a separate, designated app for that
I do use Spotify, but I've still got an offline music collection (and I'm considering slowly weaning myself off Spotify and going back to local files), and this a convenient music player for that. despite the name, it comes with a fresh, modern looking interface with multiple themes and styles to choose from.
this one solves the problem of people swiping through your gallery too many times or accidentally opening another app (hi mom!) when you hand them your phone to show them just a single picture. share one (or more) pictures to the app and lock the screen, and the others will only be able to view the pics you chose, until you unlock your phone again.
if you have a variable schedule, this app lets you create multiple shift templates with different names and hours, and then view them, all colour-coded, in your calendar. works great with Simple Calendar's monthly widget, in my experience :)
a gamified editor for OpenStreetMap. it checks the map around your location and shows you missing information that you can fill with a few taps (pick this street's surface type from the list; is this bus stop lit? what are the opening hours of this store? what is the speed limit here? etc.) and contribute to making OSM even better than it already is. a great addition to weekend walks and more heartwarming than Pokemon Go.
a sleek client for Lemmy (Fediverse equivalent of Reddit). there's as many, if not more, apps for Lemmy as there used to be for Reddit. I've tried all of them at some points and liked this one the most. the interface is straightforward, and swiping on comments for voting and opening a reply window is a thing I can't live without anymore.
notifies you about new releases from your favourite bands and musicians. a little tool that I keep in preparation for my eventual departure from Spotify.
replies automatically to Whatsapp messages with a predefined message, with black/whitelist options. I use it on holidays to tell my colleagues that I'm not available and don't see their message... and to contact me on Signal if they want me to reply :)
automatic spam call blocker. I don't get much of those to begin with, but it's got a 99% success rate for those that I do.
where does it get updates about spam numbers from? it definitely doesn't pull them from any big services that have their own, more invasive apps, because that would be against their ToS and would probably mean this app would cease to exist. so stop asking.
and that would be all, folks, A to Y. hopefully this helps people asking to "suggest me cool apps from F-droid", a very non-specific request that I've seen multiple times in multiple places over multiple years.
well, almost all. there's also Signal, my messaging app of choice, which unfortunately isn't officially available through F-droid by their conscious decision. you can still get it outside Play Store through their website though if you want: https://signal.org/android/apk/
PS here's a reminder, both for the others as well as myself, since I'm not great at remembering it: if you find any of those useful, DONATE TO THE CREATORS AND TELL THEM THEIR BABIES ARE BEAUTIFUL
a private email service. the UI of their apps feels a bit dated and I'm sometimes tempted to try out Proton Mail simply because of that, but ultimately it's the service I've ended up moving to from Google's Gmail.
@noodlejetski@organicmaps a simple question, please, if any of you can answer. I'm using Organic Maps on a phone that's not completely degoogled, ie I disabled almost everything from google and didn't log in with a google account, but it still runs android. Organic Maps isn't able to find my current location, unless I enable something called google location accuracy. Since I'd rather not enable something with "google" in its name, what are my alternatives?
@stevendbrady@gadgetbridge it's only been made possible in the latest major Gadgetbridge update. I used to have another app installed just for that and was really happy to finally have a 2-in-1 solution :D
@QuadRadical@IzzyOnDroid my brother in Christ, I've checked all available clients, including G-Droid and Foxy Droid. I really know what I'm doing and what I like. and I don't like how crowded and chaotic Neo Store's interface is.
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