Beastie - Great FOSS android apps I use and Recommend

I recommend before installing these apps you use UAD to debloat your android phone, however UAD does not work on Freebsd due to ADB not working either. But you can just boot up a live usb of any Linux distro to solve this issue.

• Available on: Fdroid (Main Repo)

Let’s you access the Google Play Store, anonymously ie. without a Google Account, this very useful if need to use a couple of proprieatary apps and games.

• Available on: Fdroid (Main Repo), Github Releases

A simple and beautiful gallery app, so simple that you can’t edit your media with it.
Screenshots: https://github.com/deckerst/aves#screenshots Stopped using because of a minor issue #464

• Available on: Fdroid (Main Repo), Google Play Store

Yes I know it is made by Chess.c*m and yes I also know that the Lichess app has built-in clock, but this one has the best UI and is the most intuitive to use. I would’ve considered to use the Lichess clock if this one wasn’t FOSS, but somehow it is, so yeah its my main chess clock app. All the features you need in a chess clock are there ie. Different types of Increment, Stages, Custom time, Ability to make Handicap time presets etc. The only very minor complaints I have about the app is that is the app name (Cmon its super generic and is a bit tedious to search up) and not having the ability to have custom UI colors.

• Available on: Fdroid (Main Repo), Google Play Store (Paid)

I don’t really use Xmpp on mobile anymore ,but when I used to this is what I used. OMEMO and PGP are Supported (No OTR :C), MAM works, Avatars, Muc, Bookmarks and a whole bunch of other XEP’s are supported.

• Available on: Fdroid (Main Repo), Other install methods

An Simple Image editor and Exif remover. I use Imagepipe to edit, crop, add effects, change resolution and etc, since my gallery is very minimal. Imagepipe also has the pipe / share feature that Scrambled Exif has (it was a recent addition iirc). So I have been using Imagepipe as my main Image editor and Metadata removal app

• Available on: Fdroid (Main repo), Github Releases, Google Play Store

There are 2 good FOSS email clients on android K9 Mail and FairEmail. I chose to use K9-Mail because all the features are free, unlike FairEmail, however I understand why the developer chose to monetize this way, due FairEmail being a one man project unlike K9-Mail which is supported by Mozilla, which is a whole another controversial topic that I am not wishing to discuss in this blog post c: . ignoring everything about Mozilla K9-Mail is a still a good piece of software, it supports the standards POP3, IMAP and SMTP like most Email clients, PGP is supported aswell with OpenKeyChain, there is also support for multiple accounts and OAUTH 2.0 works so support for Gmail is there.

• Available on: Fdroid (Main repo), IzzyDroid Repo, Github Releases

I am sorry Newpipe, but a new King has been crowned! Libretube does everything thing that Newpipe does and a lot more. The UI of Libretube is just a lot more modern and more aesthetically pleasing than Newpipe, Shorts are viewable in Libretube unlike Newpipe so are comment replies and channel tabs (finally!!), Sponsorblock is available in the official app unlike Newpipe where you have to rely on a third party app that recieves updates slower than the main, Scraping of YouTube is done remotely via a Piped instances’ api (which can be slow if you use a bad instance) so you aren’t even interacting with the Google spyware yourself and therefore if the extractor/scraper breaks you just need to wait for the instance owner to update the instances’ extractor instead of updating your own extractor locally. One thing I do recommend you do is use a different Piped instance if the default instance isn’t geographically close to you.

• Avaliable on: Fdroid (Main Repo), Google Play Store, Github Releases

Lichess deserves a entire blog post to itself because it is so fucking awesome <3, so for now I will just talk about the mobile app. Most of the Lichess features work (no puzzle streak, puzzle storm and puzzle racer :C). The UI is Good. The App also has OTB (Over The Board) support and a Chess Clock. Sidenote: Lichess just hired a full time mobile developer who will developing a new official Lichess mobile app with all the features of the web version which is exciting! Long Live Lichess <3

Author’s Note: I mainly use this because Signal refuses to remove Google play services from their app and release it on Fdroid

• Available on: Molly-Foss Fdroid Repo ,Github Releases

A Fully FOSS Signal fork, has all the features signal has (except location sharing) plus some additional features like Database encryption, Tor Support, Ram Wipe, Blocking Unknown Contacts and etc. and doesn’t rely on Google Play Services. The only downside to Molly is that it isn’t updated as frequently as Signal ie. Molly is usually updated once a month, sometimes twice, However you can try using the Insider Builds to circumvent this issue.
Some more notable features unique to Molly: https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android

• Available on: Divest Os Fdroid Repo

I really liked Mull and It is still better for Privacy and Security, however it is too slow for me to use on a daily basis which is which I started to use Mulch for Websites I knew I could trust and that don’t contain any ads or trackers. however Mulch is still a decent browser for privacy and security, its just not the best. https://divestos.org/pages/browsers here is a table comparing all the major mobile browsers on their privacy and security aspects.

• Available on: Fdroid (Main Repo)

My secondary browser on Android. I like it because pre-configured with arkenfox user.js and also supports Ublock Origin which makes mobile browsing soo much more pleasant. However I have noticed it is slower than chromium based browsers such as Bromite or Mulch, but it has way better adblocking capabilities and extension support than the chromium browsers so I use it for ad-heavy sites that I have to visit.

• Available on: Google Play Store, Fdroid (Main repo)

Netguard is great firewall that uses the VPN technology to restrict network access to apps which you do not trust. However if you use Netguard you are unable to run traditonal vpn’s simultaneously like Orbot or Mullvad without disabling Netguard first.

• Available on: Fdroid (Main Repo), Github Releases, Google Play Store

Simple note taking app with todo list support. Started using Another Notes everything is the same as Notally, but with Material You Themeing

• Available on: Fdroid (Main Repo), Github Releases, Google Play Store

Just a solid virtual keyboard that works, nothing more, nothing less.

• Available on: Fdroid (Main Repo), Github Releases, Google Play Store

A solid feature rich offline maps app based on Openstreetmap data. (Can’t say much more about it because I have only used it for basic navigation when I got lost 😅) ,but here is a feature list:
https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps#features

• Available on Fdroid (Main Repo), Google Play Store

I stopped using Reddit recently, but this is the app that I used for it. It doesn’t do the personalised front page thing that most Reddit clients (even the unoffical ones) do, which means you have to go the subreddits you like manually (but there is a bookmark option to add a quick shortcut to the subreddit in the main screen of the app), which I prefer. Very Minimal, No-Bullshit UI, All features work smoothly. If you use Reddit this is my Best recommendation!

• Available on: Fdroid (Main Repo), Google Play Store

A incredilbly simple app that just removes your EXIF/metadata from your media. All you do is press the share button and share the image to this app then it will bring up another share prompt where you actually share the media via other apps ,but without any EXIF

• Available on: Fdroid (Main repo), Github Releases, Google Play Store

Syncthing is a fucking godsend and in my opinion it’s the best way to sync files between Mobile and Desktop, it’s what I use to sync my files between my Laptop and my Phone, it was quite tedious to setup at first, but after the intitial setup everything is super smooth and is basically all automated. Luke Smith made a great tutorial vid on Syncthing: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=8bHdcfVzrgk

• Available on: Fdroid (Main repo), Google Play Store

There are a lots of good FOSS music players on Android like Auxio, Vanilla, Simple Music Player etc. all of the ones I mentioned work great, It’s just that I really like the card layout that Vinyl uses, Vinyl is the only FOSS android Music that I have used that has Music Tag editing capabilites (Vanilla Music Player had one too, but it was pretty clunky soo). There is also a feature that lets you automatically download all the Music Tag metadata for your music library which is pretty cool, development has also picked up recently so yeah check Vinyl out! I use Auxio now :D will add a section about it soon

• Available on: Fdroid (Main repo), Github Releases

A clean and modern music player with a really pretty Material You ui.You should tag your music properly with something like Kid3 or Vinyl Music Player because Auxio is a tag based music player. Its designed to be minimal by default so some features are intentionally missing. https://github.com/OxygenCobalt/Auxio/wiki/Why-Are-These-Features-Missing