These alternatives to Google’s default on Android are feature-rich and privacy-focused
- Fossify
- Material Files
- Aegis
- F-Droid
- Next Player
It would be helpful if you would put in parentheses what each app is, like a word processor or whatever, because without that it’s just a list of random words
Not unless you already use them. Then it’s a confirmation bias list that is functionally useless to you!
Hey, that’s me!
Descriptions and explanations are found in the article, the bullet list is mostly to avoid people whose already know them to click
K9 Mail
That’s now Thunderbird.
Is mozilla gonna inject ai into the birdie too?
From what I recall their Dev team is strongly against it, and they are community driven more than they are run by Mozilla corporate
Is this better than Spark?
I went to spark after Google killed inbox and spark basically replicated the inbox UI 1 to 1
K9 is more of a mail client than a web interface. It’ll do multiple accounts and present a unified inbox.
Spark is also a mail client
Newpipe also puts the default one to shame! No ads and works smooth even on very old phones. But I guess they couldn’t write about it in the article, because it infringes a few terms of services lol
Edit: I followed a reply comment and saw a different icon and clicked it out of curiosity, so I ended reacting to myself and I can’t find a way to undo this. Don’t mind my self reaction >.<
The forks are great too like PipePipe. I find sponsorblock but most importantly the ability to block channels invaluable, since the algorithm always pushes certain big channels to the top of search results for certain topics. So you always have to scroll past them.
Are those features you mentioned here present in PipePipe but not in NewPipe?
Sponsorblock and Blocking channels is available for PipePipe, but not NewPipe.
Okay, thanks!
It’s by far the app I miss the most from Android. I wish iOS had that app.
F-DroidDroid-ifyoh??
F-droid, but prettier.
Fdroid (basic at least) is pretty decent these days.
It is a little better, I’ll agree with this. I usually end up just using Droidify. I’ve tried pretty much all the variations eg: Foxy, Neo, Izzy (good repo, bad app; can’t shut off checking for updates), etc.
I use F-Droid apps for almost everything be cause they are better for almost everything. It really is that simple. (Obviously your mileage may vary; we all use our devices in different ways.)
even if they’re not better you know they’re not going to suddenly have ads and beg for subs next week.
If you use a password manager like keepassDX. It can save authcodes
Holy cow! I’ve been using DX for years and never knew this.
Material files is alright, but if you’re going to accept some serious limitations of under-developed features, I’d stick with Total Commander.
Ghost commander also good. It did transfers that made fossify file manager crash.
It’s an interesting app. I kinda like it a don’t at the same time. It has a lot to offer, but needs some polishing.
The lack of polish is part of the charm for me. I always thought all the commander style programs looked kinda bad, in the good function over form kind of way.
Love Fossify’s music player and gallery apps. They’re simple and do their job.
I’ve tried all the galleries and Aves Libre is the one I have consistently found superior to all others.
I’ll have to check that one out.
Wikireader and tomato really put google into shame. Way too good of apps and an example on how to design m3 expressive
What is Tomato? Some kind of Pomodoro app?
Yes
Thanks
How does material files differ from the GrapheneOS files application cos they look pretty much identical. Is gos’s file explorer just a fork?
Interesting. What makes Aegis special? I got FreeOTP way back and never saw a reason to try anything else.
Might be personal preference. I like the UI better, the ability to easily transfer authcodes from one device to another, The micro vibrations when the timer is about to run out, and the ability to PIN lock the app directly from the app and using a separate PIN.
It’s mainly just a nicely polished app with rather many optional features and settings.
But well, at the end of the day, it does still just show a list of 6-digit-numbers, so it’s not revolutionarily different either…
I have a Poco phone and I pretty much use only open source apps for basic functionality at this point. I think I have about a dozen I use daily, from Fossify to dialer. Once the Xiaomi calculator wanted to have Internet access, it was over. Maybe I can’t uninstall the default apps, but I definitely don’t have to use them.
And what do you know the open source apps outperform Google and Xiaomi, all the time. The only thing I find lacking is some kind of curation that tells me if an app has been updated recently, how many downloads it’s had in the past month or year, and how many deletions. It took a while to figure out what apps still work on modern Android versions.
Mauth > Aegis
Looks nice, but one should know that on the F-Droid page, the devs state:
Mauth uses latest Android technology (Jetpack Compose, CameraX, Biometrics, Room DB and more) to provide the best user experience with the least amount of bugs possible. It is in an active development but is nowhere near ready for daily usage. Use it at your own risk.
I’ve been using it for years and never had issues.
Edit: downvoting for being an happy user?
Still gonna follow the recommendation from the actual devs. 👍
