I love the Infinity Reddit app (but gonna miss it).
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LineageOS: my Android ROM of choice
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LineageOS for MicroG: the ROM on my second phone where I quarantine my use of apps that refuse to work without Google services (mostly stuff I need for business travel e.g. Amtrak, Google Maps)
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Aurora Store: allows installation of most Play Store apps without login. I mainly use this on the MicroG phone, but it’s also needed to get the ProtonMail and ProtonCalendar apps (only ProtonVPN is on F-Droid)
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TrackerControl: allows fine tuned domain blocking on a per-app basis. Often allows you to block just ads and trackers but still be able to use an app or at least many of its features.
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Arcticons: monochrome line art icons (because I hate fun and want my GUIs to look like a terminal)
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AsteroidOS Sync: WearOS replacement. AsteroidOS still has a long way to go, but I doubt WearOS would play nicely with LineageOS and I don’t want all the tracking anyway.
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Bubble: bubble level by woheller69 (a true F-Droid GOAT)
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FlorisBoard: afaik, only FOSS gesture typing Android keyboard (besides AnySoft, which doesn’t seem to work consistently)
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GMaps WV: fairly locked-down web viewer for Google Maps (sadly OSM just doesn’t have a usably complete business directory where I live)
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Lawnchair: launcher with all the features I want except being up to date on F-Droid
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Librera: the PDF reader on F-Droid that I hate the least. (Anyone got any better recommendations?)
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NewPipe: ad-free Youtube player with locally stored subscriptions and playlists. An IzzyOnDroid fork with SponsorBlock is also available.
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QKSMS: my SMS app of choice
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Signal: because I can’t convince my friends to switch to Briar
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SpoTube: pirate ad-free Spotify that works by looking up tracks on Youtube. Is therefore limited by what’s available on YT and sometimes plays wrong tracks, but you can’t beat the price :] Even interfaces with a Spotify account to play and edit playlists.
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Standard Notes: E2E encrypted cloud-synced notes. Also accessible by web browser, which has saved my ass a few times while phoneless
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Weather: by BeoCode on F-Droid
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VLC: everyone’s favorite traffic cone boi
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The list is too long. If I’m forced to choose 5, I guess they’ll be,
- Linux
- Syncthing
- Firefox
- Neovim
- PhotoPrism
Bitwarden
I’ve seen Bitwarden show up in this thread a few times. I’ve been a longtime user of KeePassX. Is there any particular reason I should consider switching?
What made me choose bitwarden is the emergency access feature.
It allows to designate someone as an emergency contact. This person can request access to your vault and if you don’t deny the request then they will have access after x days.
This way, if something happens to me then someone in my close family can still access my account.
I got the case recently with my brother in law who got into an accident and thanks God his laptop was not locked so my sister could access his accounts.
Because if not it can be a nightmare ! Having to deal with all the utilities company, harassing you because you did not pay the bill that arrived on a locked email account, then not being able to pay the bill anyways because you have to connect on they website … on top of getting your husband and the father of your child in the hospital in a coma.
This is a very good point. I’ve often wondered about a safe and secure method of getting my important passwords to a family member in the unfortunate event that something should happen to me.
That said, I’m very sorry to hear about your brother-in-law.
cant choose one because i enjoy using a lot of them:
- bitwarden
- inkscape
- kdenlive
- nextcloud
- organic maps
- signal games
- shattered pixel dungeon
- openttd
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F-Droid for FOSS apps
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Aurora for Google Playstore apps
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OSMAnd for navigation
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Oeffi for public transport
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many Simple Mobile Tools apps
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K-9 Mail
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Tor browser
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Shelter for isolating apps
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Tusky for Mastodon
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Jerboa for Lemmy
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Nunti for RSS feeds
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Molly for Signal
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Telegram FOSS
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Aegis for 2FA
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QickDic (dictionary)
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TinyWeather
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Threema Libre (not free)
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- Quillpad (offline notes)
- MuPDF mini (Great simple PDF reader)
- Unit Converter Ultimate (lots of various conversions)
- Retro Music (fdroid repo for pro version, best music player hands down)
- OSMAnd (Great for fancy mapping features)
- Mull (hardened Firefox with the quickest updates of all Firefox based browsers)
- AntennaPod (best podcast app)
- Obtanium (install apps easily from sources such as Github)
- Droid-ify (better fdroid)
- LibreWolf (+UBlock Origin, SponsorBlock, and many other extensions)
- Visual Studio Code
- VLC Media Player
Emacs, that’s all I need!
Antenna-pod if you like podcasts is fantastic relative to google podcasts (but maybe that’s a low bar)
Firefox, LibreTube, Kaiteki
Ankidroid— Create, share, borrow and study with flash cards
Firefox— Web browser
Rethink Firewall— Best firewall for android
Infinity— Gonna miss this one (Reddit client)
Libretube— Modern Youtube client using Piped
Obtainium—Keeps track of all my foss apps from their git repositories + them
Gnu IMP— Desktop photo editor
Aurora Store— Download apps from the play store
emacs
YyyyyyyyyyuuuuuuuuuuuuuP.
These two are now the first apps I install on any new device:
- Kiss launcher (simple and fast)
- Articons icon pack
Basically, my approach is to (mostly) prioritize text over icons, and reduce the colors I need to process.
Other apps:
- Brave browser (for YouTube and built-in anti-tracking features.)
- Librera (ebook/PDF reader with lots of features)
- Odyssey (local music player optimized for speed. My library is so large that all the other players were having trouble finding songs.)
- Graph 89 (TI graphing calculator emulator)
- Feeder (RSS feed aggregator)
Brave has always felt sketchy to me with all the built-in crypto junk.
Yeah that stuff is a bit obnoxious, but once you get browsing it doesn’t come up, at least for me. Well worth it for no YouTube ads and making tracking more difficult.
My top Must have FOSS app:
- Bitwarden - password manager
Other indispensable FOSS apps:
- FairEmail and Proton Mail - email
- SimpleLogin - email aliases
- Joplin - notes
- Aves Libre - image gallery
- Droid-ify - FOSS app store
- FediLab - Fediverse client
- Medilog - health metrics log
- OctoDroid - GitHub viewer/manager
FairEmail is a great email client. Also everytime I reinstall my phone, I get the SimpleMobileTools line of apps, their apps like gallery or calendar are nice-looking and useful.