The Ultimate FOSS Guide For Android!
First thing to do is install F-Droid which is an open source alternative to Google Play that only contains FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) apps. This way you can easily update the apps and find new ones... All the Android apps are available on F-Droid unless otherwise stated.
One common feature among the following apps is being privacy-friendly.
This list isn't in anyway exhaustive so feel free to ask for other apps.
If you don't like F-Droid's design then you can use an alternative client like Aurora Droid. Aurora Droid also comes with a lot of repositories that you can easily enable.
Repositories: F-Droid is very strict about the apps that are included in the official repository but there are other repositories you can add to have access to more apps. Izzy's repo is a popular one which you can easily add.
Browser
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Fennec which is Firefox on F-Droid
- tracking protection, dark theme, pic-in-pic mode and extensions e.g. uBlock Origin (adblocker) and Dark Reader (force dark themes on any site)
Youtube
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- Lightweight, background playback, video or audio download, no accounts needed, subscriptions and more.
Peertube is a decentralized Youtube alternative:
- Newpipe also supports Peertube.
Google Play
If you still have to use apps not avialable on F-Droid
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- Update and explore apps without a Google account.
If you wanna completely get rid of Google Play Services, check microG out.
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- Modern material design, very customizable themes, multiple post layouts, lazy mode (auto scroll) dark mode, multiple account support.
Lemmy is a federated Reddit alternative:
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- Libre twitter client, classic material design, supports mastodon as well, very customizable.
A completely new version of Twidere, called TwidereX, is being actively developed.
There is now an app that support Nitter (a FOSS front end for Twitter):
- Fritter
- No account needed, Twitter doesn't get to track you at all.
Mastodon is a federated Twitter alternative:
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ProtonMail The app isn't available on F-Droid but ProtonMail is open source and very good privacy-wise.
spoiler
There are no FOSS search engines but I absolutely recommend DuckDuckGo for privacy. Google is evil, folks.
Password manager
You should absolutely use one.
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- Material design, Biometric recognition, 2FA, Auto-Fill and more.
Shelter
- Isolate the nasty apps that you can't get rid of (e.g. WhatsApp) and control the data they have access to. The app uses an Android feature called Work Profiles.
Messaging
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- Client for the decentralized Matrix protocol. It's E2E encrypted by default. Supports bots and bridges and is an alternative to WhatsApp and Discord.
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- Very convenient and easy to use, lots of features, group voice chats similar to Discord's and more. It isn't E2E encrypted by default.
Zoom alternative
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- No accounts needed, E2E encryption...
Music player
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- light, customizable, slick material desgin with multiple themes (including a dark one), sleep timer and a tag editor
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- Feature rich, customizable, uses the modern material design, sleep timer and multiple unique themes.
Video player
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- ton of supported formats, beautiful interface, dark theme, subtitle support, playback speed control and more.
Ebooks
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- great interface, customization, night mode, support for popular offline dictionaries and a lot more.
Adblocker
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- doesn't need root
Launcher
Gallery
Maps
File sharing
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- Share files and clipboard via WiFi, notifications sync, supports Linux, Windows and MacOS.
File syncing
Keyboard
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- Modern design, Swipe typing, okay autocorrect, suggestions, themes, incognito mode and more.
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- More like gboard, modern design, no swipe typing, good autocorrect, incognito mode.
Notes
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- E2E encryption, cross platform, notes can be automatically synced.
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Joplin *Via Izzy's repo *
Memes
- MemeTastic
- Meme creator with many customization options.
Weather
- Weather
- Open source weather client, very small >5MB
- YOU WILL HAVE TO USE NONFREE SERVICES TO GET WEATHER DATA
Document scanner
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OpenScan follow the instructions here to add Izzy's repository to F-Droid
- Scan anything, simple and powerful cropping features, great user interface, share as PDF/JPGs
Calendar
Camera
Scrambled Exif & ImagePipe
Remove metadata from your pics before sharing them. Very important for opsec.
Podcasts
Anki
- A powerful flash cards app.
Games
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- Inspired by Minecraft, multiplayer, mods, being actively developed and more.
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Lichess avialable on Izzy's repository.
Avoid using Facebook if possible
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- Multi account support, full theming, PIP videos and more.
Avoid using Instagram if possible and use Pixelfed instead
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- alternative FOSS client for Instagram which you can use with or without an account. It has a lot of features you can check out.
Pixelfed is a federated Instagram alternative
Twitch
Don't engage with gam*rs!
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- Ad-free Twitch client that supports accounts
Office
RSS reader
Use the search feature in F-Droid, :LIB: I use an RSS bot on Matrix so I don't know about the RSS apps on F-Droid and there are a lot.
TO-DO
This is on my to-do :)
For websites that don't have an app
you can use PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) instead by clicking on Add To Home screen in Firefox's main menu.
Contribute to F-Droid:
Which apps you still can't replace? Do you have any FOSS recommendations? Questions?
Huge thanks to @kitten & @SirLotsaLocks for their contributions to this post!
:rosa-salute: Didn't know about some of these, downloading OsmAnd+, OpenScan, Blokada 5 and Fennec right now.
Also I use Fedilab for Mastodon, is there any advantage to Tusky?
This is the first time I come across Fedilab :) Glad to hear you found this useful!
I checked it out and yeah it's a good idea but it's unfortunate that the dev sucks.
Fedilab is so cool. Being able to have all your social media in one app is really cool and one of the benefits of libre and federated social media
thank you! I've just got a new android thingy to read my books and its very purifying to purge it of the Bad software
Really glad to hear it! A lot of effort went into this post so it feels good when someone finds it useful 🙂
Trust me you convinced my ADHD ass to finally download Fdroid and most of these apps. Really good post.
Thank you! Let me know if you have an app you can't replace with a foss one or if you don't like any of the apps in the post.
I use Simple File Manager myself but Material Files looks pretty good and I'm gonna try it out.
Is there a real difference between fennec and firefox or is fennec just compiled by f-droid without any changes?
Fennec supports more extensions AFAIK plus all the proprietary stuff and telemetry are removed from it.
Hey just been setting up a de-googleified new phone and just wanted to say that this post was super helpful
Thanks comrade!
Sweet post! I was using some of these but find some new ones too. I didn't know about Izzy's repo but it seems full of cool apps!
There are also alternatives for a lot of them so ask if you have trouble with any of them. Reddit alone has a lot of foss clients on F-Droid.
A nice thing, if you have a newer version of Android (I think 10 and higher?) Is in Firefox/Fennec you can use the Progressive Web App feature to "install" webpages like Twitter and Hexbear onto your Android home screen. It will isolate the app into a Firefox container with your extensions too so Twitter will have Ad Block for example. Good way to interact with some non-free websites and services without needing to install more apps on your phone.
Are you saying the isolation is the feature exclusive to Android 10 and higher?
Yeah, I could be wrong on the versions but I have a tablet running Android 9 that I can't use this feature on, but my phone running Android 10 can.
Have you tried Librera Reader? It's very customizable. There is also KOReader and PDF Viewer Plus.
I hadn't heard of any of those! I'll give them a try, thank you!
No, that is why I added a spoiler and said there are no FOSS (Free Open Source Software) search engine but it's a private search engine.
Thank you for the advice, I ended up figuring out the problem on my own!
- Joplin The app isn’t available on F-Droid but it’s open source.
Update: Since February it's in Izzy's repo
For those really interested in music on android, I like the apps OP suggested here but if you're looking for the best experience, consider paying for Poweramp. The developers allow you to purchase a license without using google play services and I really can't recommend it enough. As someone who's tried prob hundreds of music apps since the first iphone came out, only Poweramp has ever gotten it right. It's the only non-FOSS/F-Droid app on my phone for good reason.
Thanks for this, I've been wanting to ungoogle and switch everything to Linux for a while
I have a question and don't know where to ask. I have a xiaomi and wanted to install shelter, however it apparently can brick my phone... anyone knows what I should do? I have a bunch of apps I can't uninstall that I obviously don't use.
Check the app Island out then but keep in mind that it isn't FOSS. You should probably make a separate post cuz someone else might know more about this.
In general, when I am afraid of bricking my phone I check the relevant forum on XDAdevelopers, to my knowledge that's the go to site for these things and helped me de-brick quiet a few phones.
edit: I just realized I have answered a 5month old comment, you probably already solved it. :D
Don't worry about it. Thanks for the info, I'll check it out :stalin-approval:
