Since simple mobile tools will soon become a spyware and I use 3 of their apps regularly, yesterday I installed F-Droid after reading many Lemmy recommendations.
Wow, I’m pleasantly surprised.
A new app I’ve tested is Spotube (Spotify open source alternative; edit: apparently it uses Spotify metadata but it streams from YouTube. My bad.).
If you want them, but you don’t need but one of them. I like Obtainium the most as it updates from Github and F-droid, but i find Droid-ify makes it easy to search for new apps so i like to have it. I never liked F-droid Basic, but i would pick between that and Droid-ify for the best looking front end
Is Florisboard still being developed? Hasn’t been updated in 18 months according to F-Droid. Some buttons generate a TODO pop-up when pressed and the predictive text still uses placeholder values.
Foxy Droid: alternative F-Droid-Client but with the classic and for me much more accessible UI of the old F-Droid-Client. Uses the exact same repos. Can be downloaded using the normal F-Droid-Client, which then can be uninstalled
Aaand now uninstall it again and try F-Droid Basic. Its the version of F-Droid using modern libraries, which is way more secure. Featurewise that means modern apps have automatic updates
Annoying but thats why I always recommend to install that APK instead. You can just install it from F-Droid.
I tried all other F-Droid clients and they all have some bugs. G-Droid is discontinued but had an awesome rating system, Neostore has cool features but seemed buggy, Droid-ify is just fancy and has many repos preinstalled (but deactivated).
The lack of 3rd party repos being already in the menu with just a click away is the only problem with the official clients.
The dev said a couple of weeks ago that they’re planning on closing their Google Play Developer account, so using the fork means you’ll be able to keep up with new releases from that point.
I use it because it moves a lot of settings into the sync jobs.
So now I can set individual sync jobs to only run on my home wifi and ac power, and other sync jobs (like my photos) to sync over any network and any power state.
Interesting list.
Antennapod is an excellent podcast app - use it every day.
I’ve never found VLC to be bloated though. And am curious about the SyncThing fork vs. regular SyncThing.
I moved a lot of my foss apps over to f-droid. But i’m a little worried about security.
The odds of a bad actor being able to takeover f-droid and update my keepass app with a malicious version seems a lot higher than someone being able to do the same google play, right?
This F-Droid-like model (also popularly implemented by Linux distributions) is usually considered an improvement in security.
The thing with FOSS is that ideally you don’t have to trust the developer at all.
In theory, you could read the entire source code and compile it yourself. Then you’d know for sure that no malware is included.
Obviously, in practice, you can only hope that some nerds dig into the source code and notify journalists of malware-like behaviour.
It is no perfect protection. But it is the only tangible protection that FOSS actually delivers.
What does not protect you, is to trust each individual developer. They could publish innocous source code and then build the release binaries from a version with the malware-like behaviour patched in.
But because you likely don’t want to compile each app yourself, you might still feel compelled to entrust that work to a third party. This is where the F-Droid team comes in. Rather than trusting each developer, you just have to trust a single team.
Well, and if an app is built in a reproducible build, then even the work from the F-Droid team can be verified.
Yeah, that is a valid opinion to hold. I am saying that trust is garbage.
You could consider compiling the KeePass app yourself, if you’re worried about that one in particular.
A guy I used to study with, decided that he just wouldn’t have a password manager on his phone.
I’ve certainly considered switching to a Linux phone for that, among many other reasons…
You consider using Obtainium instead? It installs (and updates) directly from source release (Github repo, etc). That puts you directly in control of everything then.
Are there any alternative repos I’m missing out on guys? I just took everyones advice and started using f-droid lite. Noticed you can add repos so I’m curious
Thanks. That appears to be quite an unfortunate turn of events. I just deleted and replaced the apps w/ alternatives I already have in my personal list.
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Obtainium - update manager for FOSS
Droid-ify - a nice and simple F-Droid frontend
Seeker - SoulSeek downloads music
ViMusic/BlackHole/InnerTune - Youtube Music
Antennapod - for podcasts
Florisboard - a keyboard, great for basic use (no predictive text/autocorrect) and has swipe function
Breezy Weather
Material Files
OpenCalc
Acode - text editor
Bitwarden - password manager
Librera - pdf/ebook reader
Kvaesisto - Launcher thats similar to Niagara, but FOSS
Mull - a privacy centric browser
K-9 mail
Read You - RSS reader
Simple Notes - not related to
Simple Mobile ToolsbtwNewpipe x sponsorblock - youtube but less annoying
Lemuroid - almost any emulator you would want (except GameCube and Wii, use Dolphin)
Tachiyomi - Read manga
AL-chan - keep track of watched anime/manga with AniList
Showly - keep track of movies and shows with Trakt
Do I need Droid-ify, Obtaniun, and F-Droid Basic? Feels like there’s a lot of overlap there, no?
If you want them, but you don’t need but one of them. I like Obtainium the most as it updates from Github and F-droid, but i find Droid-ify makes it easy to search for new apps so i like to have it. I never liked F-droid Basic, but i would pick between that and Droid-ify for the best looking front end
Is Florisboard still being developed? Hasn’t been updated in 18 months according to F-Droid. Some buttons generate a TODO pop-up when pressed and the predictive text still uses placeholder values.
https://github.com/florisboard/florisboard/discussions/2314
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There is development being done still on suggestions. Last i heard is there would be news once thats completed
Yeah - this is the feature we’re all waiting for.
The version of t-ui (Linux Command Line Launcher) is way better on there than it is in Google Play
AntennaPod for podcasts KeepassDX for a password manager LibreTorrent
And remember to donate the developers :)
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Foxy Droid: alternative F-Droid-Client but with the classic and for me much more accessible UI of the old F-Droid-Client. Uses the exact same repos. Can be downloaded using the normal F-Droid-Client, which then can be uninstalled
I’ve just seen Droid-ify is a fork or at least pretty similar to Foxy Droid, so I’d recommend that, too
Droid-ify: Same functionality as F-Droid, same repos etc, but with a much nicer UI.
Xtra: Alternative client for Twitch with support for blocking ads.
LibreTube: Native Android client for the alternative YT frontend Piped.
Aaand now uninstall it again and try F-Droid Basic. Its the version of F-Droid using modern libraries, which is way more secure. Featurewise that means modern apps have automatic updates
Annoying but thats why I always recommend to install that APK instead. You can just install it from F-Droid.
I tried all other F-Droid clients and they all have some bugs. G-Droid is discontinued but had an awesome rating system, Neostore has cool features but seemed buggy, Droid-ify is just fancy and has many repos preinstalled (but deactivated).
The lack of 3rd party repos being already in the menu with just a click away is the only problem with the official clients.
I switched to Obtainium some time back, and ended up uninstalling all F-droid clients altogether.
Yeah no way. I found it nearly unusable, and many great apps are only on F-Droid
Lol - I found it far from unusable, but no worries. Obtainium also supports F-droid apps, so I get the best of both worlds.
Some of them are not underrated, but I’d just share my favorites…
Thanks for this list.
I do love OSMand, it is easily the app I have used and depended on the most in the past ten-ish years.
This is such a great list, saving and installing a few!
Adding on (and likely seconding a few):
For OSM specifically, I second the ones mentioned. Here are some other OSM related things: https://lemmy.ca/post/6586265
Formatting, please 😅
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The only apps that work on iOS are from the Apple Store.
Thanks for the recommendations, especially URLCheck. I already had FDroid and have been trying to figure out an easy way to clean tracking URLs.
Glad to help! It works really nicely
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Yes. These are all android apps from the f-droid app store
Why is it important to use the fork of syncthing?
The dev said a couple of weeks ago that they’re planning on closing their Google Play Developer account, so using the fork means you’ll be able to keep up with new releases from that point.
I use it because it moves a lot of settings into the sync jobs.
So now I can set individual sync jobs to only run on my home wifi and ac power, and other sync jobs (like my photos) to sync over any network and any power state.
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Interesting list. Antennapod is an excellent podcast app - use it every day. I’ve never found VLC to be bloated though. And am curious about the SyncThing fork vs. regular SyncThing.
Lato (downhill snowboarding game, a little rough around the edges but fun)
Rabbit Escape (a game similar to Lemmings)
I moved a lot of my foss apps over to f-droid. But i’m a little worried about security.
The odds of a bad actor being able to takeover f-droid and update my keepass app with a malicious version seems a lot higher than someone being able to do the same google play, right?
https://f-droid.org/docs/Reproducible_Builds/
Why not have both developer signed builds and repository verified source matches the binary?
This F-Droid-like model (also popularly implemented by Linux distributions) is usually considered an improvement in security.
The thing with FOSS is that ideally you don’t have to trust the developer at all.
In theory, you could read the entire source code and compile it yourself. Then you’d know for sure that no malware is included.
Obviously, in practice, you can only hope that some nerds dig into the source code and notify journalists of malware-like behaviour.
It is no perfect protection. But it is the only tangible protection that FOSS actually delivers.
What does not protect you, is to trust each individual developer. They could publish innocous source code and then build the release binaries from a version with the malware-like behaviour patched in.
But because you likely don’t want to compile each app yourself, you might still feel compelled to entrust that work to a third party. This is where the F-Droid team comes in. Rather than trusting each developer, you just have to trust a single team.
Well, and if an app is built in a reproducible build, then even the work from the F-Droid team can be verified.
I trust the debian repo because fortune 500 companies run debian and rely on it
F-droid repo doesnt have the same level of scrutiny
Yeah, that is a valid opinion to hold. I am saying that trust is garbage.
You could consider compiling the KeePass app yourself, if you’re worried about that one in particular.
A guy I used to study with, decided that he just wouldn’t have a password manager on his phone.
I’ve certainly considered switching to a Linux phone for that, among many other reasons…
You consider using Obtainium instead? It installs (and updates) directly from source release (Github repo, etc). That puts you directly in control of everything then.
Droidify does the same thing as F-Droid but with a waaaay better interface…
get neostore too (front end for f droid)
Are there any alternative repos I’m missing out on guys? I just took everyones advice and started using f-droid lite. Noticed you can add repos so I’m curious
Can you elucidate more on «Simple mobile tools will soon become a spyware.» I use a few of their apps available on F-Droid.
For Spotify, you can try ViMusic.
https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/General-Discussion/issues/241
Thanks. That appears to be quite an unfortunate turn of events. I just deleted and replaced the apps w/ alternatives I already have in my personal list.
Any recommendation on alternative for notes? Preferably something where I can import backup from Simple Notes?
I am not sure if it supports importing from Simple Notes specifically but I use Notesnook. Needs an account however.
There’s a new maintainer, search for FossifyX on GitHub. They plan to keep supporting the open-source versions of all the Simple Mobile Tools apps.
Looks bad for privacy… 😞
An Israeli firm bought them.
Newpipe, OMaps, Jerboa, VLC, zxing/barcode reader.
Newpipe also acts as a client of peertube and soundcloud.