Six Android Apps That Are Open Source and Essential to My Life
Although Google Play doesn't recommend installing apps from outside the Google Play Store, the fact is that I've been using F-Droid for several years, an open-source app repository for Android that's as secure as the big Google Play Store and hides apps worth knowing about.
That's why today I'm here to share with you 6 open-source Android apps that are essential for me in 2024.
- Read You
After trying countless RSS feed readers for Android, I chose Read You, an open-source app with a modern design based on Material You and a simple, intuitive interface that makes it easy for me to stay up-to-date with the latest news and trends that matter most to me.
So, when you first open the app, you'll see three tabs at the bottom where you can access your favorite articles, those you haven't read yet, and all the media articles you follow, including those you've already read. Similarly, if you open an article from the app and tap the paper icon in the bottom right, Reading Mode will be enabled, which will remove unnecessary elements so you can read without distraction.
- AntennaPod
If you're looking for an alternative to the isolated Google Podcasts, I recommend trying AntennaPod, an open-source podcast player that's getting better and better and getting closer and closer to the popular Pocket Casts.
Thus, AntennaPod allows you to add podcasts through its search engine or through its RSS feed, automatically download your favorite podcast episodes and add them to your playback queue, adjust the playback speed for each specific podcast or episode, and configure a timer so that playback stops after a certain period of time.
As a good open-source application, AntennaPod has its code hosted on GitHub so anyone can collaborate on its development and it is free to download through both Google Play and F-Droid.
- Ultrasonic
Since streaming platforms like Spotify can delete songs whenever they want, I've been setting up a music server for some time to keep my favorite songs safe. The app I use to listen to them on my Android phone is Ultrasonic, a very complete and easy-to-use music player that allows me to listen to songs in maximum quality.
Additionally, this free app creates automatic playlists of the songs I listen to most and lets me download all the songs I want to listen to offline.
Ultrasonic's code is hosted on GitLab so anyone can audit or improve it, and it's also available for download from both Google Play and F-Droid.
- Aegis Authenticator
It is a free, secure, and open-source alternative to 2-step verification token management apps like Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator.
In fact, Aegis lets you import all your tokens directly from Google Authenticator, supports the HOTP and TOTP algorithms most commonly used in this type of application, and gives you the option to protect your token vault with your fingerprint or password. To back up your tokens to your device's internal memory, you can then sync them to your cloud using an app like Folder Sync.
- Standard Notes
It's a free note-taking app that lets you create all kinds of plain text annotations, assign them different labels for quicker locating, and sync all your notes between your mobile phone and your computer thanks to its apps for Linux, Windows, and macOS.
But that's not all, because with this app you'll also be able to password-protect your most private notes, access them when you're offline, set up a second authentication factor to prevent anyone from accessing your notes, and receive daily authentication and an encrypted backup of your notes via email.
- FFUpdater
The two web browsers I use most on my Android phone are Brave and Firefox, as they are more respectful of my privacy than Google Chrome, and last year I discovered an app called FFUpdater on F-Droid, a simple app I've been using ever since that allows me to automatically update both browsers directly from the developer repository.
But this open-source app is not only compatible with Firefox and Brave; it also allows you to update other web browsers like DuckDuckGo, Chromium, Kiwi, or Vivaldi.