Originally posted on my Blog:
manerosss.wordpress.com
Hi!
Here are listed in no particular order some of the best Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) available on Android:
F-Droid
A great alternative to Google Play (aka Goolag Play), it comes only with FOSS, it also warns you every time a software uses non-free components.The package manager is complete and easy to use, you can download install and keep updated all your applications.
Needless to say that F-Droid is nowhere near as being invasive as Google Play, every feature can be turned on or off without shady processes or tracking going on in the background.All the software listed here have been installed and are available on F-Droid.
A very useful application that filter the display to remove blue lights.
Blue lights affect sight and our circadian rhythm, the natural process that tells us when to go to sleep and for how long and when to wake up.
This is a fundamental app that’s on my phone is always turned on.
If your eyes hurts when using your phone give it a try! This is way more powerful and customizable than the one pre-installed on many smartphones.
AntennaPod
A great application that does way more than expected!
This is commonly used as Podcast client and it’s one of the most complete available for Android.
You can search for a Podcast channel, subribe to it and stream or download as many podcast as you like.
The app has a nice Audio player as well as a Video player, so if the feed is a video you can easily watch it without using any other app.
I personally use it as a feed reader, I’m subscribed to some great alternative media sites and with AntennaPod i’m able to get all the news, articles, audio and videos.
It has nothing to envy to other feed reader, all images links and text formatting are correctly displayed.
Killer YouTube player and downloader. Way better than the official app as it can:
Download videos or just the video’s audio track.
Play in the background, very useful for music, interviews, podcasts, etc.
No comments! just watch the content without distractions.
Play in a popup Window if you need to watch the video while doing something else.
Redirect the audio or video stream to an external player, such as VLC (anyway the built-in player works great).
Other features are coming soon, some of these are built-in Tor support and the ability to stream from other YouTube-like platforms (Bitchute perhaps? let’s hope).
Massive application, way more that a terminal emulator. It basically is a mini GNU/Linux distribution.
Bash, Vim, Emacs, programming languages, openssh, and many many other command-line applications are available from a dedicated repository.
A Package Manager is ready to be used to search, install, upgrade or remove packages.
This is a great starting point for anyone interested in learning the command-line (it still the same it is on Unix, GNU/Linux, BSD, OSX) or for anyone else who wants a extremely portable full-feature command=line environment.
Works best if you plug in a keyboard :)
A nice looking 2 panel File Manager with built-in FTP/SFTP Server and App Manager (to uninstall applications)
It works like a charm and looks great as it follows the Material Design guidelines.
I honestly use it more as FTP server rather than a file manager, I was using a dedicated FTP server app but I immediately switched to use Amaze as soon as I tried it.
Linphone
A great complete and fully customizable alternative to the pre-installed camera application.
OpenCamera has many features for both photos and video recording, such as many different sizes to choose from, fully control the flash light behavior, timers, burst modes, white balance and so on.
Plus it comes with many different grids, sensors and the interface (GUI) is completely customizable.
ScreenCam
It does exactly what the name suggests, it records the smartphone display and audio.
This is very useful when reviewing applications or making tutorials.
The app can record to a max of 1080p@60fps (my phone max resolution) and capture an external audio source such as a microphone.
Other than that the app has an option to manage the recorded videos and even cut them.
An alternative to Google Maps that uses all the available maps from OpenStreetMaps.
It has an extremely useful offline mode, basically you can download a certain region’s map to use it later in any occasion.
By default it suggest you to download a worldwide map that covers all the major cities and streets, but by download a specific map you have all the public transportation directions and many points of interest and shops.
I use it every time I need to go somewhere to pick up an Ebay item, the map is so detailed that even the building shapes and civic numbers are displayed.
That’s it for this post, soon I’ll cover some other FOSS on Android, luckily F-Droid is plenty of.
TA SALÜDE