[Bradford] Android - Recommendations for more freedom

[Nick Rhodes]

Hi,

What applications, tweaks, tricks, tips do you have for gaining more 
freedom in Android ?

I picked the word freedom carefully as I didn't want to limit to just 
FOSS, but I thought its fair to mention closed source applications that 
use/promote open standards and data and also those tools that respect 
privacy more so than alternatives.

What I have generally found is that FOSS apps use some combination of 
less storage, memory and battery than closed alternatives.

So to start with here is a list of applications worth sharing:

andOTP
- Opensource 2 factor auth. Simple, no cloud integration like others 
have (which could be considered a privacy advantage to others).

Bitwarden
- Password manager, I started using this over lastpass as it works 
better - being FOSS icing on the cake.

DAVx
- offers caldav and carddav sync standards to Android. Opensource

Etar
- Foss calendar application that works well with with caldav sources (eg 
from DavX)

FairEmail
- a FOSS email client that works great with IMAP. It lightweight and a 
little bit more modern than K9 Mail that I used previously.

Firefox Beta
- Firefox needs no introduction, but I am specifically using the Beta 
version as this is better optimised for Android than the release 
version. I've used Firefox for years on Android and desktop.

Magic Earth
- This is closed source navigation application. it does respects privacy 
well and uses OpenStreetMap which is open data.

Open Camera
- Brilliant camera application, can be used simply or use advanced 
features like a real camera.

OSMAnd
- Opensource mapping based on OpenStreetMap[1], great search, car 
navigation a bit lacking.

QKSMS
- Foss SMS application - I recently discovered this, seems quite good.

OpenTasks
- Straight forward opensource task manager that integrates nicely with 
caldav sources (eg from DavX)

Cheers, Nick.