Kickstarting this community; let’s discuss our favorite apps on Android & iOS.
For iOS:
Fully FOSS:
- Organic Maps - Offline Maps
- Yattee - YouTube Frontend
- BookPlayer - Audiobook Reader
- NetNewsWire - RSS Reader
- Signal - Encrypted Messaging
- Element - Matrix Client
- OrBot - Tor VPN Alternative
- Swiftfin - Jellyfin Client
- VLC - Media Player
- Metapho - Remove EXIF Data
- Privacy Blur - Blurring Photos
- Raivo - 2FA
- Firefox Focus - Web Browser
- Mastodon - Official Mastodon Client
- PixelFed - Official PixelFed Client
- Sync - Reddit App (RIP?)
- Mlem - Lemmy App (currently testing)
- KDE Connect - Airdrop Alternative
- Berty - Encrypted Messenger with Offline Capabilities
FOSS, but with a paid tier:
- KeePassium: Offline Password Manager
- Slide for Reddit - Reddit App (RIP)
- AdGuard - Content Blocker
- Bitwarden - Password Manager
- Joplin - Note App
- Podverse - Podcast App
- NextDNS - DNS Filtering
- Invoice Ninja - Invoicing Software
- SimpleLogin - Email Aliasing
- ProtonMail - Encrypted Email
- ProtonCalendar - Encrypted Calendar
- Proton Drive - Encrypted Cloud Storage (Testflight is Full)
- ProtonVPN - VPN
- Standard Notes - Encrypted Notes
- Notesnook - Encrypted Notes
- Tutanota - Encrypted Email & Calendar
Paid Only, but Open Source:
Privacy Friendly, but not FOSS apps:
- QuickScan - Document Scanner
- Hello Weather - Weather App
- MySudo - Phone Number Aliasing
- Mobius Sync - Syncthing Client
- Privacy.com - Virtual Credit Cards
Edit: Added ente Photos, Mullvad, IVPN, Tutanota, Standard Notes, Notesnook, and Berty
Starred this reply, thank you!
Great list, thank you!
Regarding photos, which app do you use as gallery? Because as we can see in app store that app (apple) records a lot of data about photos. As alternative I’m using cryptomator. I created a folder in which I move every singles photos from native photos app and manage it through native files app (records few data unlike photos app), but as you can imagine it’s not so handy
Honestly, I’ve been stuck on Apple Photos, but turned on ADP (Advanced Data Protection). ente.io is the only other option I found somewhat adequate, but I haven’t pulled the trigger to switch to it just yet. I guess I should add that to my list!
Do you have any specific info on what Apple records in regards to the photos app? Would love to read more.
What do you mean for ADP regarding Apple photos?
Nope, just based on what Apple indicates in their privacy reports within App Store. For instance, they link these data for each identity: contacts, identifiers and user content.
Yes, ente.io it’s an option. I test it, and works well but it’s not what I essentially need: an offline gallery app, security and privacy oriented. Would be great :)
Just mentioning the tools I had not seen on other posts:
Selfhosting
- https://github.com/wallabag/wallabag - Instapaper/Pocket alternative. Has mobile clients and hosted version as well
- https://github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx - Great document management system, has multiple apps by third party developers
- https://grocy.info/ - ERP for your household (food inventory, grocery list, chores) - there are multiple open source clients for it as well
Android
- https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmand.plus/ - Routing based on OpenStreetmaps
- https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.oxycblt.auxio/ - Audio player
- https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ws.xsoh.etar/ - Calendar
- https://ntfy.sh/ - Pushbullet alternative, can be selfhosted as well. Works as a - https://unifiedpush.org/users/apps/ provider.
Darktable is a great photo editor (similar to Lightroom).
What benefits does it over GIMP? I’ve honestly never heard of it before
It is just different. GIMP is a general image editor. Darktable is for developing, retouching, and organizing photos. GIMP does a lot of things that Darktable doesn’t. But for processing RAW photos, adjusting light, color, contrast, removing spots, it is much easier to do with Darktable.
I never use GIMP actively but i think GIMP is more focused un image edition, more like Photoshop. Darktable is focused in processing RAW image files (and probaly even more things), applying color profiles, filters, retouching the RAW data, etc.
Because i never edit images i don’t use GIMP (also due that i don’t really learned how to use it). But i use Darktable to process my RAW photos taken from a camera, it just enhances the photos, with color correction, filters and other settings.
aria2 is a lightweight multi-protocol & multi-source command-line download utility. It supports HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, SFTP, BitTorrent and Metalink. aria2 can be manipulated via built-in JSON-RPC and XML-RPC interfaces.
I have neck issues and emulating my phone on screen is a must! I cant get enough of ‘guiscrcpy’ Open source Android screen mirroring! Multiple phone support, works perfect! https://guiscrcpy.srev.in/
If we’re talking about mobile apps only then ntfy, Fluffy Chat, KDE Connect, Nextcloud, Tuta, Protonmail, Session, Conversations, Organic Maps, Fedilab, Mull, DAVx and KeePassDX.
hmm… i’m on macOS, so I had to go through my apps to see which are FOSS, as it’s not always clear. More than I thought, so I’ll list some of my favorites:
- Pulsar (a fork of the discontinued Atom) - a text and code editor
- Cyberduck - my favorite FTP client since forever
- Handbrake - swiss army knife for video encoding/transcoding
- OverSight - makes sure my webcam stays off when it should
- LuLu - watches my ports and incoming/outgoing connections
- KnockKnock - guards against processes (malware) trying to gain access to system services and resources surreptitiously
- Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, Overseerr - a suite of media and download management applications for Plex Media Servers
- Transmission - a simple yet powerful bittorrent client
- Homebrew - a complete and extensible package manager for macOS, much like apt or rpm
- VirtualBox - Virtual Machine solution
and many more!
Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, Overseerr - a suite of media and download management applications for Plex Media Servers
Have you considered Kodi or Jellyfin? They’re more private alternatives to Plex
