In the past, most software I used was paid and proprietary and would have some sort of limitation that I would try to get around by any means possible. Sometimes that would be resetting the clock on my computer, disabling the internet, and other times downloading a patch.

But in the past few years I’ve stopped using those things and have focused only on free and open source software (FOSS) to fulfill my needs. I hardly have to worry about privacy problems or trying to lock down a program that calls home. I might be missing out on some things that commercial software delivers, but I’m hardly aware of what they are anymore. It seems like the trend is for commercial software providers to migrate toward online or service models that have the company doing all the computing. I’m opposed to that, since they can take away your service at any time.

What do you do?

      • @MangoPenguinEnglish
        5•1 year ago

        A few I like:

        • StreetComplete, fun ‘mini game’ for helping fill out Open Street Map data

        • Hacki, hacker news reader

        • Mull, fork of Firefox with more privacy stuff enabled

        • Simple Gallery

        • Bitwarden

        • Simple SMS

        • Birday, birthday manager, nice for keeping track

        • VLC

        • Scrambled EXIF, gets rid of private EXIF data in your photos before sharing

        • Auto Auto-Rotate, enabled auto-rotate automatically in specific apps

        • Shelter, useful for setting up a work profile

      • I Cast FistEnglish
        3•1 year ago

        TrackerControl is essential, imo. The f-droid version is the complete one, too, compared to the play store.

        Simple X (Simple Gallery, Simple File Manager, Simple Calendar, etc) are very good for the basic android functions. As for what else, that’ll really depend on what you need. I like Librera for reading stuff

    • Matt PayneEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      I forgot about them. I didn’t know they were FOSS. Is F-Droid primarily for nerds and programmers? Or do normies also use it? I stopped working on Android apps because I don’t want my hobby to be subjected to the whims of Google’s acceptance criteria. But maybe I could publish to F-Droid instead.