A list of interesting and open source Android apps.
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F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.
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Privacy is possible, Signal makes it easy. Using Signal, you can communicate instantly while avoiding SMS fees, create groups so that you can chat in real time with all your friends at once, and share media or attachments all with complete privacy. The server never has access to any of your communication and never stores any of your data.
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Silence (formerly SMSSecure) is an SMS/MMS application that allows you to protect your privacy while communicating with friends. Using Silence, you can send SMS messages and share media or attachments with complete privacy.
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ChatSecure is a free and open source messaging app that features OTR encryption over XMPP. You can connect to your existing accounts on Facebook or Google, create new accounts on public XMPP servers (including via Tor), or even connect to your own server for extra security. Unlike other apps that keep you stuck in their walled garden, ChatSecure is fully interoperable with other clients that support OTR and XMPP, such as Adium, Jitsi, and more.
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K-9 Mail is an open-source e-mail client with search, IMAP push email, multi-folder sync, flagging, filing, signatures, bcc-self, PGP, mail on SD & more! K-9 supports IMAP, POP3 and Exchange 2003/2007 (with WebDAV).
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Lightning is a simple, fast web browser that focuses on design, security, and efficiency. It uses material design, doesn't track you, give you lots of options to protect your privacy, and does it in under 2MB. It gets out of the way of the user.
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NewPipe is a lightweight YouTube front-end for Android. It doesn't need the YouTube-API or any Google Play Services, as NewPipe only parses the YouTube website in order to gain the information it needs.
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AdAway is an ad blocker that uses the hosts file. The hosts file contains a list of mappings between hostnames and IP addresses. When an app requests an ad, that request is directed to 127.0.0.1 which does nothing. There are options to run a web server to respond to blocked hostnames and to direct requests to the IP address of your choosing. You can download hosts files from the app but it is possible to use your own and to add certain sites to the white- and black-lists.
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Writely is a minimalist Markdown editor for Android. Simply and elegantly compose notes in markdown or plain text. Organize by folders, save and access files from external storage, and restrict access with a PIN lock.
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Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security. It’s super-fast, simple, secure and free. Telegram seamlessly syncs across all of your devices and can be used on desktops, tablets and phones alike. You can send an unlimited amount of messages, photos, videos and files of any type (.doc, .zip, .pdf, etc.). Telegram groups have up to 5000 people and you can create channels to broadcast messages to an unlimited number of subscribers.
"It's worth a mention that Telegram's server side is not open-source. However, that doesn't really matter for security purposes, because the end-to-end encryption between client-side end users is tested and works flawlessly in Telegram regardless of the software on the server." — enigmatoid
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Conversation is a free and open source Jabber/XMPP client for Android 4.0+ smartphones that has been optimized to provide a unique mobile experience. Easy to use, reliable, battery friendly. With built-in support for images, group chats and e2e encryption.
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OsmAnd (OSM Automated Navigation Directions) is a map and navigation application with access to the free, worldwide, and high-quality OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. All map data can be stored on your device's memory card for offline use. Via your device's GPS, OsmAnd offers routing, with optical and voice guidance, for car, bike, and pedestrian. All the main functionalities work both online and offline (no internet needed).
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Mirakel is an easy to use and lightweight To-Do App for your Android Phone or Tablet. Become the most efficient & effective Dev with this task list for the greatest developers in the universe. Get your things done with a strictly organised workflow.
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Android firewall AFWall+ is an advanced iptables editor (GUI) for Android. It provides fine-grained control over which Android apps are allowed to access the network. The original codebase was derived from DroidWall by Rodrigo Rosauro. DroidWall was sold to AVAST in December 2011, and is no longer actively maintained.
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Amaze File Manager is a light and smooth file manager following the Material Design guidelines.
Features:
Basic features like cut, copy, delete, compress, extract etc. easily accessible Work on multiple tabs at same time Multiple themes with cool icons Navigation drawer for quick navigation App Manager to open, backup, or directly uninstall any app Quickly access history, access bookmarks or search for any file Root explorer for advanced users
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Etar Calendar is a material designed calendar based on the ASOP calendar.
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Slide for Reddit is a rock-solid material-designed unofficial browser for Reddit with an easy to use UI and tons of customization. Slide is ad-free, open source, and is packed with many unique features.
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Aperture Gallery is an open source material design gallery. No distractions from your photos, and no heavy weight from loading. Personalize it to your liking by changing colours and by going into dark mode. Based on an old build of Impression by Aidan Follestad, Daniel Chao, and Marlon Jones.
"Due to an expired keystore Keystore, Aperture Gallery is being replaced by a new version, and this will now be known as Aperture Classic. I will focus on developing this new version of Aperture, and will add in more features and additions as my time permits. Aperture Gallery (Known as Project: EVO to beta and debug testers) will be released on the Google Play store in the coming months."
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Master Password is not another password manager. This app will replace all your passwords with new strong passwords generated from your new master password; passwords are stored nowhere and need no sync, cloud or backups. This app will securely generate strong and unique passwords for any purpose, in a way that nobody can log or trace. Better yet, even if you somehow lose everything, you can effortlessly recreate all your passwords.
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Open Camera is a fully featured and completely free Camera app for Android phones and tablets.
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Antox is an Android 4+ client for Tox created by Mark Winter. It aims to bring the full multimedia support Tox offers to your device, although it's still currently in heavy development. Antox is currently available for alpha testing on Google Play and F-Droid.
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ProtonMail is the world’s largest encrypted email service with over 1 million users. The ProtonMail secure email app for Android brings easy-to-use email encryption to your mobile device by seamlessly integrating PGP end-to-end encryption. ProtonMail also provides a modern user interface with a full set of innovative features such as customizable swipe gestures and the ability to send expiring emails.
Since we were founded by CERN scientists in 2013, we have been joined by citizens from around the globe who have supported our mission to protect online privacy. Our mobile app was made possible by a record-breaking $550,000 donation campaign. With the ProtonMail app, you can now create your own free ProtonMail email account and start experiencing the secure email of the future.
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Orbot is a free proxy app that empowers other apps to use the internet more securely. Orbot uses Tor to encrypt your Internet traffic and then hides it by bouncing through a series of computers around the world. Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis. Orbot creates a truly private mobile internet connection.
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Brave has joined forces with LinkBubble to bring you a faster web - by blocking the ads and trackers that get in your way plus all the features you love from LinkBubble. Just go to the settings to turn on or off privacy features like ad blocking, tracker protection and Https Everywhere.
Recognized in Google Play's Best Apps of 2014, Brave (formerly known as LinkBubble) has unique features to make internet browsing faster and more seamless. When you click on a link in an app, Brave loads that webpage in the background, leaving you free to keep using your current app - rather than wasting your time watching pages load.
Brave is designed for both speed and security, so you can enjoy a lightning fast browsing experience without popups, malware and other annoyances. All Brave browsers are open source, so you can view our code and even make contributions.
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Ghost Commander is a file manager with two panels for the Android™ platform. Its development was inspired by the famous (Norton|Midnight|Total) Commander desktop applications, so if you are familiar with those great programs, you will find Ghost Commander a familiar and very convenient environment.
As was said above, it has two separate panels, both of them able to show files from different locations. What does that give you? For example, when you need to copy files from one folder to another, you just select the files in one panel and the target in the other, then hit the '5' key (either on the physical keyboard or on the toolbar). That's it. No need to do such boring steps as copying the files to the clipboard, navigating to the place you want them to be copied to, pasting and then going back.
All the main file operations in this application are bound to numerical keys, with the same numbers as in the well-known prototype applications (e.g.: "F5 copy" is just '5', "F6 move" is '6'). If your device is not enriched with a physical keyboard, no problem, Ghost Commander features a customizable toolbar which has all the often-used commands collected in one place.
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Twidere is a powerful Twitter/StatusNet/Fanfou app for Android 4.0+, which gives you a full Material experience and nearly complete (or even better) Twitter feature.
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Omni-Notes is a note taking open-source application aimed to have both a simple interface but keeping smart behavior.
The project was created by the absence of such applications compatible with old phones and old versions of Android that would propose, however, an attractive look and aligned with the most recent design of the Google operating system.
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Hack.chat is a minimal, distraction-free chat application. Create a chatroom with just a name, there are no preset channel so just enter a chatroom name and a nickname, share the link and communicate.
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Terminal Emulator for Android is a terminal emulator for communicating with the built-in Android shell. It emulates a reasonably large subset of Digital Equipment Corporation VT-100 terminal codes, so that programs like "vi", "Emacs" and "NetHack" will display properly.
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Simplenote is an easy way to keep notes, lists, ideas, and more. Keep notes on the web, your mobile device, and your computer. Find notes quickly with instant searching and simple tags. Share a list, post some instructions, or publish your thoughts.
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AntennaPod is a podcast manager and player that gives you instant access to millions of free and paid podcasts, from independent podcasters to large publishing houses such as the BBC, NPR and CNN. Add, import and export their feeds hassle-free using the iTunes podcast database, gPodder, OPML files or simple RSS URLs. Save effort, battery power and mobile data usage with powerful automation controls for downloading episodes (specify times, intervals and WiFi networks) and deleting episodes (based your favourites and delay settings). But most importantly: Download, stream or queue episodes and enjoy them the way you like with adjustable playback speeds, chapter support and a sleep timer.
Feel free to add cool open source Android apps which would be missing from this list.
- Add F-droid, Google Play and Githubs links to all the apps