Hello Muslim PG users,
Hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world use apps like Azan, Qur’an and Athkar apps. But you will all have heard of the disastrous privacy violations some of the most popular apps were caught doing.
I thought to ask here what good open source and privacy friendly apps you’d recommend. Maybe we can have an unofficial section (if not an official one on PG site) here.
Highly appreciated!!
Salam
I’m not a Muslim but I know F-droid have a few apps for prayer and reading Qur’an but I have no idea how good they are.
You can install the Quran and a lot of religious books as PDF files and read them in a PDF reader. For Azan, you can subscribe to a calendar (eg from this website
Have you looked at alternativeto.net?
https://alternativeto.net/software/athan/?license=opensource
Buy a book? I dont know i wouldn’t want Google or Apple to know my religion. Why does one need an app for religion?
you would be surprised how common amongst Muslims and Christians now use their phones to read instead of Books. This is not an outright outrageous ask to have a privacy-friendly alternative and considering there was a scandal with “Muslim Pro” selling data to US Goverment or “X-Mode”, they even indirectly admitted it in their statement even though they imply it is untrue (FAQ No.3 specifically where they make it vaguely enough)
Oh I know. At a former employer people even tried to install them on corporate devices. Data you don’t want to have…
I am just saying that it is probably a bad idea to use an app for this at all. It will definitely registered by google or apple and honestly given history you probably don’t want that.
You’re clearly not Muslim. You can simply ask me to clarify the purpose of these apps 
Azan apps send a notification when it’s (and around) prayer time five times a day. This is especially useful for Muslim in non-Muslim majority countries where there’s no outloud call for prayer in the streets. It also has so many other useful features like prayer litanies, Lunar calendar and Islamic holy days notifications, etc. It also helps with the Qibla.
Qur’an and Athkar apps also are very useful for many people as they suggest and notify or keep a database of athkar/verses suitable for times/context/locations, etc.
Salam, just wanted to clarify: you’re both assuming the functions of the apps are as replacement to books. These apps serve many other practical functions completely unrelated and unreplaceable by books. Even then, I don’t use any of them but I live in a Muslim country so it’s much easier.
Thank you
ph00lt0 wasn’t arguing about the usefulness of an app, he was actually pointing out that from a privacy point of view that could be quite concerning.
Maybe it could sound dismissing but questioning about the balance of the need of it vs. the privacy implications is a valid approach.
“Sorry, not a Muslim, but what do these apps do exactly? Is it possible to replace them with books?”
An example of a much nicer tone than “Why does one need an app for religion?”
Anyway, you don’t have to sound nicer… it’s just a suggestion. You do you 
GitHub - canbax/vaktiapp: Ücretsiz, reklamsız, açık kaynaklı ve şık Müslüman Namaz Vakitleri uygulaması. Free, ad-free, open-source, and sleek Muslim Praying Times app. seems nice. Open source with a good privacy policy
Hi thank you for sharing this. Looks interesting. But just to check, they say it’s only: “Prayer times for Ankara, İstanbul, İzmir”?
That’s probably because the developer is Turkish, but the app works for every country and city.
another Q: looks like it’s only availble via play/apple stores. No apk published, nor f-droid or alternative store.
Still it’s good but that would be ideal for most of us.
For privacy-friendly options, you can check out Islamicly (for halal investing), Quran for Android (open source on GitHub), and Muslim Toolbox for prayer times and Azan. All are lightweight, ad-free, and respect user privacy.
@anonfox dev is very responsive. I made a request and now apk is published on GH and waiting on FD.
I think there were a bunch of christian apps along the same lines which are privacy invasive, personally I’d just like use a old fashioned book.
This is argument could be used for anything, not just religion. Why keep a digital journal? Why record your whereabouts on a map or a sporting app? Why have a digital record of all the people you know and share that between apps? Why do anything medical with the support of an app?
It is an argument for minimalism that doesn’t address the question.
You misunderstand the argument. I dont think the fact that you keep a journal is very senstive. The contents could be. The contents of a religious app are known. The problem here is that your religion will be known by Google by the app identifier. History have given us many unfortunate examples on how central databases with information on religion have been used against people.