We all know about the big ones like Signal or Proton Mail, but I’m more curious about the smaller apps that don’t get as much attention. Are there any less known privacy focused apps you use in your day to day life that you would recommend? Could be literally anything: messaging, notes, browsers, or something super niche. Would love to hear what the community here is using.
2 Likes
- Flut Renamer (hope Ente Photos integrates a similar feature in the future, so I wouldn’t have to download images, rename them, and upload them back again)
- Scrambled Exif
- monocles chat
- Metrolist
- NouTube
- Audire
- OSS Document
- Aves Libre
3 Likes
Finding out about local DNS filtering + VPN with rethinkDNS was a game changer for me
6 Likes
EasyNotes (offline notes, best widget)
RedReader (reddit without account and listed /r)
Grayjay (usually with less errors than PipePipe, but today is unusable)
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Here is my favorite F-Droid apps for anything. 
I use third party repositories where I can.
- Whisper+
- Translate You - IzzyOnDroid
- Breezy Weather - third party repo
- NotallyX - IzzyOnDroid
- BravePipe - Github
- HeliBoard - IzzyOnDroid
- Stepsy - IzzyOnDroid
- Voice - IzzyOnDroid
- VLC
- AntennaPod
- KISS launcher
- OsmAnd
- Molly FOSS - third party repo
- IronFox - third party repo
- Tor Browser - third party repo
- Fossify Gallery - IzzyOnDroid
- Fossify Calendar - IzzyOnDroid
- Fossify Messages - IzzyOnDroid
- Feeder
- KeePassDX - IzzyOnDroid
- Aegis - IzzyOnDroid
- F-Droid Basis
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- UnfifiedPush with Sunup
- Fennec and IronFox - both browsers support unifiedpush so you can get notifications for example for this community or even Reddit. Basically webistes that support modern webpush.
- Bimba - for finding public transport routes (thanks to transitious it should work almost worldwide now)
- KDE Connect - makes it so much more convenient to use multiple devices. Like cross device media controls, full file system expose and more. Also its fully local and e2ee.
- DigiPaws - screentime management / limits, works on GOS
- Find my device - luckally didn’t need it yet, but wouldn’t go without it.
All of the above are android apps either in the fdroid.org or izzyondroid repos, except for ironfox which you can get from ascrendent or IF own F-Droid repo
- Kate: Underrated alternative to VSCode/codium honestly
- Stremio: Provides a streaming-service-like UI and UX with the freedom of streaming, no account is required (unless you want the convenience of syncing across devices or connecting to The TV Version of the apps)
- Zen Browser: honestly for all it’s hate, it is still Firefox, and can follow PG’s hardening guide. It is especially a literal saver for work related tasks and alongside PG’s instructions, also getting your password manager and ublock origin and it is enough.
- Localsend: I’m not sure if it’s underrated or popular, I’ve seen some traction but not enough, assuming it is underrated, you should definetely give it a try, it literally works for any device. Especially helps if you say Juggle an iOS, Android, PC and Mac devices of some mixture and you can’t simply use say just AirDrop, also helps with sharing files to friends who might not have the same OS Phone (yes eg. Android to iOS)
- Metro: A decent local music player happened to find from F-droid
- Remind Me!: My alternative towards the reminders of the likes, again one i just happened to find on F-droid
- Lunatask: Again for all it’s hate, it has alot going for it that can help especially neurodivergent people. And they’re commiting to the E2EE as much as Notesnook.
- Easy Notes: If you want a simple and easy MYD Notes, again just one happened to find on F-Droid
- Inter Profile Sharing: While it is important, and in fact it is important, to have profiles be like seperate phones, sometimes you just want to transfer something from one profile to another. Great app for that
- Pie Launcher: Very underrated Launcher and it was the one to resolve mostly my digital habits problem. While no Native private space support. I’ll take the sacrifice for a greater good
- GmapsWV: it is using webview and the Google Maps website so with GrapheneOS’s webview it’s even better. Anywho I feel it is a must if you still have some reliance on Google Maps to get locations and then put them on an open source app like Organic Maps/CoMaps and without needing to use the original app with Google Play Services.
- IIF you’re a gamer: ProtonUp-Qt or ProtonPlus, can’t emphasize enough what a must those are, some games especially recent ones on Linux just simply may not work well with either: Older proton versions, Hotfix or Experimental. Especially if a Game involves some sort of cinematic cutscene or video loading, it is a must to have other Proton versions, like Proton CachyOS, Proton-GE etc.
4 Likes
I knew about some of those: Fennec, IronFox and KDE Connect but Bimba, super underrated, even works on my country, you just sold me on an app
1 Like
- Offline translator - F-droid. An android translator that works offline using Firefox’s translations models.
- Recurring Expense Tracker - F-Droid. Subscription tracker.
- Harper - A local grammar checker, has weekly updates and is owned by Automattic.
- Eloquent - Flathub. Easy to setup LanguageTool server.
- Déjà Dup Backups - Flathub. GUI encrypted cloud or local backups.
- Normcap - Flathub. OCR for linux.
- XL Converter - Flathub. Image converter. Uses jpegli, can wipe or preserve EXIF metadata, and has Lossless JPEG-XL conversion.
- Flatseal - Flathub permission manager. Useful for DE’s without one built-in.
3 Likes
Android
- Librera FD - Supports a lot of formats and very customisable although the UI is a little clunky
- Valv - Encrypted space for media and text files
- URLCheck - Removes trackers, referral links and more
- Image Toolbox - EXIF editor, photo editor, PDF tools and more
- Showly - Movies and TV shows tracker
- Next Player - Great Material You themed video player
- Metrolist - YouTube Music client
- Aves Gallery Libre
- Kenko - Workout tracker
- Keep Screen On - Adds a quick settings tile to toggle screen timeout
Linux
5 Likes
Gladly, not really, I’m entering on a minimalist stage. Using less apps, the only one that would worth a mention is Rethink that was already mentioned and I stopped using it because it wasn’t working anymore three weeks ago.
All my other apps, which aren’t many, are now widely adopted by the privacy community or are mainstream apps.
Perhaps, one that may worth mentioning is Collabora. From time to time we receive some documents that we need to open and maintain on our phones and Collabora helps on this specific task.
2 Likes
For my “assistant” on Android I use Blue Line Console, as it does everything I need (I block the internet access). For a keyboard I use Unexpected Keyboard: fully offline, spiritual successor to Hacker Keyboard. I rarely see these posted or mentioned for more private alternatives.
2 Likes
I personally don’t know how you use a note app, but I track nearly everything in mine to keep my life together.
I wouldn’t trust one that is proprietary or synced to any cloud (someone else’s computer).
It is still maintained by @woheller69
Does using these Proton versions fix the need to have shader caching enabled (to have transcoded videos available)?
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based on my experience i didn’t need to enable some shader caching or anything, they should be able to fix that issue if based on that
also thanks for letting me know, nice to know GmapsWV is maintained, can’t imagine how many people would love to rely on it just so they can avoid the main app.
Molly - a Signal fork
RSS Guard - a FOSS RSS reader
Gajim - an XMPP client
Calibre - Ebook manager & reader
Breezy Weather - weather
I2P Plus - fork of java i2p
Invizible Pro - a DNSCrypt, firewall, Tor, and I2Pd all in one app
Fulgris - mobile chromium broswer with adblock
Privacy Browser - mobile browser with option to route through i2p, tor & other proxies
Tubular - fork of newpipe with sponsorship block
OSS Document - Document Scanner
Collabora Office - mobile office suite
1 Like
NewPipe is a youtube alternative i like alot, especially with a croatia vpn connection it works perfectly, smooth and with fast performance.
RethinkDNS is very nice for an perfect android firewall with DNS + VPN feature. Also i can recommend the tor browser for surfing.
1 Like
Amazing. Thanks man!
1 Like