FOSS Software I use, proprietary apps alternatives
Hello everyone! This is my list of FOSS software I use 😃
Android FOSS alternatives to proprietary apps
Google Board -> FlorisBoard
Google Play -> Aurora Store^[1]^
Termius -> ConnectBot^[2]^
Discord -> Element
Xiaomi Fit -> Gadget Bridge^[3]^
Google Gmail -> K-9 Mail
YouTube -> LibreTube
Google Authenticator -> Mauth
Google News -> Nextcloud News^[4]^
Google Drive -> Nextcloud^[4]^
Google Keep -> Nextcloud Notes^[4]^
Spotify -> SubTune^[4]^
YouTube Music -> ViMusic
Google Chrome -> Mull
^1^- You need a Google account.
^2^ - The UX is not as good as Termius.
^3^ - The UI looks like garbage, but does it's job.
^4^ - You need to selfhost a server.
Android FOSS alternatives to FOSS apps
Jellyfin -> Findroid
F-Droid -> Droid-ify
Desktop FOSS
Windows -> Fedora 38 Workstation
Firefox -> LibreWolf (telemetry free, hardened firefox)
Other software
Android -> Lineage OS
Linux server -> Debian (without GUI)
Smart home -> Home Assistant
SMS -> Signal
DNS -> Adguard Home (selfhosted)
Other services
Google -> Qwant (it's so good!)
YouTube (desktop) -> Piped
Suggest me:
- Google Maps
- Shazam
I tried it the other day. I couldn't do SMS. So I think the answer is yes, it's dropped.
They have
Yes: source
Yes but I do not use generic SMS. I use it instead of SMSes
Yes. I use QKSMS for text messages now instead.
@olof @OrthoStice Simple sms messenger ❤️
Such an answer 😍
Just a small note that K-9 is slowly bring turned into Thunderbird
I wonder if it will get forked by anyone.
Why? Why wonder, why should anyone fork?
Instead of using Gmaps. You can try
+1 for Organic Maps. Create an open streetmap account and contribute - its a game changer for me. Instead of a consumer, you're a contributor. (That goes for all OSM ofc)
GmapsWV when you have no other choice
This, in conjunction with OrganicMaps/Osmand is god.
Is there anything other than Google maps that can pull google's traffic data? There's a lot of construction on my way to work right now so I rely on that to not get stuck in traffic.
Instead of google auth, i use aegis.
i use aegis, prefer it to authy imo
Why?
Because it's opensource too. Works very well, vault is password protected and AES encrypted. Easy to configure, very lightweight.
I want every app I use to be built on Material Design 3. It looks like Aegis is not based on it.
check out authenticator pro
also open source, it was recommended on reddit, and I wanted an alternative to Authy, which backs up config in the cloud, encrypted.
Just wanted to mention ViMusic doesn't seem to be getting updated anytime soon. The status is mentioned in this push request.
Consider trying out InnerTune instead which has several more features and active development :)
I would recommend Navidrome + a subsonic player, but it is alot more effort.
Problem with Navidrome is it organizes your music by the idtags. So if they are not in perfect order you will have a fragmented music collection. Which in turn ruins the experience.
I recommend either Airsonic or the lightweight and fast Polaris that are folder based music players (both run in Docker)
Thanks!
Does InnerTune have Android Auto capability?
Yup!
Signal does not support sms
Nobody cares about them outside the US.
I care, I live outside of the US
it does, though
No, it really doesn't. https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007321171-Can-I-send-SMS-MMS-with-Signal-
It used to; however, the functionality only existed on the Android version, and they got rid of it.
whats the point of discord alternative if none of my wow friends will get off discord?
That's the thing I am having problems with currently
I told my friends that I am ditching Discord. I gave them my matrix ID and deleted the account. It was also a test of who cares about me as a person.
You would have stayed on discord if you cared about them.
they would leave discord if they cared about yours and their privacy
How many cared?
All my close friends, so 9 people. It's a good test for friendships too. If they can't bother to create an account on Matrix for you, do you think they will do something more in the future when you need them?
Thats some quality friends you got there
Google Maps - OrganicMaps
Try open street maps. It's better than Google maps in some locations and worse in others. So ymmv based on where you live.
Open Street maps has a bunch of Android frontend apps, I use organic maps which is available on fdroid. You can use street-complete (also fdroid) to contribute to open street maps if you wish to do so.
Actually I contribute to OSM with Street Complete already 😅
I've already tried Organic Maps and OsmAnd, but they fall behind Google Maps :/ OsmAnd has super old UI and Organic Maps is buggy as hell.
Try magic earth. It is good and privacy friendly.
It's not foss
Google Maps: Osmand~
OrganicMaps and CoMaps are also good similar options.
Is Floris Board still maintained? Latest stable release was in June 2022 and latest beta in September 2022.
Their GitHub says that stable versions are released "1 release per 1-5 months" and beta "up to 1-2 releases per week".
I use AnySoftKeyboard
I'll check that one out.
Share Me/SHAREit - localSend
Stock apps - Simple mobile tools
book reader - librera
Video Downloader - seal
Great list.
* Update
Simple mobile tools got sold to an ad-tracking company.
After that, all apps got forked to a privacy friendly group, Fossify apps, you may want to export your data and import it into the same Fossify app.
Google Maps - Organic maps
I prefer to use Fcitx 5 for Android instead of GBoard, not FlorisBoard. Because f5a has much better Chinese input experience than FlorisBoard, and I use Chinese.
Does anyone here have problems with K-9 background sync? I always have to manually sync the folders so I can get the latest emails
I found Fair email to be more consistent than K9. I used both for 2 years or so before finally switching.
No, mine syncs automatically. Maybe android is blocking the background activity?
Yeah, probably that. Thanks!
Aurora store doesn't need a google account
What Xiaomi device are you using with gadget bridge? What's you're experience with it? What can it and cannot do?
Well, I have a Xiaomi Mi Band 7 wristband. Gadgetbridge supports everything you can do through the official app. Except it doesn't upload data to the manufacturer's cloud. Everything works locally, because that's what it's all about. The UI looks ugly, but what to expect from a project created by volunteers, not a multi-billion dollar corporation? :) Overall, I'm satisfied!
Does it have any issues reconnecting when you walk away from your phone and then come back?
Nope.
Just bought it today and testing out because of this. So far so good. Thanks!
On Android, I use OSMAnd if I want to use a map and the openstreetmap.org web app if just quickly checking a distance, because OSMand can be quite bulky and my phone quite slow. For public transportation (in Germany) I have Öffi.
Google maps the best alt is OSM (open street map) but personally I think it's not quite there yet direction wise.
Shazam is easy tho, Mousai is the shit
it's a desktop program, while most of the solution OP has posted are Android exclusive.
This looks like exactly what I want if it had an android app.
Check out Audile on F-Droid.
I actually found it two days ago. Seems to work really well. Thanks!
I would suggest Brave search. I've been using it for a year now and the results are very accurate.
I'll try it. Thanks :)