Reviews by Team: F-droid reviews
Reviews for apps on f-droid
It’s a personal expense, income, credit & investment tracker app. I really like how simple it is.
Though the name has AI in it, there is No complicated ML models involved which means it’s light on phone.
The fact that it is FOSS and doesn’t require Internet access is why I trust this app with SMS permissions.
Works well with parsing SMS from banks & other financial service providers. Give it a try.
App is simple to use and works over LAN / WLAN. Makes life easy by sharing text, files, apps, media to other networks on the same network. The exchange traffic is also encrypted which is good for privacy and security.
I have been using NewPipe for more than 5 years to access YouTube and I must say it always works as expected. No ads, background playback, video/audio downloads, offline subscription, I use all of those features.
The app will break very rarely, but it’s not NewPipe’s fault. Google now & then makes a change in YouTube service which breaks the app, but the community finds a solution / workaround which gets fixed quickly in the next hotfix version.
Beyond YouTube, the app also has support to access video/audio contents PeerTube, SoundCloud, CCC Media, etc.,
About
This is a full featured clock application. It has all the usual features such as alarms, stopwatch and timer. The app has a clear UI. Everything is as it should.
Except
Except that the alarm didn’t ring any audible bells. Well at least I got a long nap… This may not be the app’s fault per se. Maybe it’s something related to my particular phone (Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro), but nonetheless this unfortunately makes the application useless, for me anyway.
Still, go ahead and give it a try. Maybe it works better on your device. Just make sure to test it before relying on it…
Tested with version 5.8.1.
Organic maps is FOSS and uses Open Street Map data. You can download regional maps for offline usage. All the basic mapping features are there, though some more advanced ones might still be lacking at this date.
Compared to Google Maps and the like, Organic maps respects your privacy.
Compared OsmAnd — which is the de facto mobile app for OSM — Organic is faster and has a cleaner UI. OsmAnd gets quite laggy when there are a lot of maps downloaded.
This is just brilliant offline dictionary app. It uses dictionary files generated from Wiktionary, so the data is top notch. The UI simple and straightforward. No bloat.
PS. If you ever need good dictionary-files, you can download the ones used by this app from here.
This is a great app. It might not be as polished and have as much of that just-works-ness as something like Google Maps, but consider that the map is stored locally on your phone. You’re not telling Google or some other giant tech company where you’re going. It’s also very flexible. You can add “favorite places” like bookmarks, tell it to remember your parking space, and even add Wikipedia annotations to landmarks.
Along with privacy comes the fact that there is bound to be room for improvement - and you have control over that. If something is missing or incorrect on the map, don’t throw up your hands and switch back to Waze or whatever you were using before. Remember that OpenStreetMap is edited by volunteers, kind of like Wikipedia. All you have to do is go to openstreetmap.org and start improving the map. Any changes you submit to OSM will soon be available as an update to the maps installed locally on your phone. If you see a mistake in Google maps, all you can do is submit a request for someone else to consider fixing it.
Pros: Privacy, flexibility, ability to edit maps, offline navigation
cons: maps take up a lot of storage. My maps take up a total of 1.24GB. UI might be confusing to some because of all the options and some general rough edges. Calculating a route might take a moment longer since the calculation is done by your phone’s CPU and not a remote server.
NewPipe is a easy to use YouTube client that also supports other sources like SoundCloud oder FramaTube (both beta). It automatically blocks ads and has a built-in subscription feature, where you can also group channels e.g. to a catagory “LetsPlays”. You don’t need (and can’t use) a google account - so commenting and likes are not available.
I highly recommend using it, after I subscribed to some channels it became my daily YT client
From the projects homepage, “A free-as-in-freedom re-implementation of Google’s proprietary Android user space apps and libraries.”
Requirements
You’ll need a ROM with signature spoofing enabled natively or using a patcher like nanodroid-patcher. Magisk is optional but will help pass safetynet. Installation using nanodroid and Magisk is fairly easy.
GMSCore/UnifiedNlp
This is app implements play services and location services. The location services piece allows you to choose your location provider with options to use local or online databases. This saves you from sending your location to google several times a day when NOT using GPS and more when you are. I didn’t run many apps from the google store but in general had few issues even with apps that were supposed to use google services. Although, one app I needed could not get location and the log showed the same error as a bug report from over a year ago.
GsfProxy
This worked well when setup correctly but required that apps be installed after microg or the apps wouldn’t register correctly. GCM still sends data to google as an intermediary, the code running on your device is FOSS to limit your exposure to google. Some apps will probably miss funcationality since all of the messaging apis aren’t implemented. There’s no database telling you what will or won’t work, you have to find out for yourself.
Safetynet
This is a service provided by google to check that your phone has not been modified or applications won’t allow you to use them. Passing safetynet is a constant cat and mouse game with google changing setting so one day you’ll pass and then you won’t. Magisk should help by hiding your modifications but issues still seem to crop up based on the open issues.
Long Term Update
After a year plus of usage, I had a generally positive experience but, had to switch back after needing to use an unsupported app and unifiedNlp stopped working correctly.
Verdict
A much needed app to put google at arms length on your phone. Usage is not for the faint of heart. You’ll want to limit your apps that use google services for the best experience. You’ll also have to be a part time sys admin with backups and updates of the device for when somethings goes wrong.
Fennec is a build of Firefox’s source available through f droid. This allows installing Firefox without having to use the google play store.
Fennec comes with most, if not all, the features of Firefox. The F Droid page says " It’s focused on removing any proprietary bits found in official Mozilla’s builds." I haven’t noticed any missing features though. You can add extensions like u block origin.
Speed seems on par with other browsers.