Try OnlyOffice, the best open source office suite for Linux: bit.ly/3IQRWfY

please make this a recurring series there are so many good open source apps but sometimes they can be difficult to find

Small correction about Lawnchair 12.1 It doesn't require Android 12 to run, it can run on devices as low as Android 8.1 (tho atm 8.1 support is broken), only feature requiring Android 12.1 is the integration with the recents menu and gestures through the Quickswitch module

• Aurora Store - Play Store alternative • KeePassDX - Password manager F-Droid official client is pretty rough around the edges, luckily there are 3rd party clients that work better, I've tried many and I've found Droid-ify to work best for me but there's AuroraDroid (by the same dev as AuroraStore) G-Droid, FoxDroid and many others. • Material Files - File manager • Termux - Linux terminal for Android

Niagara launcher is really a hidden gem of a launch in my opinion. updates often and strikes a good balance between ergonomics, minimalism, and eye candy

I found Organic Maps to be more user friendly than OSMand Keyboard : Openboard is a good keyboard based on AOSP, but personaly I use Unexpected keyboard which is developed with developers in mind. If you are using command line applications or other compilers, this will come in handy with its unique swipe to input feature.

Note that some important apps (banking, for example) require a locked bootloader and Google APIs to use. Unless you're using OnePlus or Pixel phones (AVB v2), you're running a risk of bricking your device when locking your device's bootloader. Something that I learned just this afternoon.

Generally, custom ROMs are very good. The true problems come with portions that use proprietary sub-systems like the camera. The exposed Android Camera APIs are generally a fraction of the methods used with OEM cameras that take advantage of undocumented APIs targeting the firmware blobs (especially for post-processing and the like which could be coupled with OS level changes for whatever ungodly reason). This is doubly true for multi-camera setups. Microphones may use similar low-level processing but generally are less of a problem. Battery optimisations with always-on screens are a suspect if the used kernel isn't a derivative of the OEM one or if some part of the implementation is hiding within the OS layer like Samsung specific methods for example (because reasons...). Modem staying alive or the like, are within that group but less of a problem - usually the modem stays alive/ hibernated/ wakes up as expected. We have the usual BS with DRM or other "security" measures that immediately try to raise a red flag if they do (very questionable) checks to verify if the device is rooted. Banking apps or lower resolution with Netflix are the most common examples of problematic behaviour caused by those checks. On the other hand, there are historical examples of OnePlus, Xiaomi and so on not passing those security checks with their official ROMs so... Yeah 😁 The banking apps or wireless payment can be annoying - this depends entirely on whether the individual views such functionality as a desirable feature or not. If we go down the rabbit hole of VoLTE or WiFi Calling, counter intuitively the custom rom may enable this functionality in some cases (looking at LG's region implementations and crazy network provider systems...) There is one usual caveat with any custom ROM - depending on the family of the custom ROM, security updates can be a question mark. Just getting an update, doesn't mean it includes a security one. Sounds scary but given the OEM most likely has already nixed support for the device, _any_ update is an improvement. Overall, if camera quality isn't a must, custom ROMs are more than enough and can prolong the life of the device by a lot with minimal effort.

Neo Launcher is a great and open source, it is a great alternative to Nova Launcher. it has a google feed replacement that is just an RSS feed reader. they also have some other tools like a store for f-droid.

Grapheneos lets you have sandboxed Google services, they don't use microG because it's insecure. Security and privacy are two different things, and it turns out that Google stuff is really secure even if it isn't good for privacy.

I disabled the KZfaq app on my phone and watch all vids on brave browser, no ads and I enabled the option to keep playing videos with the screen off (great for music and poscasts).

Your SOC is very important if you want custom android roms. Is easier to optimaze for Qualcomm Snapdragon than for Samsung Exynos. I had Redmi Note 7 with SD 660. And compatibility with other roms was very good (with Lineage OS is still running very well).

Nick, just a small correction: Lawchair doesn't demands Android 12 (maybe just for some Monet/Material You related features, but it still runs on older devices). I used the recent version just fine on an old Android 9 device.

5:34 Termus's PlayStore version is no longer supported and they switched to F-Droid. So they were available on both a long time now but the PlayStore one will receive no further updates and tells you to switch to the F-Droid version.

There are some really good FOSS apps around that I think you overlooked. Starting with here KZfaq, NewPipe (especially Legacy) is really good, is lighter on the battery and on older devices that would struggle to play a 360p video if the ad video started loading in the background of the actual video. There's Signal for messanging, but also SMS. It has some neat features like detecting 2FA codes in some cases and showing a "copy code" right on the notification popup, along with SMS blocking or custom ringtones/rules per contact. Infinity for Reddit is another one that is really useful, lightweight and simple.

A happy LineageOS user here. It's amazing to have Anroid 12 and up-to-date security updates to my phone even years after manufacturer's end of support.

Found a launcher called kvaesitso recently. I believe its still somewhat beta but has a great search functionality nearing that of gnome's/kde's search function, things like calculations, auto wikipedia searching, etc on top of the standard "search for apps I have".

It's generally recommended to use a different F-droid client like Droid-ify, as the official F-droid client is very outdated. Also 'Secure Camera' by GrapheneOS is another camera app option that works really well.

Bromite is pretty much the best browser you can have on Android. It's only available in F-Droid via adding their repo but definitely worth trying out.

I find FairEmail a good alternative to K9, it has a lot of useful settings (both great apps anyway). Also, apart from all the privacy concern, changing the ROM to an open one can really boost the performance of your device ( I still use a 2017 Samsung which with his original ROM was unusable)

Perfect timing, I was just researching about android and it’s custom ROMs and you posted this :)

I pick my phones based on whether they have good support for lineageOS. My favorite apps are aegis for 2FA, simple gallery, YT vanced, and termux

I recently got Fairphone 3+ with /e/os preinstalled from Murena. It's solid phone and the os works just as well as regular android (with banking apps too!) and highly recommend it.

Regarding open-source apps that I use from F-Droid: mvp - Video Player Organic Maps - Offline maps support, even public transportation (google maps doesn't) Fritter - Checking Twitter (no account) Frost - Facebook client (with account) Open Note Scanner - Camera Digitalizer to pdf document/image NewPipe - KZfaq Player Tachiyomi - Manga Reader

Thank you, Nick. F-Droid is all right.

I prefer FairEmail instead of K9 and for Navigation definitely Organic Maps!

Aves Gallery is a great Gallery app as well. Great features for album management (including tags etc).

For maps, I use organic maps it's more user friendly.

correction for 10:46 - even with the customization and settings your pictures might look more real than the ones spanned from the default app. ..you can fake (apply -photoshop- gimp cream) your picture on the adult computer whenever.

Some others open source apps that you can find on f-droid: Seal (downloader), Music (listen and download music), ning (see devices in your network), feeel (workout app), blokada (system-wide ad blocker), Stealth (reddit app), neo store (f-droid alternative app), NewPipe (youtube app without google api), joplin (take notes and sync with cloud), material files (file manager)...

For public transport navigation, you should use Offi! It works best in Germany but I think it supports other countries as well.

9:29 Secure Camera, from the GrapheneOS project, is also pretty nice (but doesn't generally work well on cheap devices). On some devices, it even has access to the same post processing pipeline as the stock camera app

I really wish Fairphone was sold in North America, then I would be more tempted to go down the FOSS route with a smartphone.

I would put Midori next genration into the browser category too. Very customizable, privacy respecting and (afaik) open source too + it uses the webkit engine. It works really good for me (as an daily driver). Sadly the desktop version is now chromium too. Everything else is as always very well put together. Nice video.

GrapheneOS users shouldn't use microG. They should use the Sandboxed Google Play Services package for GrapheneOS. Also, Neo Launcher is a great launcher that is still being developed!

maps me was sold and isn't open source anymore. But its former devs forked it and continue developing it open-source and tracker free. Its called Organic Maps. It's great, you should try it.

When it comes to private and secure alternatives, I would recommend Divest OS and Calyx OS. Those are pretty good. I'm using /e/ OS atm, but I hate their launcher and even though I switched to Lawnchair, it doesn't integrate well with the system.

Why no mention of Bromite? If using fdroid, it's the best chromium option.

About Lawmchair 12, it Doesn't requires Android 12. The number 12 just said about the version os the Launcher (Lawnchair 9, 10, 11 and 12). I'm running Lawnchair 12 on my Android 11 phone

I use iodeOS on my Fairphone 4, it's great! My favourite maps app is Organic Maps. It's the best maps app on the F-droid store and much nicer looking than OSMAnd.

As for galleries, there's also Quickpic Mod and Aves. That one even includes a map feature

My biggest concern regarding third-party ROMs is how good they are at onboarding latest AOSP security patches, and if there any OTA updates? The idea of running Android without latest security patches, or re-flash entire ROM with each monthly security patch scares me more than Google spying on me in the shower...

My Redmi K20 pro is running basically on open source app. I use open source contact, messages, gallery, file manager, calendar, clock, music player, video player, text writer, scanner and Firefox browser.

Someone watching this from iPad Pro using KZfaq app while not using Linux of any sort is probably the furthest away from FOSS as possible >_

3:17 microG is not recommended on GrapheneOS, they use the standard Google services installed as regular user applications (that is, they have limited access to your device). It's literally written in the webpage shown in your video :)

A big issuse with open street maps me so far is that the text matches the language of the area you're looking at...

Thank you for featuring Olauncher! 8:45

I started using e foundations installer on a Samsung galaxy S9+ a year ago and Wow, it’s awesome! Completely de googled the phone, protects from all kinds of surveillance crap ware. Highly recommend this solution, supports many types of phones.

I was about to comment on your last video about phones and this appeared, nice video as always

VLC is on Apple App Store despite it being licenced under GPLv2 (bi-licenced with MPLv2)

K9 Mail was the one I needed in my life, Gmail lately has become an ad billboard instead of a mail client.

I deleted several of my Samsung Apps including the calculator. I downloaded Simple Calculator and the thing is awesome! It even has a customizable widget.

The OpenBoard keyboard is quite nice. Unfortunately it doesn't support spell check for all of the languages I use and speak. If they only added Norwegian support I'd use it. They have support for most all languages or have a keyboard without spell check.

Simple Music Player (the one with red note with white background) is an amazing FOSS music player. It's a perfect replacement for any crappy music player you might find preinstalled

i was looking for a music player for android for a long time, specially one that respected my library, and i think i found it in Simple Mobile Tools!

Personally I prefer FairEmail to K9. However, some features are paid only and you can only get them through the Play Store it seems.

I use Kvæsitso as my default launcher. It's by far the best launcher I have ever tried. Available on Izzyondroid. The developer also has their own repo. Another good option is starlight launcher. Not quite production ready in my opinion, but an interesting project nonetheless. It's also available on Izzyondroid.

I personally would NOT recommend fdroid, because of how they crypto-sign the apps. ALL the apps on fdroid are signed with fdroid's key, NOT the developer's key (one of the reasons why signal isn't on fdroid). There are very valid criticisms for why this is bad. Aurora store seems to be the next best option. I wish that this also be covered Good video as usual!

Sometime ago, I searched a smartphone compatible with a Rom Android privacy focused and an OS for smartphone based on Linux (Yes, dual boot on smartphone is possible). I know, Android is based on Linux but I searched for one that is more open source. The most interesting result that I found is the FairPhone 4 with /e /os and Ubuntu Touch. I don't know if that work well (I don't want to change my smartphone just to test that) but, because the FairPhone 4 was release not so long ago (October 2021), the support development of /e /os and Ubuntu touch for it is quite active. I discovered later on that it is possible to "install" a Linux distro on Android with the app UserLand but I don't know the differences between the use of this app and Ubuntu Touch

for public transportation there is Öffi, i don't know how much it works in other countries but it's great if you live in Germany and want to replace the proprietary DB Navigator app

CrDroid (a fork of lineageos) is also good for more customization and more supported phones (even newer). The rom also comes without gapps by default and only lineageos pre-installed apps

there is the CalyxOS ROM - an open source android project

Openboard is a good keyboard replacement, i actually found it better than the keyboards i found on the playstore. It also has a black mode which is good for OLED screens. Its funny that people dont think of using an open source keyboard even though everything they do is through it.

Kvaesitso Launcher is on Fdroid. It is a new launcher, with a minimalist take.

One of the bes maps if used so far actually is Organic Maps. It is way quicker and nicer than osmand and it is also based on the osm data base

For microG one big drawback is, that you lose some of your paid apps.

This is an amazing resource. Thank you! Now that I have a second phone I'll be experimenting with a lot of these services.

I have lineage os on an old phone, it doesn't only come without any Google app but it's also very optimized. Sadly, the manufacturer of my new phone doesn't allow rooting or installing custom ROMs.

florisBoard beta(best OSS keyboard) & OpenBoard, keepassDX, Librera Reader, Molly fork of signal, MJ PDF Reader, Nitter a twitter client, QR Scanner, Tracker Control, wifiAnalyzer, Hex launcher & Lunar Launcher, OrganicStreetMap & StreetComplete this app is for improving OSM, Standard Notes for end to end encrypted note taking app(also the best note taking secur), Scrambled Exif & ExifEraser(for erasing meta data only images), bromite a chromium based OSS browser, Forkgram(fork of telegram) & Moonlight Game Streaming(for local game streaming) these are few list of OSS apps.

I'm very glad that my current Phone Manufacturer and the previous Manufacturer where both very open on rooting and custom ROMs. Until the end of August I still used a OnePlus 3 with Arrow OS but the last 6 months with it where a pain to use because I had constantly repair things. Now I switched to a Fairphone 4 so I can easily repair it for hopefully the next 10 years I plan to use it. I mostly degoogle by using nextcloud but the migration takes time (especially Google photos to 'Les Pas'). Calendar, Notes, Tasks, Cookbook and all my files are all already on Nextcloud. But I still fighting with nextcloud because my particular setup is very complex. Because I currently worth on other development and sys-admin stuff I had not time to finish my migration yet.

An other interesting rom worth mentionning is CalyxOS. It only runs on pixel phones (plus some others like fairphone and one plus 6 I believe), but it has the advantage of being much more secure than any android system out there (excepting grapheneOS). It is super easy to use, has microG and all this stuff that grapheneOS doesn't have, and it is kept really up to date. I'll have the android 13 update on my (discontinued by google) pixel 3 in a few weeks if nothing goes wrong. Great experience I recommend it.

yeah the public transport stuff flat out didnt work at all where i live and i live in adelaide, south australia with a relatively large amount of people in it. thats the main issue preventing me from using a different maps app, though i did find some that i will be using once im no longer so reliant on public transport.

Hey Nick, thanks for the video, quite insightful. 😀👍🏻

You could have included Mull in the browser section. It’s a firefox spin with security turned to 11.

Bromite is also a very good web browser, based on chromium, but made for privacy.

This is i use open source software on android phone Keyboard : open board Browser : kiwi browser Pasword manager : bitwarden

GrapheneOS doesn't use microG anymore they develop a new way to have Google play services with encapsulation. This is the best way to do it.

Project Elixir ROM is a really smooth custom ROM for Xiaomi devices. I've been using it on my Redmi Note 9S for 6 months now. I have OrangeFox recovery. And it's the best ROM I've used. I've had zero issues. I'm using Android 13. When I would have been stuck on Android 11. I get many updates. If you know what you're doing it's a great alternative.

Hey, I managed to install e/os to a Galaxy S10 yesterday! :-) Coming from IOS this is an interesting and quite pleasing experience. I really enjoy lawnchair, had neo launcher before (which was not bad either). Thanks for your tipps - and it's great to read all the recommandations in the comments.

I already use a lot of the "Simple" apps, they are great.

I'm a big fan of iodeOS, similar to graphene and /e/OS. System level ad and tracker blocker and all that fun stuff.

My favourite Rom is CrDroid. It's highly customizable. You should check about it.

I'm using a bunch of open-source apps on my phone: - Neo Launcher as my daily launcher: regular updates, and quite the opposite of a minimalistic launcher, this one is packed with features; - FairEmail as my email client: same, loads of features, and a premium option if you want to have even more; - Joplin for note-taking & to-do lists, which supports markdown text and can synchronize between devices using basically whatever you want; - Ultrasonic as my music player, connected to a Subsonic instance on my PC; - VLC, of course; - Newpipe is a KZfaq client, allowing you to subscribe locally to channels without any user account, and which lets you focus on the contents you want instead of "suggesting" stuff all the time, and also with features that will forever prevent it from being on the Playstore (like no ads at all and the ability to download videos); - Librera Reader is an ebook reader with tons of features too, but obviously supporting only free ebooks; - Geometric weather is also a nice weather forecast app which looks great, allows you to choose your provider, and has widgets for your home screen. All of these are on F-Droid if my memory serves me well (which is... doubtful to be honest 😅).

Man I haven't been involved i the ROM scene since the Galaxy S days. Samsung not releasing the full kernel source. The international version getting Froyo while the US variants got stuck on Eclair. Finally getting our code merged into CyanogenMod. Good times. Note: I was part of Hacksung but Atinman did the heavy coding work. I mostly poked around looking for differences in the various kernel releases. We got the Captivate working so I couldn't have hurt the team too much...

Organic Maps is the actual open source successor to MAPS ME, after the project was sold to a commercial company. That's were the old developers continue their work. Other recommendations: AdAway (a must if you have rooted your phone) Bromite Browser (add the bromite repo to your f-droid) Etar - Calendar app with offline calendars F-Droid Classic - better then the original app KeePassDX or AuthPass Leon URL Cleaner NewPipe - A better YT app QKSMS - for SMS/MMS

Hey Nick. Big correction on GrapheneOS. It does not use MicroG, it uses a sandboxed version of google play services. MicroG is for other roms, such as lineageos and CalyxOS.

I been using Postmarket os for padt 3 years and loving it.

With graphene os you could use aurora store to have the google play services in a secure manner... no micro-g services...

You can replace your social media with good old RSS and Atom feeds. I use Feeder from f droid which is open source and is a great minimal feed reader

Very great video, most of these apps I've chosen myself in the past. For pictures I've used LeafPic, but iirc it's not open source. And for FDroid there's Aurora apps. Aurora Store is a Play Store front end and Aurora Droid does the exact same for FDroid but with additional repos to add on first run. And there are core services for the rom that let's update Aurora apps automatically! You just need to place the files into the rom with either root access or using TWRP's file manager. Or you make the package flashable yourself, that's what I did.

The launcher is the only thing I've not been able to get an Open Source version so far. There is truly no replacement for Nova.

In my opinion, a downside of FOSS apps is their look and feel of them. The aesthetic they give is like 5 years old, making them feel outdated, and depending on your opinion and use of your device may not be a concern for you. But, on the other hand, I understand the developers, often only one or two people, don't have the time and funds to produce an app that looks like a modern flagship app. I'm a computer science student, and the apps I've made feel older and even more outdated than most FOSS apps, so I know it's hard and can praise the developers for the quality app they produce

Awesome video. I use approximately the same set of applications that you listed.

Bromite and Kiwi browser are great Android-only open-source web browsers

A great ROM for pixels devices ( used it 2 years on my pixel2) is protonaosp -> keeps a similar launcher to the original one, is faster and is compatible with safetynet out of the box

Koler is probably the best foss caller app on android

My primary reason for never bothering with open source roms is that none of them ever support the phone I have at the time. There's no point in even tying if nobody supports it. It's really only a viable for those who have an older flagship that isn't supported by the manufacturer anymore.

Looking forward to the dedicated video on phone ROMs I have a Samsung A70 and I'm not sure it's even possible but really want to find out.

Warpinator, syncthing, photochiotte, sms call back up ... 😄

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