118
The unsung heroes of Android: Remembering 8 legendary apps weβve lost
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
118 points (91.5% liked)
Android
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So you don't have to click
I still use ES File Explorer on my old phone because I'm too lazy to download anything else and I only use my old phone like once a year if even.
Replacements:
Titanium Backup -> SystemPanel2
MX Player -> Poweramp
Google Play Music -> YouTube Music
ES File Explorer -> FX File Explorer
Swype Keyboard -> Gboard
Google Plus -> Google One
Inbox -> Gmail
SuperSU -> Magicsk
You're welcome :3
I bought music off of google play, and I downloaded the MP3s. YouTube Music has an atrocious downloaded music section, and I don't enjoy it. I happily have returned to "finding" music and playing it in foobar2000.
I replaced Play Music with ibroadcast but truthfully I could just self host a music player.
FX File Explorer == > Solid Explorer
For this I'd suggest mpvKt as its a video player
Mixplorer (unless it breaks functionality without getting an update)
Google killing inbox was what radicalized me to that the entire business model of big tech is bullshit
I tried using Inbox but couldn't get past the whole idea of it. I'm old school when it comes to email - just gimme everything and I'll decide if its important or not.
That said, Google's decision to kill it did open my eyes to the fuckery.
Then they killed Google Play Music a few years later. I had most of my library uploaded, but didn't delete my local copy because I'm not insane. That one radicalized me.
After google killed inbox I found out Spark Mail has that exact same feature
Google killed an app? Shocking, i say!
My similar turning point was when they shut down Google Reader in 2013. Never forget.
Absolutely gutted at Inbox going away. Was such a great product, and they lied about implementing its features into Gmail.
Huh, never used any of those, only SuperSU. Google Plus being there makes the rest of the list suspicious
Android Authority has always been Google simp along with other companies that sponsor their reviews and get them free devices, merch, trips and invitations. There's no low they won't sink to. One of their author regularly promotes Google store android merch on their social media.
Google deprecating gmail to replace it with inbox just to depecate inbox in favor of returning gmail was so fucking stupid.
Yeah, let me do it Authority
Feel free to add your own
Reader was a site/service, but it was THE rss reader for most people. Fuck Google for killing it (and a lot of other things).
I have no idea how they could omit Hangouts.
Allo, on the other hand, which was supposed to replace Hangouts, did not live as long as Hangouts and should probably remain forgotten.
Hangouts was the death of all Google messages for me. People I knew where using it and when they killed it no one would move over to another messaging app from Google.
We're on like the third generation of Google messaging apps since the death of hangouts. Giving up on Google seems like it was the smart decision.
I've never heard about any of the apps in the post, but killing hangouts and podcasts still hurts.
Google chat was XMPP compatible. The shit that ensued after it's decommission still stinks to this day.
Google allo did die quickly but had some nice stuff, most messaging apps still don't. Like change text size, use google assistant inside the app eetc.It wasn't anything amazing but I had some fun with it
And if Google had any sense, those were all improvements they should have just brought to Hangouts, haha.
But why improve a service when we can just create a competitor that does 2 things better, 5 things worse, and 1 crucial thing not at all?
Podcasts was good. Lightweight, cross platform and basic. YTM is a sink hole as a podcast alternative.
Apple Podcasts lives on as a far superior alternative whilst Google has left it's users in the lurch. In an alternate world, Google would still be developing Podcasts not only on mobile but also on Wear OS
Ytm still doesn't notify for new episodes. It's absurd
I didn't even try using YTM as a podcast client. Streaming music players doubling as podcast players always have a hindrance (but at Atleast Amazon Music has some ad free content from Wondery in some regions in case one is a Prime subscriber).
AntennePod is a good FOSS alternative whilst Pocketcasts is a decent cross platform one (but the latter basically is subscription based if one wants desktop and watch playback which is a downer).
I would 100% agree with you but pocketcasts recently added ads on free + has a really dated UI and antennapod is a pain if you want it to sync with other devices
Pocketcasts really is trying folks towards it's subscription driven model though I have no qualms with the UI. AntennePod relies on gPodder service to sync but that is slow and clunky sometimes.
There is Podcast Republic as well I think, which is still a one time purchase.
This is where I ended up. Republic
I agree with all but G+
I miss ES File Explorer to this day....
Have you tried fx
Its a shame there are no updates anymore, but it works pretty flawlessly. Especially love the sftp integration
Oh I didn't notice it was abandoned:( it was my go to for root file explorer
Yeah, there are some things I'd like added, but it works so well that I don't mind. Also theres not a really any good alternative