this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025
235 points (97.6% liked)

Privacy

42465 readers
693 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

Screenshot 3

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 58 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

Try CoMaps instead of Organic Maps. It's a fork because Organic Maps is starting to enshittify

[–] Omer_Ash@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

I just ran the two apps side-by-side and barely found any differences other than some subtle UI changes. How exactly is it different? And how is Organic Maps being enshittified?

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I haven't been keeping up with Organic Maps updates to see if they differ but I'd assume they're basically functionally the same, except for potentially Kayak results.

https://openletter.earth/open-letter-to-organic-maps-shareholders-a0bf770c

[–] Omer_Ash@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for the link. I just made the switch to CoMaps because I'm tired of enshittification.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[–] RheumatoidArthritis@mander.xyz 29 points 2 weeks ago

Quite impressive choice of apps, usually when I look at screenshots of privacy enthusiasts they look more or less like my own phone, and with you I share 3, maybe 4 apps only

[–] wolfiedafloof@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Lol. Last picture at the bottom third. "WiFiAnal" xD (Sorry, I'm childish)

[–] gilgameth@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

Hey, that's the only safe way to let others control your buttplug.

[–] HappyFrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 2 weeks ago

Quite the kinky lineup; WiFiAnal, Wetter, QuickDic... 😏

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Honest question: I see a lot of people here use their mobile phones as a computer platform. I have a general uneasiness about doing so. Not throwing any shade whatsoever, I just feel there is too much out of my control on a mobile phone, for me to trust it more than I do. My general policy is not to use my phone as a mobile computing platform even tho I have a VPN installed and use Firefox as a browser.

My local network for instance. There is one pipe in and out. I can easily see what is coming in and what's going out and I can control that with the granularity of a gnat's ass. I know what my software is doing or not doing. I can allow or disallow anything I want. On a mobile phone, I feel that the control I have on my PC is not equal to the control I have on my phone.

How have you come to terms with what you can't control on your mobile phone?

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I definitely agree with you on this. My pet theory is that phones have been getting uncomfortably big, at least from my perspective, since the average consumer is expecting it to serve as a computing and productivity platform, while all I want is a nice little digital Swiss army knife. I'm only logged into my messaging apps and personal email, and don't expect to do any sort of "productivity" on my phone. When my friends and colleagues assume I'm logged in to this-or-that on my phone, all I can think about is how afraid I would be if I were logged in to so many things on my personal phone. It's so much harder to inspect what's going on in the background of mobile devices.

One of the compromises I've had to accept is the closed, yet exploitable nature of the baseband and firmware. Also how much more spying it could do compared to any PC if an exploit were to get through. Compiling Coreboot and neutering the Intel ME taught me a lot about who's really in control - and how much control we all lose to smartphone manufacturers and telecom companies.

[–] AceBonobo@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

What do you do when you leave the house?

[–] scytale@piefed.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago

Touch grass? Not OP, but when I’m out of the house, it’s because I need to do something, so I’m barely on my phone except for navigation, the occasional text/call, and paying for stuff. Otherwise, I use my laptop most of the time (at home and at work).

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

On occasion, I do leave the compound, but it's usually to get staples I don't grow/produce on the farm. Rarely does that process need a mobile computing platform. (I guess that's what you're asking)

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 weeks ago

How have you come to terms with what you can't control on your mobile phone?

Threat level analysis.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] fubbernuckin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They said it couldn't be done...

[–] ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It still can't be done 100% unless you make significant sacrifices to the usefulness of your smartphone...there's plenty of really useful (and sometimes necessary) things with no FOSS or open source alternatives.

[–] Starkon@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not to mention drivers... many driver blobs are proprietary and if you can find an open source one, there is a chance it works partially or not at all. I have a spare phone and I've been hesitating between flashing either PostmarketOS (all FOSS drivers but without the android ecosystem) or LineageOS, or maybe both if I can achieve that.

[–] kadu@scribe.disroot.org 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Even if you fixed the issue with drivers...

...your modem runs it's own firmware with a lot of extremely shady behavior, and you can't touch that regardless of which OS you install. Even your SIM card can arbitrarily execute Java applets and fetch from the network without your command, but at least it's somewhat contained. Your modem though, it can do a lot without your control and people like Qualcomm have been caught doing nasty stuff with it (plus, of course, giving the US the data whenever they ask for it).

This is why people like Stallman and Snowden often talk about teaching users how to use libre software on their computers, but rather than pushing for the same with smartphones, they tell you to not touch these at all instead. They're fundamentally anti-privacy devices, built this way.

Of course I carry one, it's fairly hard to live without a phone nowadays, but we must be aware of the impossibility of fully containing the data harvesting they do.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] KazuchijouNo@lemy.lol 12 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Where did you get super tux kart?

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] KazuchijouNo@lemy.lol 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Really?? It's not appearing on mine :(

I've got an old Samsung J7 from 2016, maybe that's why

[–] dangrousperson@feddit.org 6 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

you can get it from GitHub:

https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/releases

and you can use obtanium to automatically update it (or any apps from GitHub/ the web)

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] FriedRice@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Thank you. Most of thoese i even dont know. Can you make a list?

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 41 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (6 children)

Of course

  • Accrescent: Store ~~run~~ (edit: advocated) by the GrapheneOS team for third-party apps
  • Aegis: 2FA TOTP code generator
  • AirGuard: Scans for persistent AirTags in the vicinity, notifies if I may be victim to AirTag tracking
  • AntennaPod: Podcast manager, also supports importing local folders of podcasts
  • AudioMonitor: Measure sound level
  • Binary Eye: Support for many types of 1D and 2D barcodes
  • ByeDPI: routes internet traffic through the DNS port to bypass certain types of filtering
  • Canvass: doodle app, useful for mid-conversation diagrams and clarifying things visually in the absence of pen and paper
  • ClassiCube: Minecraft Classic clone
  • Conversations: XMPP client
  • Editor: raw text editor
  • Elementary: periodic table
  • SimpleEmail: minimalist e-mail app that does not automatically fetch linked images. Refereshes in the background every 15 minutes and sends notifications without need for Play Services or equivalent
  • FakeStandby: for edge cases when I want something to keep running in the foreground, but don't want to keep the screen on
  • Feeder: RSS client
  • Fintunes: Jellyfin client optimized for music
  • FlorisBoard: customizable keyboard
  • Fruity Game: Suika but with MS-Paint art style
  • Graph 89: Graphing calculator emulator
  • Invizible: Tor and DNS client
  • Kiwix: Offline Wikipedia (you can download just the parts useful to you, e.g. medical articles without storage-hungry media files)
  • Lemuroid: GBA emulator
  • LocalSend: instant P2P filesharing over WLAN
  • Markor: notes app with markdown
  • Material Files: files app with SMB share support and various handy features
  • Molly: Alternative Signal client
  • Fossify Messages: I use it over the default messages app since it is easy to block numbers by pattern
  • Notally: notes app with nice checklists
  • Open Camera: as easy to use as the regular camera, but with a bunch more features below the surface
  • OpenContacts: saves contacts as individual .vcf files to a directory for easy backup and allows dropping unknown callers without bothering me with a notification
  • Organic Maps to be replaced with CoMaps later
  • OSS Document Scanner: best FOSS scanning app I've found so far. Includes auto-cropping (given enough contrast) and adjustable B&W filter to eliminate off-white background colors.
  • phyphox: view output of sensors like the barometer, magnetometer, accelerometer, etc.
  • PipePipe: NewPipe but better (except for the occasional memory leakage)
  • QDict & QuickDic: offline dictionaries and bilingual wordbooks
  • RadioDroid: IP radio client. Can tune in to international news, music, sports broadcasts
  • RHVoice: TTS app
  • RiMusic: NewPipe, but for ~~Spotify, etc.~~ YT Music
  • SecScanQR: QR scanner and generator with history, useful to save QR addresses for later use since I don't want to fill out forms or read documents on my phone
  • SuperTuxKart: the only [edit: other] game on my phone
  • Symphony: Music app with a slick UI
  • Trail Sense: Compass with various goodies useful for outdoor activities
  • Breezy Weather: weather app and homescreen widget with a slick UI
  • MicroMathematics: Math engine, but I never learned how to use it
[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That TI calculator app is the shit. I am in the generation who used those in engineering school. Goddamned things were like $150.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Ahhh....I am of the generation that remembers when there were no calculators. When they started becoming available, yes they were quite expensive. All my teachers would say 'what do you think? You think you're just going to have a calculator in your pocket all the time?' Well, yes Mr Mizelle in engineering, I will be walking around with a calculator in my pocket that links to a satellite in outer fucking space.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Spotify

You had me going til that one.

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 weeks ago

My bad, misremembered that RiMusic fetches from Youtube music instead of Spotify

[–] nathan@piefed.alphapuggle.dev 5 points 2 weeks ago

Btw Accrescent isn't run by the GrapheneOS team, they just advocate for it's use

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] pH3ra@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago

I love the mandatory Super Tux Cart anyone of us has installed but played like 4 times

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Stop, you're gonna make me cum

[–] NotKyloRen@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

So about that Wifi app in the third screenshot...

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Forgot to put that on my list earlier, it scans for nearby WiFi access points and returns the signal strength, band frequency, and various details about each.

[–] abominable_panda@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Does it grant "backdoor" access?

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not that I'm aware of. I only used it to diagnose weak signals and frequency band conflicts in the house.

[–] chimp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Blessed be thy innocent soul.

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

edit: got the reference. lol

[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 weeks ago

Fucking legend! I'm going to spend the weekend exploring these apps and see what changes I can make on my phone. 👍

[–] Starkon@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

That is the way! Excited to flash my phone to LineageOS. Thanks for sharing the apps !

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 7 points 2 weeks ago

Whoa, I have like half of these, nice!

[–] ZinQ@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago

Attack surface who dis?

[–] Shape4985@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I see you have freetube. Grayjay is also a great addition as it has plug ins for lots of sites

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ThunderLegend@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I wish I had friends to use xmpp apps to text..I'm a whatsapp hostage

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] phpinjected@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 weeks ago

damn bro gat the juice

[–] cmgvd3lw@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] timhayes1991@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Based on the placement of the time on the status bar I would guess it's a Pixel 5, as it needs to make space there for the camera punch out

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] KazuchijouNo@lemy.lol 4 points 2 weeks ago

Lemuroid and PipePipe <3

Btw if you're signed it with your youtube account on pipepipe you might not be able to watch videos. There were recent changes to the youtube

load more comments
view more: next ›