this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2026
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Been using a degoogled LineageOS phone with all apps being exclusively FLOSS. My favourite free alternatives to proprietary apps and services must be Lemmy (Jerboa) for Reddit, ArcaneChat and Matrix (Extera) for Telegram, Fluxer for Discord.

Which ones are your favourite?

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[–] sunstoned@lemmus.org 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Trying out WebLibre browser right now and really like it. Based on Gecko engine. There's some unnecessary ~ "AI" ~ (opt-in) but a few features make it worth it.

  1. Real rules for tab containers. There's even automatic isolation and baked-in tor per container, and easy per URI rules
  2. Real plugins. ublock origin out of the box, even an option to force enable desktop Firefox plugins if you choose.
  3. Real PWA support. There's an option to force add sites as a PWA even if the site doesn't officially support it. On grapheneos it means I don't need NativeAlpha to make my tiny bank's site appear as a PWA.
[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago

feature #1 is interesting.

how does it deal with fingerprinting?

[–] bear_lab@fosstodon.org 2 points 5 hours ago

@myszka
- Fossify calendar, message and gallery
- NerdCalci : calculator
- Fennec : browser
- Markor : markdown notes
- Syncthing-Fork : sync my notes
- Acode IDE
- LibreOffice Viewer
- Librera Reader : PDF reader
- CapyReader : RSS reader
- Helliboard
- Termux
- Material Files : support browsing termux storage & more
- OpenCamera
- Image Toolbox
- NewPipe
- TrackerControl : track and block app data
- SherpaTTS
- Proton VPN
- CoMaps
- VLC
- Lawnchair : home screen
- Obtainium : apk downloader

[–] aardvark_spool46@piefed.world 3 points 6 hours ago

I'm still trying to find something to replace Google Lens for image translation. Anyone got anything?

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

OpenCamera

If there's better or similar, please advise me as I'm always interested in discovering

[–] sudoer777@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 hours ago

My main ones right now are OSMAnd + BRouter for maps, Spotube + ListenBrainz for music, Etar and Tasks.org + DAVx5 for calendar/tasks, Cheogram for texts/calls, Bitwarden for passwords/passkeys, F-Droid for downloading apps.

[–] ByteMe@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago

Comaps instead of gmaps, mastodon instead of X, bitwarden

[–] Sabakodgo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

FUTO Keyboard I mainly use swipe typing, and it works better for me, than google keyboard.

[–] krdo@programming.dev 4 points 13 hours ago

Not FLOSS though. Only source available.

[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

FUTO keyboard? I can't find it on fdroid

[–] beyond@linkage.ds8.zone 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Ok, so the code is open source but its not a do anything you want with it?

[–] beyond@linkage.ds8.zone 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

It's not open source. The open source definition is about more than being able to see source code. The usual term for the latter is "source-available" which tells you nothing about what you're actually able to do with it.

Another term I use is "proprietary source available software" (PSAS) as a mirror to "free, open source software" (FOSS). Note that the "free" in that term refers to free software (libre) not free-of-cost (gratis). The free software definition and open source definition generally overlap so most licenses that are one will also be the other. In other words, "open source but not FOSS" is not a thing (and is generally a misnomer for PSAS).

As an analogy, you wouldn't say a store is "open" just because you can look in the windows and see things.

[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Gotcha, do you happen to know any alternatives that are actually FOSS? I tried Urik keyboard but it doesn't hold up for FUTO keyboard in terms of swipe typing and multilingualism

[–] programmerlexi@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

There is HeliBoard, but swipe typing unfortunately requires Google's gesture typing library at the moment. There is work being done to create a foss replacement for the gesture typing library.

Not yet usable for a pure foss system, but it will be once the gesture library is ready.

[–] absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz 1 points 7 hours ago

I replaced FUTO with HeliBoard quite a while back. I'm contributing swipe data to help the effort with an open swipe library.

Overall the only feature I'm missing is changing to COLMAK.

[–] jonnylyy@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Thanks! I really like swipe typing I just couldn't find one good enough Ps: I'm liking what I'm seeing

[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 1 points 19 hours ago

I've had a worse experience with their swiping which is annoying because in general i like that keyboard way more

[–] BladeFederation@piefed.social 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Almost everything I use is FLOSS, with some exceptions that can't be helped.

System:

Droid-ify, Bitwarden, Termux, Ente Auth, Fossify (File Manager, Clock, Voice Recorder, and Gallery), Proton (Mail, Calendar, VPN, Drive), CalcYou, KDE Connect, Tailscale, Offline Translator, Rain (Weather), Brave, Vanadium, Tor, Addy.io (email aliasing)

Media-Based:

Notesnook, Librera FD (e-reader), Collabora Office, OSS File Scanner, Image Toolbox, Ente Photos, WizeStream (YouTube, PeerTube, and SoundCloud client), MetroList (YouTube Music), Jellyfin, Libre Librivox Listener (audio books), Audire (Shazam client), Auxio (local music player)

Social:

Signal, Element X (Matrix), Cheogram, Mastodon, Interstellar (Piefed), Red Reader (Reddit), Slim Social (Facebook)

[–] JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)
  • Heliboard
  • Aves for gallery, Immich for backup/web viewing
  • antennapod for podcasts
  • aegis for TOTP
  • bitwarden for passwords
  • Gitnex for codeberg
  • auxio for local music
  • fennec for browser
  • findroid for jellyfin
  • inaturalist for plant and animal recognition (only play store but FOSS)
  • liftlog for lifting (only play store but FOSS)
  • local send for file transfer
  • Openvitals for health data aggregation from health connect (buggy slop app, but it is the best of the, apparently only slop, apps available and gadgetbridge doesn't use phone pedometer and only writes to health connect so can't be used for aggregated data)
  • Supertonic TTS ( used to be marmalade TTS, better voices, but their last update, also a slop app, made the voice synthesis using the android unusably staticy)
  • Thunderbird for email
  • Signal for messaging
  • Fairscan for scanning (also checking out openscan and OS'S document scanner but they seem unusably slow, like 5-10s for one scan)
  • Curbox for digital wellbeing (timers, intent, and habit breaking "boops" for apps.
  • games: shattered pixel dungeon, mindustry, and Huesort
  • whisper+ for STT
[–] Danitos@reddthat.com 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
  • Aves for gallery, Immich for backup/web viewing

Do you have any workflow to automatically upload to Immich?

[–] JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net 1 points 11 hours ago

Yup, set backup to on in the app.. That's all there is to it.

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

inaturalist for plant and animal recognition (only play store but FOSS)

sadly, inaturalist needs boogle play services

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] nutcase2690@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Ironfox broke too many websites for me personally. I understand the reason is that it uses heavy anti-data collection and privacy settings, but it was a little overkill for daily browsing. I ended up settling on Fennec too.

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 2 points 17 hours ago

for those who think of trying ironfox
there are "protection overrides" under settings > ironfox settings, to help with site breakages

[–] OppositeMeaning@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago (11 children)

LibreCuts for video editing Droid-ify as a lightweight F-Droid client Iris Keyboard as a lightweight yet extremely customizable keyboard Pur.ili as a search engine with its own index OpenNavBar for a fully-customizable navigation bar Fossify File Manager for managing files Prism Gallery for viewing photos and videos Lune as an offline music player Pocket Paint for photo editing and paint CoMaps for navigation GeoLibre as an altermative to Google Earth Yagni Launcher as an Android launcher Pimi Widget for weather widget Offline Translator for translating and OCR

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[–] fievel@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)
  • Apps installation: Obtainium for most, directly install apk from GitHub, gitlab,... ; Droid-ify for store-like function
  • Keyboard : FUTO, find it the best, includes swipe typing and good dictionary
  • Galery: AVES
  • Loyalty cards: Catima
  • SSH, mosh, sftp, local term,... : Haven, two available version, one with only terminal based and one with remote desktop capability
  • File transfer (local network) : LocalSend, easy way to transfer files to people on the same WiFi network, installable through official play store, on windows, Linux,... which allows to use even with non-Foss enthusiasts
  • TOTP codes generator: Stratum
  • Text editor: Xed-editor
  • Calendar: KashCal
  • IRC client: HexDroid
  • Calculator/Unit converter: Unitto
[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Mind that FUTO is not FLOSS, just source-available.

[–] refract@lemmy.zip 1 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

I mean... for a keyboard app, should it be a concern that it's not "free" to redistribute for commercial purposes?

Does this comment mean you would not use the app for this reason?

[–] beyond@linkage.ds8.zone 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I mean, it's a FOSS community and the OP asked for FOSS. With FOSS the user has the four freedoms, the first of which (freedom zero) is unconditional. If something is FOSS it's taken for granted that you can "run the program as you wish, for any purpose."

In other words part of the point of FOSS is that the user doesn't have to worry about whether the rightsholder approves of their use of the software. They have a copy and so they can use it because it is free software.

Edit: I remembered the keyboard specifically has an exception allowing for commercial use, but the point stands. If something is described as FOSS, open source, or free software then the expectation is that the user has those four freedoms. I think it's worth it to stand up for the free software definition on principle even though I imagine most of us wouldn't need to sell copies of a keyboard app.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 points 14 hours ago

Personally, yeah.

To me, it's a matter of: It is not open-source, so if the FUTO company starts enshittifying it, then no one's going to fork it to undo that, because no one wants that proprietary license on their project, whether they intend to distribute it commercially or not.

Obviously, I could just switch to a different keyboard app, if that happens, but in my experience, it also means that no one has their eyeballs on the source code to notice them enshittifying and they're just generally more likely to sneak shit in, because they know no one's going to fork.

But I'm also not either a fan of open-source software when it's developed by a company, for similar reasons. For example, Google puts so much dev capacity into Android and has the infrastructure to uniquely benefit from it, so at best you'll get soft-forks. No one can afford to do a proper hard-fork and fix the permission system, for example.

[–] myszka@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Aves, Catima, Xed-Editor, Unitto seem to be very cool and useful, thanks!

[–] aim4harmony@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (4 children)
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[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Unexpected Keyboard and Thumb Key for two-hand and single-hand typing respectively.

Qalculate! for calc.

[–] myszka@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

Thumb Key is my favourite! Using it right now. Very interesting to see its idea of using swipes to type additional characters implemented in traditional qwerty layout. Thumb Key isn't the best for terminal, so it might be a good compromise.

[–] ItJustDonn@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago (4 children)

i liked thumb key a lot and switched to flickboard so that i could type one- and two-handed with the same keyboard for each thumb. you can even choose the thumb-key layout, and give it a custom background

[–] myszka@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Interesting. But from reading the description I don't see any advantages over Thumb Key because the latter also has two-handed layouts that can be seen in screenshots of Flickerboard. What do you find better in Flickerbourd that in Thumb Key?

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[–] tirateimas@lemmy.pt 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)
  • Newpipe (replaces youtube app and includes other video platforms)
  • Element (Matrix) for chat
  • Firefox for browsing the web
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