After years of using Android phones, many people have become accustomed to a number of open-source Android apps. These apps are better than their closed-source counterparts — both in functionality and user experience — and many people can't imagine using their phones without them.
10. Bitwarden
Bitwarden is an open-source password manager that you use to store login information for all your online accounts. It offers a clean and simple interface that is easy to navigate and integrates all the essential password management features you need.
The app’s built-in password generator is a plus. It gives you complete control over the generated password, allowing you to choose different password characteristics so you can make sure both your and the site’s requirements are met before using it on an account. You can also create passphrases in case you prefer them over passwords.
Custom fields are another widely used feature of Bitwarden. With these fields, you can store additional information such as security questions, so they can be quickly accessed along with your login information.
In addition to passwords, people also use Bitwarden to store personal information such as software license keys and home server information. This is made possible by Bitwarden's Secure Note feature, which keeps all of a user's notes safe in an encrypted vault.
Bitwarden also offers an easy way to share passwords, even with people who don't use Bitwarden. This feature, called Bitwarden Send, lets you control how others can interact with your shared passwords.
VLC is a free and open source media player available for both PC and Android. It can play many audio and video file formats, including MP4 , AVI , Ogg , FLAC , MKV , and MOV .
While Poweramp is for local music playback, VLC is the go-to player for all your video playback needs. This includes playing videos stored locally on your phone, as well as on other devices like your home server. VLC supports streaming and network file sharing (SMB, FTP, and DLNA).
The app offers a comprehensive set of controls for both audio and video playback. In addition to the basics, you’ll find features like Audio Boost for low-quality files, Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode for playing content while multitasking, a built-in 10-band equalizer for fine-tuning audio, and Bookmarks for saving specific points in a file for quick return.
VLC is also ad-free, which is uncommon for apps in this category.
8. BinaryEye
Binary Eye is a commonly used application for scanning and generating barcodes and QR codes on Android phones. This application works on the ZXing barcode scanning library, which is open source and supports many types of barcodes.
One of the main reasons people use this app, aside from the fact that it is completely free and ad-free, is that it can read reverse codes. These color-coded reverse codes are becoming increasingly popular for design and aesthetic reasons. Likewise, people appreciate that the app supports scanning in both portrait and landscape orientations.
As soon as you scan a code, Binary Eye will display the contents of that code on the screen. (You can skip this step for faster access, but we don't recommend it.) Depending on the code, you'll see action suggestions like Copy, Share , and Open.
Similarly, generating barcodes in Binary Eye is simple. You can choose from a variety of desired formats, set your preferred background and foreground, etc. The app then generates an output that is easy to save or share.
Image Toolbox is a powerful app that allows you to perform a variety of image and PDF manipulations on your Android phone. At the time of writing, the app has around 50 tools spread across multiple categories.
You can use Image Toolbox for all kinds of image manipulation, from cropping, converting, and resizing to removing backgrounds, combining, and splitting. You can also use the app's PDF tools to convert PDFs to images and vice versa, as well as its EXIF tools to edit or remove metadata before sharing images online.
6. LocalSend
Some people's jobs require them to use multiple PC and smartphone operating systems. Therefore, they need an application that allows them to transfer files quickly and easily between all their devices. LocalSend is the current choice of many people for this purpose.
LocalSend allows peer-to-peer file transfers between devices on the same local network. You can use the app to send and receive all types of files, including images, videos, documents, and APKs.
All data transfers in LocalSend are end-to-end encrypted with TLS to ensure complete privacy and no ads to worry about.
5. Firefox
If you use multiple devices and operating systems, you need a browser that ensures your browsing data is accessible across all of them. The main reason people choose Firefox—aside from the fact that it's free and open source—is its superior privacy features.
Firefox on Android has many other perks like extension support, built-in PDF viewer, and the ability to use external download managers.
4. FFShare
FFShare is one of the first apps you should install on your new Android phone. It helps you shrink the size of your image, video, or audio files to make them suitable for storage or sharing, while also removing their metadata.
Besides being efficient and effective, FFShare is also really fast.
3. Termux
Termux is one of the popular Android terminal emulator apps that gives you access to a Linux environment on your phone. This allows you to run Linux CLI utilities, install packages, automate various tasks, access remote servers, and much more.
People love Termux because it's super easy to use, fast, and doesn't drain your battery too much. And for those times when you need additional tools, you can easily install them into Termux to extend its functionality.
2. F-Droid
F-Droid is an open source app store that serves as one of many alternatives to the Google Play Store, with a huge library of open source apps that anyone can inspect and modify.
F-Droid is based on a repository system. This means you can add multiple repositories to the app to explore, find, and download the apps they host.
1. Obtainium
Obtainium allows you to easily install and update apps from their official release pages and sends you notifications when new releases are available. That way, you don't have to go into different app repositories and install them manually.
As of writing, Obtainium supports over 15 app repositories. Some popular ones include GitHub, GitLab, Aptoide, APKPure, and F-Droid. You can install a number of Android apps on your phone from these alternative sources, and this allows you to keep them all updated in one place.
ADB is a powerful set of tools that give you more control over your Android device. Although ADB is intended for Android developers, you don't need any programming knowledge to uninstall Android apps with it.
You might think you know how to get the most out of your phone time, but chances are you don't know how big a difference this common setting makes.
The Android System Key Verifier app comes pre-installed as a system app on Android devices running version 8.0 or later.
Despite Apple's tight ecosystem, some people have turned their Android phones into reliable remote controls for their Apple TV.
There are many reasons why your Android phone cannot connect to mobile data, such as incorrect configuration errors causing the problem. Here is a guide to fix mobile data connection errors on Android.
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If you really want to protect your phone, it's time you started locking your phone to prevent theft as well as protect it from hacks and scams.
Android Picture-in-Picture mode will help you shrink the video and watch it in picture-in-picture mode, watching the video in another interface so you can do other things.
The common point of most of these AI chatbot tools is that they need an Internet connection to use. But with the article below, you will learn more tips for using AI chatbots without the Internet on your phone.
Depending on your needs, you'll likely get a set of Pixel-exclusive features running on your existing Android device.
Samsung's camera app works well out of the box, but Camera Assistant adds new features that you wish were built in from the start.
Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is a powerful and versatile tool that allows you to do many things like find logs, install and uninstall apps, transfer files, root and flash custom ROMs, create device backups.
Chrome on Android is a great browser out of the box, but you can make it even better. These tips and features will help you browse the web faster.
When you compare smartphones from nearly two decades ago and today, you can't help but notice that they've gotten worse in a variety of ways.
Through your purchase history on the App Store, you will know when you downloaded that app or game, and how much you paid for the paid app.
iPhone mutes iPhone from unknown callers and on iOS 26, iPhone automatically receives incoming calls from an unknown number and asks for the reason for the call. If you want to receive unknown calls on iPhone, follow the instructions below.
Apple makes it easy to find out if a WiFi network is safe before you connect. You don't need any software or other tools to help, just use the built-in settings on your iPhone.
iPhone has a speaker volume limit setting to control the sound. However, in some situations you need to increase the volume on your iPhone to be able to hear the content.
ADB is a powerful set of tools that give you more control over your Android device. Although ADB is intended for Android developers, you don't need any programming knowledge to uninstall Android apps with it.
You might think you know how to get the most out of your phone time, but chances are you don't know how big a difference this common setting makes.
The Android System Key Verifier app comes pre-installed as a system app on Android devices running version 8.0 or later.
Despite Apple's tight ecosystem, some people have turned their Android phones into reliable remote controls for their Apple TV.
There are many reasons why your Android phone cannot connect to mobile data, such as incorrect configuration errors causing the problem. Here is a guide to fix mobile data connection errors on Android.
For years, Android gamers have dreamed of running PS3 titles on their phones – now it's a reality. aPS3e, the first PS3 emulator for Android, is now available on the Google Play Store.
The iPhone iMessage group chat feature helps us text and chat more easily with many people, instead of sending individual messages.
For ebook lovers, having a library of books at your fingertips is a great thing. And if you store your ebooks on your phone, you can enjoy them anytime, anywhere. Check out the best ebook reading apps for iPhone below.
You can use Picture in Picture (PiP) to watch YouTube videos off-screen on iOS 14, but YouTube has locked this feature on the app so you cannot use PiP directly, you have to add a few more small steps that we will guide in detail below.
On iPhone/iPad, there is a Files application to manage all files on the device, including files that users download. The article below will guide readers on how to find downloaded files on iPhone/iPad.
If you really want to protect your phone, it's time you started locking your phone to prevent theft as well as protect it from hacks and scams.
