this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026
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These alternatives to Google's default on Android are feature-rich and privacy-focused

  • Fossify
  • Material Files
  • Aegis
  • F-Droid
  • Next Player
top 44 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Beacon@fedia.io 57 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It would be helpful if you would put in parentheses what each app is, like a word processor or whatever, because without that it's just a list of random words

[–] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not unless you already use them. Then it's a confirmation bias list that is functionally useless to you!

[–] BurgerBaron@piefed.social 6 points 1 week ago

Hey, that's me!

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 2 points 1 week ago

Descriptions and explanations are found in the article, the bullet list is mostly to avoid people whose already know them to click

[–] morto@piefed.social 32 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Newpipe also puts the default one to shame! No ads and works smooth even on very old phones. But I guess they couldn't write about it in the article, because it infringes a few terms of services lol

Edit: I followed a reply comment and saw a different icon and clicked it out of curiosity, so I ended reacting to myself and I can't find a way to undo this. Don't mind my self reaction >.<

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The forks are great too like PipePipe. I find sponsorblock but most importantly the ability to block channels invaluable, since the algorithm always pushes certain big channels to the top of search results for certain topics. So you always have to scroll past them.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Are those features you mentioned here present in PipePipe but not in NewPipe?

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sponsorblock and Blocking channels is available for PipePipe, but not NewPipe.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Okay, thanks!

It’s by far the app I miss the most from Android. I wish iOS had that app.

[–] db2@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] fleem@piefed.zeromedia.vip 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] dumbass@piefed.social 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

It is a little better, I’ll agree with this. I usually end up just using Droidify. I’ve tried pretty much all the variations eg: Foxy, Neo, Izzy (good repo, bad app; can’t shut off checking for updates), etc.

[–] freddo@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

Fdroid (basic at least) is pretty decent these days.

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 week ago

I use F-Droid apps for almost everything be cause they are better for almost everything. It really is that simple. (Obviously your mileage may vary; we all use our devices in different ways.)

[–] limerod@reddthat.com 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If you use a password manager like keepassDX. It can save authcodes

[–] digger@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 week ago

Holy cow! I've been using DX for years and never knew this.

[–] AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Material files is alright, but if you’re going to accept some serious limitations of under-developed features, I’d stick with Total Commander.

[–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ghost commander also good. It did transfers that made fossify file manager crash.

[–] AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's an interesting app. I kinda like it a don't at the same time. It has a lot to offer, but needs some polishing.

[–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The lack of polish is part of the charm for me. I always thought all the commander style programs looked kinda bad, in the good function over form kind of way.

[–] AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Well I don't mean aesthetics, its just buttons and layout are a bit awkward. And other aspects. I can check and see what exactly bothers me so I can follow up with specifics.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is mozilla gonna inject ai into the birdie too?

[–] Turret3857@infosec.pub 6 points 1 week ago

From what I recall their Dev team is strongly against it, and they are community driven more than they are run by Mozilla corporate

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Is this better than Spark?

I went to spark after Google killed inbox and spark basically replicated the inbox UI 1 to 1

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

K9 is more of a mail client than a web interface. It'll do multiple accounts and present a unified inbox.

Spark is also a mail client

[–] TheLastOfHisName@piefed.social 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Love Fossify's music player and gallery apps. They're simple and do their job.

[–] AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’ve tried all the galleries and Aves Libre is the one I have consistently found superior to all others.

I'll have to check that one out.

[–] ByteMe@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Wikireader and tomato really put google into shame. Way too good of apps and an example on how to design m3 expressive

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What is Tomato? Some kind of Pomodoro app?

[–] MasterBlaster@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Interesting. What makes Aegis special? I got FreeOTP way back and never saw a reason to try anything else.

Might be personal preference. I like the UI better, the ability to easily transfer authcodes from one device to another, The micro vibrations when the timer is about to run out, and the ability to PIN lock the app directly from the app and using a separate PIN.

[–] manxu@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

I have a Poco phone and I pretty much use only open source apps for basic functionality at this point. I think I have about a dozen I use daily, from Fossify to dialer. Once the Xiaomi calculator wanted to have Internet access, it was over. Maybe I can't uninstall the default apps, but I definitely don't have to use them.

And what do you know the open source apps outperform Google and Xiaomi, all the time. The only thing I find lacking is some kind of curation that tells me if an app has been updated recently, how many downloads it's had in the past month or year, and how many deletions. It took a while to figure out what apps still work on modern Android versions.

[–] MrSoup@lemmy.zip -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] n3ur0n@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Looks nice, but one should know that on the F-Droid page, the devs state:

Mauth uses latest Android technology (Jetpack Compose, CameraX, Biometrics, Room DB and more) to provide the best user experience with the least amount of bugs possible. It is in an active development but is nowhere near ready for daily usage. Use it at your own risk.

[–] MrSoup@lemmy.zip -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I've been using it for years and never had issues.

Edit: downvoting for being an happy user?

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

Still gonna follow the recommendation from the actual devs. πŸ‘