The thing about open-source apps is that good ones aren’t always easy to discover. After all, they don’t get Super Bowl ads or prime placement on the Play Store like their heavily funded counterparts. But anyone who’s used open-source apps knows just how good they can be.
I’ve spent years collecting the best ones, and some of them are so good that I genuinely feel Google should just build them into Android.
Related
I emptied a trash folder I didn’t know my phone had and got 12GB back
My edits were wasting storage.
LocalSend
Quick Share is good, but not good enough
Android already has Quick Share, and yes, it works with Windows too, but it’s still not a one-stop solution. Currently, only a few Android phones can use Quick Share to send files to an iPhone or Mac, and it doesn’t work with Android TV either.
That’s why I feel LocalSend still has its place. It works over Wi-Fi and lets you share files with virtually any device, be it a phone, tablet, laptop, TV, or anything else on the same network. It’s completely free, easy to use, and ad-free. Best of all, LocalSend is fast, and all file transfers are end-to-end encrypted.
OS
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, and Google TV
Price model
Free
Seal
Download anything, from anywhere
Credit: Keval Shukla / MUO
Most websites and apps don’t make it easy to download audio or video files, and that’s if they let you at all. In most cases, you either have to pay or settle for lower-quality downloads.
Seal cuts through all of that. It’s a clean, open-source front-end for yt-dlp, which means it can pull video and audio from any platform or website. That includes YouTube, Instagram, X, TikTok, and almost anything that’s on the internet. You just have to paste the link of the audio or video, pick your format, and Seal downloads it for you. There are no accounts, no upsells, and no other nonsense of any kind.
OS
Android
Price model
Free (open-source)
Bitwarden
A password manager that’s easy to recommend
Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOfCredit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf
Google has its own password manager, but it doesn’t have the same level of encryption and security standards as dedicated password manager apps. Also, accessing it on PC, Mac, or iPhone is far from seamless since you have to rely on Chrome.
Bitwarden is a perfect alternative that doesn’t have any such limitations. Its free tier covers almost everything you need to save passwords, passkeys, ID cards, and personal notes. It works across every device or browser you can think of, and you can even self-host the entire thing if you want to keep your data off the cloud. It’s the kind of password manager I feel that Google should’ve built, but never did.
OS
Cross-platform
Developer
Bitwarden
Price model
Free, Premium available
Services
Password manager, password generator, secure file sending, credential management, etc.
Do what Google Photos still can’t do
Android already has Google Photos for editing photos, and to be fair, it’s more than enough for most people. Still, I like Image Toolbox because it gives you tools you’d normally need a PC for. You can resize images, convert formats, compress files, upscale images, create PDFs, add watermarks, and do almost anything else you can think of. In many ways, it’s like a Swiss Army knife app for image editing.
The biggest reason to use Image Toolbox, though, is its batch processing support. You can apply the same edits to a bunch of photos at once, which is something Google Photos still doesn’t let you do.
OS
Android
Price model
Free, Open-source
Proton VPN
A free VPN you can trust
There’s no shortage of free VPN apps on the Play Store, but most of them are sketchy at best. They either bombard you with ads or monetize your browsing habits one way or another. All of this kind of defeats the purpose of using a VPN in the first place.
Proton VPN is different. It has a strict no-log policy and is based in Switzerland, which has one of the strongest data privacy laws in the world. While it’s not entirely free, its free tier lets you connect to servers in 10 different countries. And the best part is that there are no data caps at all. If you need more servers, better speeds, ad-blocking, and priority support, its paid plan isn’t expensive either, at $3 a month.
Logging policy
No logs
Mobile app
Yes
Encryption
AES-256 or ChaCha20
Wavelet
Make any headphones sound twice as good
Although most Android phones include some form of equalizer, they’re often pretty basic. Wavelet is more advanced and can make any wireless headphones sound way better than they should.
It comes with over 5000 AutoEQ profiles, so all you have to do is pick the one that’s made for your headphones and you’re set. That’s what makes it so useful for everyone, because you don’t need to tweak frequencies manually. And if you’re into that kind of thing, Wavelet also lets you create your own custom presets.
OS
Android
Price model
Free (with in-app purchases)
F-Droid
Go beyond Play Store
Credit: Oluwademilade Afolabi / MakeUseOf
F-Droid isn’t an alternative to the Google Play Store. It’s an app store that’s built specifically for free and open-source apps. So no, you don’t have to stop with this list. Once you’ve installed F-Droid, you can explore thousands of open-source apps on your own.
What makes F-Droid so good is its vetting process. Every app on the platform is checked for privacy practices, hidden trackers, secret ad libraries, and sneaky monetization tricks. If an app doesn’t meet the standards, it simply doesn’t make the cut. Also, there’s no big corporation behind F-Droid itself. It’s run entirely by volunteers and donations.
OS
Android
Price model
Free (open-source)
