I am not a nerd(respectful), but I would like to know how you’d set up your phone. I’d like to start leaning into more opensource/privacy minded apps and such to avoid having as much of my data harvested. I’m still going to use apps like Instagram which are obviously horrible but I figure trying to do better in other areas is better than nothing.

  • what to delete
  • what apps are a must (calendar, maps, app store etc)
  • vpns?
  • keyboards?
  • email besides proton? Is there a way to have my emails from Google forward to this address?
  • everything needs to connect to Google accounts is there a way around this?

And yes any other advice on making your phone functional/fast/anonymous/aesthetically pleasing is welcomed thankkkkks

  • Kras Mazov@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    I don’t know exactly what comes on the OnePlus to say what you should delete, so it’s probably a good idea to search that up.

    As an alternative to the Play Store you have F-Droid (not really an alternative, more like a complementary open source store). I personally recommend the Neo Store client. which is pretty, easy to use and have a lot of repositories for apps built-in, you just need to activate the ones you want in the settings, with F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid repos active you’re basically covered. I also recommend you use Obtainium as it let’s you download apps directly from GitHub and other sources, including F-Droid itself. I consider it a must because one downside of F-Droid is that sometimes apps are not updated for a long time there, so you have a way to update an app if you need too, and it is also useful for apps that are not on F-Droid.

    Now for other apps, I do have some alternatives I can recommend:

    • Authenticator (2FA) > Aegis Authenticator
    • Calculator > OpenCalc
    • Clock/Alarm > Chrono
    • Document Scanner > OSS Document Scanner
    • Files > Material Files
    • Gallery > Aves (IzzyOnDroid, Play Store)
    • Keyboard > Heliboard (it’s ok, but could be better) or Florisboard/Florisboard Beta (usable but incomplete, it’s very promising)
    • Launcher > Lawnchair (like Pixel Launcher and Nova Launcher) or Kvaesitso (its own thing, very search focused)
    • Maps > Organic Maps (Open Source) and/or Magic Earth (THIS IS CLOSED SOURCE, I’m only recommending it in case you need traffic data in your map app since it’s the one I see talked about the most as an alternative to Google Maps and Waze)
    • Password Manager - Bitwarden or KeePassDX (I personally use Bitwarden)
    • Reddit 🤢 > Stealth (Have no login, it’s useful to keep track of the few stuff you might still want from there)
    • Spotify > Spotube (Let’s you use your Spotify account to login and import playlists, but uses Youtube as a backend for the music, the only downside being that sometimes it doesn’t find the song if it has extremely low views, but you can usually correct that with a click on the change source button) - I linked the F-Droid version, but I recommend to set it up from Obtainium with GitHub as a source in case youtube fucks something up and it gets updated, which at best will take days to reach F-Droid.
    • Weather > Breezy Weather

    Also here’s some useful apps I have been using that maybe you’ll find useful:

    • AniHyou - AniList client
    • Birday - Birthday Manager
    • Feeder - RSS client
    • Goodtime - Pomodoro timer
    • Hypatia - Real time malware scanner (might not be needed, but I rather be safe)
    • KDE Connect - Connects your phone and PC, allowing to control music, share clipboard, share files and more on LAN
    • MedTimer - Medicine reminder
    • Openlib - Download eBooks from Anna’s Archive
    • Book’s Story - eBook reader
    • Openreads - Offline book tracker, also let’s you review the books you read
    • Racoon for Lemmy - Lemmy client, I used to use Eternity, but it had too many issues, this one has issues too, but it’s actively developed. I also recommend this one to be installed with Obtainium instead of F-Droid.
    • Scrambled Exif - Remove metadata from photos before sharing
    • Seal - Video downloader

    Lastly, apps I installed but didn’t start using yet that might be useful too:

    • Buckwheat - Budget manager
    • Grit - ToDo list and Habit Tracker
    • Moshidon - Mastodon client, I haven’t used it because I haven’t created a Mastodon account yet lol, but looks to be the best one I could find when I was searching a few days ago
    • Noto - Note taking app
    • trale - Body-weight tracking
    • Wuxia Learn - Chinese learning app