Favorite FOSS apps - favorite finds of 2024

Distrobox and Boxbuddy for building discrete development toolchains. I really like Arch based distros for the tools, but I don't like how much dicking around I need to do to keep the OS working well, especially when you're polluting it with dependencies. I can run Fedora and keep the host clean and functional, and put my messes in a distrobox, and it still behaves like it's running on the host. And I can have several of these environments running without them tripping over each other's different dependencies, and when I want to start from scratch, it's one command and I'm either back to scratch or cloning a basic dev environment to mess up again.

Markor - markdown notes that just works

Organic Maps - someone found a way to make open source maps not terrible, and it isn't.

K9..derbird - mine still says K-9 even though it updated, good mail client.

OSS Weather - tells you the weather, and literally nothing else. Perfection.

Image toolbox is so complete that allowed me to disable google photos: smooth rotation, filter, perspective correction, resize and much much more.

Organic maps

Also it looks like the foss AOSP SDK was readded into sid. (It was removed from bookworm since it has no maintainers) https://packages.debian.org/sid/android-sdk-platform-23

OP, thank you so much for Weather Master! I was using Clima but they lack so many things I would always check websites.

My list:

ExifEraser - Erase metadata from pictures
Catima - Loyalty Card & Ticket Manager (alternative to Google Wallet)

StreetComplete and Eternity (for Lemmy)

Both great apps I cherish and use.

Quillnote

I literally rely on this for every note / writing books I do

Just checked out Quillnote, they've archived the repository as it's inactive. Quillpad looks to be the main fork. I'll check it out, thanks for sharing

I'm not switching to Thunderbird I'm sticking with K-9

I'm in the same boat. It is completely fine since the apps only have cosmetic differences.
Aren't they the same now?
- Yes and no

StreetComplete: Help complete the OpenStreetMap database by answering simple questions wherever you go
HeliBoard: Keyboard add with multilanguage support and user-use learning-prediction
RustDesk: RemoteDesk app for PC/Android

Power Ampache 2 + Ampache/Nextcloud. It's a client for the Ampacheb music server, looks gorgeous, works great and has excellent support.

Fossify apps (like finding new friends that look and feel exactly like your old friends 🤷

FairEmail
NetGuard

mull 😢

antennaPod
newpipe

localSend (we're not brand or os loyal. This helped us a lot with our machine salad

AnySoftKeyboard
lawnchair

AntennaPod SSL

PipePipe

Software forks are strange.
- antennaPod SSL?

Obtainium

IMO the best way to keep one's apps up to date.

Is there a good way to verify signatures while using Obtainium? I haven't done it yet but I was thinking about it and it seems quite reckless of me to not do it
Absolutely. I end up using it in conjunction with gplay and fdroid to see which ones are updated sooner. Very useful.
- Which is updated sooner ?

Drinkable
Grayjay
Thunderbird
Voyager for Lemmy
Podcini.R
Emotic
LinkDroid

Grayjay isn't FOSS.
- Can you explain? It's part of the FUTO project and has it's source available here: https://gitlab.futo.org/videostreaming/grayjay
  
  And has releases available to F-Droid through the FUTO repo.
  
  I see the license heavily restricts commercial endeavors with the code, but otherwise seems quite permissive?

Even though the android version of it has been discontinued, Syncthing remains my top FOSS app. Not sure how it will behave in the future but v1.28.1 works well for now.

Kind of. Synthing-fork is alive and well.
- Was easy to switch from syncthing to the fork too importing the configuration from syncthing into it.

Pipepipe has been my go to YouTube app. I like it has sponsor block, and that I can also log into a Gmail account with it that it uses only for age restricted videos so I don't need the YouTube app.

I can't totally remember when I found these, but they're relatively fresh on my phone. Couldn't live without them now.

Audile - song recognition
Findmydevice - lost phone recovery
Metro - visually pleasing music player
Paperless Mobile - manage and interact with paperless-ngx servers
Photok - secure photo storage for sensitive media

How does Audile perform for you?

I tried it out once and it wasn't as reliable as Shazam at identifying the correct song so I just uninstalled it.
- I've never used Shazam but did use the music recognition app on pixels when I was the stock ROM. Audile seems that it gets about 80% of what the Google app would get. I'd imagine that would change depending on the kind of music you're often trying to identify though, Audile is probably working with a smaller database of some genres.
- Do you normally expect that free as in beer apps are going to be accurate to the degree that a data harvester with years of experience and funding?

Fossify gallery, FreeOTP, Markor text editor, and maybe Jami if I can get it to work on other phones. FreeOTP might have been late 2023 when I got my current phone, but close enough. I'm not sure whether I used Termux before that, on my old phone. Oh yes, Flash Alert, I'm surprised if that isn't standard in Android. It flashes the camera led when the phone rings. That makes it much easier to find the phone if you're not sure where it is, and it is face down. It would be great if it also flashed the screen.