Great Google-free Android Apps

I want to dispel the misconception that using an Android phone means living within Google’s panopticon of data collection and advertising. This is very not true! For the past 8+ years I have used an Android phone without any direct relationship with Google or any of their services (e.g. the Play store). My phone’s (and tablet’s) operating system, and now the apps, all come from elsewhere. I also want to show that this arrangement is highly usable for many people, if not quite for everyone.

The next post will focus on my devices and their operating system. There I will further argue that a setup like mine provides the most autonomy, privacy, and possibly security¹ of any phone you can use in 2025. But this post is about the apps that I use. Any Android phone or tablet can run these, even if it still has the Google-laden operating system that it came with. Every app on this list is:

• Respectful of your attention, as it does not contain advertising.
• Respectful of your privacy, as it does not collect any user data.
  • (There are a couple of exceptions that I’ll note below.)
• Installable without Google, from somewhere other than the Play Store.
• Usable without any of Google’s proprietary services (Play Services) existing on your phone.
• Open-source, so that (among other benefits!) anyone can verify the above claims are true.
• Offered completely free of charge, though for several of them, I make a recurring donation to the developer.

How I Get My Apps

From approximately three places:

1. F-Droid, an open-source app store for open-source apps. Everything below comes from F-Droid unless noted otherwise. F-Droid even has a ’nurtrition label’ showing when an app is technically open-source but does things which (in some folks’ opinion) violate the spirit of open-source software.
2. Obtanium, a way to install (and automatically update) apps whose developer publishes the app as releases in a GitHub repository. We need Obtainium because publishing an app on F-Droid requires more effort than some developers have the appetite for. (It is very little work to host your app on GitHub.)
3. I get a few apps directly from the developer’s website. An Android app is just an APK file that you can download and install from the web.

(I will also mention Aurora Store as a way to get Android apps from the Google Play Store without using a Google account or their software, but this is not required to obtain any of the apps below.)

Most Exciting Apps

Firefox, uniquely good on Android because you can install the same extensions as the desktop version, while most mobile browsers don’t support extensions at all. uBlock Origin is my most important extension because it removes advertising and tracking, making the web a more humane place. I also use Leechblock to prevent myself from visiting sites where I’m prone to wasting time. Firefox does try to collect user data (“telemetry”) but you can opt out of this in the settings. Anyway, install Firefox via Obtainium (or alternatively, Aurora Store).

Firefox is particularly load-bearing for me because I use exclusively a web browser to deal with banks, airlines, the occasional ride share, and so forth. ² (Yes, you can summon an Uber with only a web browser, not the Uber app.) A lot of companies’ messaging is highly optimized to impart the belief that you must use their proprietary (and Google-services-dependent) app in order to interact with them. In reality, there is usually a mobile-friendly website that you can go slightly out of your way to use instead. Occasionally you need to “Request Desktop Site” or find an obscure button. In the yet-rarer situation that their proprietary native app is truly the only option, I will vote enthusiastically with my wallet for one of their competitors instead.

Signal, the great encrypted messaging and video calling app. I started using Signal in 2016 when only my partner and a few turbo-nerd friends were on there. A decade later I have conversations with hundreds of Signal contacts, and spend hours per month on Signal calls. It’s as secure and private as anything gets, and (unlike the old days) has a highly polished UX. Install it via this page and it will self-update (or alternatively, via Obtanium or Aurora store).

Markor is a text editing app that I use to take notes in Markdown format. (It’s how I’m writing this blog post right now.) I previously used Joplin but had some nitpicks.

FUTO Keyboard is an excellent keyboard app with fully-offline voice typing using the excellent Whisper speech recognition model. I can talk into the phone and my words usually appear just as I said them. FUTO Keyboard is also a highly customizable regular keyboard. (How tall do you want it? Long-press symbol legends? Drag across the spacebar to move the cursor? Yes!) The one downside is that if you want to use swipe input it’s quite under-baked and inaccurate. But the voice typing is super fast and surprisingly accurate for happening completely on-device. You can get FUTO Keyboard via F-Droid, but you need to add FUTO’s F-Droid repository (not difficult, instructions on the web site).

Organic Maps is a privacy-friendly mapping and navigation app.³ It downloads map data for the region(s) you need, then works fully offline. In my experience, apps like these tend to be either confusingly feature-burdened (e.g. OsmAnd) or missing critical features (like navigation), and Organic Maps is neither! You get routing and turn-by-turn navigation, with optional voice prompts via an integration with SherpaTTS. One downside is that you don’t get real-time traffic information, so if you’re driving it’s prone to sending you onto a jammed-up highway at rush hour. But my navigation needs are mostly walking and cycling in a city that I moved to pretty recently. It does a great job of this, and a decent job for driving, on the occasion that I do it. Sometimes I’ll keep my phone in a shirt pocket and have it shout directions at me while cycling.

AntennaPod downloads and plays podcasts. Yes, it’s not iTunes or Spotify or whatever. But most podcasts offer an RSS feed, which Antennapod will happily consume. The RSS experience can be much better than the first-party podcast options from (e.g.) an extremely-well-known media outlet which tries to gate access to past episodes behind a paywall.

NewPipe plays videos and music from YouTube. It improves on the default YouTube experience with ad blocking, first-class support for playing in the background, downloading videos (or just the audio from videos), and separately adjustable pitch and speed. (See also PipePipe?)

VLC plays the music I own, much of which I’ve bought and downloaded from Bandcamp. It’s also a solid app for playing videos stored locally on the phone.

Syncthing-Fork synchronizes files between my phone, tablet, and computer. This includes my photos, music, text notes, password database, and Signal chat backups. (It’s part of my data backup strategy as well.) Overall Syncthing fills a similar niche for me that Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, etc. do for others.

Termux is a terminal emulator and complete Debian-derived userland environment, all with the Android app. If you want your phone or tablet to run the same things that a Linux-based computer does in a terminal, Termux can get you there for a surprisingly huge set of command-line software. If you’re familiar at all with Ubuntu Linux, you can often type pkg install thing rather than apt install thing to get the same software, and you may then recognize what an impressive accomplishment Termux is.

As one example, I use Ollama inside of Termux to run large language models (Qwen 3 variants of admittedly modest size). So Termux can get you a fully self-contained, offline ChatGPT-like experience inside your phone!

Less Exciting (but still important) Apps

• Jitsi Meet for Jitsi video calls.
• Element lets me talk to people on Matrix.
• Fossify Voice Recorder records voice memos and other audio.
• Etar calendar app.
• DAVx⁵ to synchronize my calendar and contacts with my CalDAV + CardDAV server (and other devices).
• ICSx⁵ to display calendars hosted by Microsoft Exchange (i.e. Outlook 365).
• Password Store to access my password database, synchronized between devices via Syncthing. (Password Store also requires OpenKeychain.)
• Aegis Authenticator to manage TOTP multi-factor authentication keys.
• KDE Connect to share the clipboard (and several other things) with my computer (Debian 13 running GSConnect).
• Pineapple Lock Screen shows a button on the home screen so I can lock my phone without pressing the mechanical power button. (I don’t want to wear out my power button.)

By now, I hope you’re noticing a theme. All of these apps act, first and foremost, at the user’s direction and in the user’s own interests. In the words of a very young Steve Jobs, they support the device’s role as a “bicycle of the mind”, amplifying your own intellect and capabilities moreso than replacing them. They are not trying to be a pacifier, a salesperson, or an agent of a mass surveillance apparatus. There is no micro-targeted algorithmic content curation to turn you into an anxious couch potato (though you can certainly find that via Firefox or NewPipe if you go looking for it). To a much greater extent than is typical, they put you in control of what’s happening inside the computer.

Reader, I’d like to hear from you in at least two scenarios. The first is if all of this is new to you, and you have a specific need that a proprietary app currently fulfills, but you’d like to find another strategy to meet that need, perhaps I can help. The second is if you recognize most of these apps, and are surprised that something did not make my list. What else should I know about?