Some of my favorite open source Android applications

This is a list of almost thirty of my favorite open source Android applications. The majority of them are using Material Design and all of them support tablets.

I personally recommend checking out each of these great applications. I’d also love to hear what your favorite open source Android applications are as well in the comments.

AdAway

AdAway is a great advertisement blocker which works by combining the content of multiple source lists and adding them to your device’s host file. Because it uses the hosts file it requires root access to function.

You can whitelist and blacklist domains as well as add your own host sources to the list if you choose to do so. There is also an option to enable automatic updating as well.

AdAway is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid.

AFWall+

AFWall+ (short for Android Firewall+) is an easy to use front-end to iptables which is a great firewall for Linux-based systems. AFWall+ allows you to block Internet access (via Wifi or mobile connection) to individual applications of your choosing.

It requires root access to function as it blocks access on a system level unlike non-root methods which use local VPNs.

It also has pretty much everything you would need and expect in a firewall. Some examples include putting the firewall into whitelist or blacklist mode, importing and exporting rule sets, firewall logs (if enabled), and fully controlling application access to Wifi, LAN, VPN, mobile data and roaming.

AFWall+ is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

Amaze File Manager

Amaze File Manager is a fairly straightforward file manager. It has all your basic amenities such as file copying, deleting, compression and extraction (zip format), bookmarks, history, and more.

It also has support for connecting to SMB (Windows) file shares, a root explorer for those with rooted devices, and a useful application manager which allows you to do a variety of functions ranging from backups to uninstalls.

Amaze File Manager is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

AntennaPod

AntennaPod is a podcast manager and player.

Some of AntennaPod’s features include automatic downloads, episode cleanup (including auto deleting episodes when finished), continuous playback, adjustable playback speed using the built-in sonic player, viewing episode notes, chapter support, a sleep timer, and more.

It also allows you to quickly find new podcasts by searching the iTunes store or the gpodder.net podcast directory and supports OPML importing and exporting.

AntennaPod is MIT licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

Atomic

Atomic is an IRC client which was originally forked from Yaaic. Some of what it supports is multi-server connections, SASL, colored text, colored nicknames, color schemes, and lower-end devices.

Atomic is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid.

Clip Stack

Clip Stack is a simple clipboard history manager which allows you to easily edit, copy, delete, search, and share your clipboard entries. You can also backup your entries to a text file if you desire.

An optional floating button that you can place anywhere on your screen for fast access of your recent clipboard entries is also available.

Clip Stack is MIT licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

ConnectBot

ConnectBot is a SSH client and terminal emulator.

It supports multiple concurrent sessions, importing and generating keys pairs, persistent connections, various terminal emulation modes, fullscreen mode, audible bells, and more.

You can also change the font size on-the-fly by using your volume keys.

ConnectBot is Apache 2.0 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

Conversations

Conversations is an excellent XMPP/Jabber client which has a bunch of features including multiple accounts, conferences, dynamic status tags, QR codes to easily add contacts, low battery impact, and more importantly built-in end-to-end encryption options via Off-the-Record (OTR) messaging, OpenPGP, and OMEMO.

It also supports the following XMPP Extensions (XEP) as well:

• XEP-0065: SOCKS5 Bytestreams
• XEP-0163: Personal Eventing Protocol
• XEP-0191: Blocking Command
• XEP-0198: Stream Management
• XEP-0280: Message Carbons
• XEP-0237: Roster Versioning
• XEP-0313: Message Archive Management
• XEP-0352: Client State Indication
• XEP-0363: HTTP File Upload

Conversations is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play (for $2.17).

Dimmer

Dimmer is a simple application that lowers the brightness of your Android device past what is normally available via a filter. It supports an automatic mode and a time-based mode for brightening or darkening your screen. It also has an optional color filter as well.

Dimmer is Apache 2.0 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

DuckDuckGo Search & Stories

DuckDuckGo Search & Stories as the name implies allows you to both send search queries to DuckDuckGo, a great privacy focused search engine, and read popular news stories from a list of customizable sources. The stories vanish as soon as you click on the application’s search bar.

It also comes with a search bar widget that you can use on your home screen.

DuckDuckGo Search & Stories is Apache 2.0 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

F-Droid

F-Droid is an excellent application manager and repository of free and open source software. The client allows you to easily browse, install, and update the packages they provide.

F-Droid is GPLv3 licensed and available here.

Financius

Financius is an easy to use expense manager that supports multiple accounts and currencies. The various sections within it (overview, transaction history, reports, etc.) are also easy to understand at a glance.

You can customize it to your liking with custom categories and tags. It also supports PIN entry for added security as well as back ups (including exporting it to a CSV file) and importing of its data.

Financius is GPLv2 licensed and available on Google Play.

Forecastie

Forecastie is a nice minimalistic weather application which gathers its data from OpenWeatherMap’s public API. It offers a five day forecast, customizable date formats, the ability to differentiate days using color, and a dark theme.

Forecastie is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid.

Hacker’s Keyboard

Hacker’s Keyboard is a keyboard that I highly recommend if you want a normal keyboard on your device.

It makes it a lot easier to use terminal emulators android SSH clients as it provides everything a real keyboard has (e.g, Alt, Ctrl, Tab, Esc, Function keys, and arrow keys). It also supports suggestions and has multitude of settings.

Hacker’s Keyboard is Apache 2.0 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

KeePass2Android

KeePass2Android is an implementation of the KeePass 2.x password safe for Android which was originally forked from Keepassdroid.

It supports advanced search, tagging, file attachments, entry expiration, additional string fields, and has a password generator. Key files are also supported as well as OTP and Challenge-Responses using a YubiKey.

Additionally, your database file can be local or accessed securely over the Internet via Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, FTP/SFTP, or WebDAV.

An integrated soft-keyboard is also available that will enter your credentials into your websites for you instead of copy and pasting them for more security if you wish to use it.

KeePass2Android is GPLv2 licensed and available on Google Play.

KDE Connect

KDE Connect integrates Android with your Linux system in order to sync notifications clipboards, and more.

It is designed for the KDE Plasma Desktop, but it also work on other desktop environments just fine as well. It will of course pull in a bunch of KDE-orientated files and libraries though, but it’s not too bad.

There is a program called KDE Connect Indicator available that is designed to show KDE Connect’s icons within GNOME or any other environment that supports AppIndicators. However, it seems to be hit or miss as to who it works for.

I personally interact with KDE Connect using the included CLI tool when I have to which is rarely required.

KDE Connect is GPLv2 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

Lightning Web Browser

Lightning is a light-weight web browser (only 2MB in size) that focuses on security, privacy, and efficiency.

Some of its features include full screen mode, text reflow, incognito mode, a dark theme (including one for AMOLED), additional rendering modes such as inverted and gray-scale, multiple search engines (DuckDuckGo, StartPage, Google, etc.) and more.

It also has a built-in ad blocker which is available on the F-Droid and paid Lighting+ version.

Lightning Web Browser is MPL2 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.
Lightning+ is available on Google Play for $1.50.

Materialistic

Materialistic is a client for Hacker News. Some of its features include multiple accounts, themes, highlighting updated stories, Chrome custom tabs support, Readability support, and the ability to search hacker news (optionally via voice search).

You can also switch between card and compact views, and do everything else that you would normally expect to do (voting, submitting stories, accessing saved stories, etc.).

Materialistic is Apache 2.0 licensed and available on Google Play.

MPDroid

MPDroid is an Music Player Daemon (MPD) client which allows you to fully control your MPD server. It also fetches and displays album artwork as well.

MPDroid is Apache 2.0 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

Muzei Live Wallpaper

Muzei Live Wallpaper is a live wallpaper which changes the background every few hours. It blurs and dims the background image so that your widgets and icons stand out. Double tapping the screen will focus the image so that you can enjoy it.

I personally use the Unsplash plugin to fetch Creative Commons Zero licensed images for my devices. It is available for download seperately.

Muzei Live Wallpaper is Apache 2.0 licensed and available on F-Droid Google Play

NetGuard

NetGuard is a firewall for non-rooted devices that requires Android 5 and up.

It works by setting up a local VPN service on your device in order to block Internet access (via Wi-Fi or mobile connection) to individual applications of your choosing.

NetGuard is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

NewPipe

NewPipe is a lightweight front-end for YouTube which parses the site to retrieve the relevant information it needs instead of using YouTube’s APIs.

Aside from watching videos it offers background playing, downloads, the ability to send the video to your Kodi media center, and more.

NewPipe is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid

ownCloud Synchronization client

This is the official Android client for ownCloud.

ownCloud is open source software which allows you to create a file hosting service to sync and optionally share files online. The best way to describe it is that it operates similar to services like Dropbox.

ownCloud Synchronization client is GPLv2 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play (for $0.99).

Slide for Reddit

Slide for Reddit is a fairly new Reddit client and feature wise I believe it is currently the best open source one currently available.

It’s the only open source client that I am aware of that which is fully Material Design.

Some of the features include multiple accounts, multireddits, wiki support, somewhat customizable post layout, offline caching so you can browse on the go, filters, custom subreddit themes, Chrome custom tabs support, easy to navigate by swiping (swipe between subreddits, posts, etc.), a nice image album view, and more.

It also has a multi-column mode and ‘shadowbox’ mode available via a $4 pro unlock. The shadowbox mode lets you view only the images within a subreddit.

Slide for Reddit is GPLv3 licensed and available on Google Play.

Tasks

Tasks is a nice task and to-do list application which was originally forked from Astrid! Tasks.

It offers tags, filters, notifications, priority levels, the ability to add the task to your calendar, a dark theme, and more. It probably has nearly everything you need.

Tasks is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

TTRSS-Reader

TTRSS-Reader is a client for Tiny Tiny RSS, an open source online feed reader, which offers the ability to cache articles and their related images for offline reading.

TTRSS-Reader is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

OpenKeychain

OpenKeychain allows you to encrypt files and communications with OpenPGP. It stores, generates, and manages your keys as well as manages those of people you communicate with. You can also search key servers and import keys. If you’ve ever used a GnuPG client it is more or less exactly the same.

Key exchanges can also be done using a QR code or by receiving them via NFC if your phone supports it.

OpenKeychain is GPLv3 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

Wi-Fi Privacy Police

Wi-Fi Privacy Police attempts to prevent your device from leaking information via Wi-Fi networks. It does this by preventing your devices from sending out the name of the networks it wants to connect to and asking you if you trust a hotspot before connecting to it.

Wi-Fi Privacy Police is GPLv2 licensed and available on F-Droid and Google Play.

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