I haven't used droid-ify previously, downloaded it and gave it a quick look. UI-wise they seem pretty on par now, with F-Droid having better browsing, but droid-ify has zoom in app images, something I've wanted forever on the official app.

I can't compare them functionally without using it for a while, so maybe someone else can talk about that.

I use:

• Droid-ify for better F-Droid

• Aegis for 2FA

• Capy Reader for RSS

• Broccoli for recipes

• FluffyChat for Matrix

• Gadgetbridge for smart band

• Breezy Weather for weather

• Heliboard for keyboard

• IronFox as browser (you need to add its repo though)

• KeePassDX as KeePass vault

• Kitsune for Kitsu interaction

• Librera Reader for ebooks and PDFs

• LibreSudoku for occasional sudoku

• Standard Notes for personal notes

• Joplin for general notes

• Markdownr for downloading articles as markdown, then I pass them to Joplin

• Molly for Signal client

• mpv for videos

• NetGuard for firewall

• CoMaps for general map/GPS needs

• PipePipe for Youtube and PeerTube

• RustDesk for remote access

• SD Maid 2 for system cleaner

• SicMu Neo for music player

• SimpleLogin for email aliases

• Sky Map for stars

• Stocks Widget for stock market

• Sumire for Japanese keyboard

• Termux for terminal needs

• Track & Graph for habit tracker

• Trail Sense for outdoor activities

• Tuta Mail for email

• Voyager for Lemmy

• Yet Another Call Blocker for blocking calls (even though it doesn't get updates for a long time still works for me)

• And core apps from Fossify

https://f-droid.org/packages/com.trianguloy.urlchecker/

url checker is an app working as a broswer, when you open a link, it allows you to edit the link before it loads in a browser of your choice

• AntennaPod - podcast player
• Aves - great gallery app
• Catima - stores loyalty cards
• DAVx5 - syncing calendars and contacts via CalDAV.
• FairEmail - very secure and feature-rich email client
• OSS Document Scanner - clean and private document scanner.
• SD Maid 2/SE - good for system cleaning and clearing cache.
• Tasks.org to-do list with good sync options.
• Breakout 71 - a roguelike brick-breaker game

Droidify to fix the horrible F-droid interface

These threads come up every so often and I read them all, every time, just in case there's a gem I haven't heard of. Thanks y'all.

Not a favourite, but interesting https://f-droid.org/packages/com.fauxx.full/

Generates internet traffic noise to ruin attempts to profile you

Aegis - an authenticator app.
CoMaps - like Google or apple maps
ConnectBot - let's me ssh into my PC and laptop from my phone, that's nice for me if I just need to do something quick and am in another room.
FluffyChat - this is the matrix client I prefer, other than sending video, that sucks with this one.
Léon - this cleans up URLs to remove the tracking stuff.
Seal - this downloads videos or audio files. I use it because I like to download videos i send people, instead of just sending them a link.
Shelter - this clones apps to a work profile on your phone, which somewhat limits what those apps have access to from your standard profile.

qBitController - Control qBitTorrent servers from your phone. UI is really great; I use it regularly to download some media on my server (an always on old laptop) when I'm at work.

Pano Scrobbler - Connects to Last.fm to scrobble any music I listen on my phone. Also nice UI.

Rush - Fetches and shows lyrics for songs you search or whatever is currently playing. Can handle synchronized lyrics and sync with your player.

Auxio - Simple music player. Of the few I've tested, it handles metadata the best, which makes it work very well with other music apps (Pano and Rush).

Keysh - Assign custom actions for the volume buttons. I use the default script which makes the buttons turn volume up/down on short presses, and skip forward/backward a song on long presses. I use it pretty much daily to control music without unlocking my phone (and not using the broken controls on my headphones).

MJ PDF - PDF reader, simple UI, very fast.

Material Files - File manager, nice UI and feature set.

Ruler (Privacy Friendly) - On-screen ruler. Comes in handy sometimes.

Binary Eye - QR and barcode scanner. Can preview and copy the text before handling it.

Does it have to be on F-Droid? I use Obtainium. (app configs) Edit: I was using photon and didn't realize the post was not formatted until I checked regular lemmy and saw the mess it looked like to others.

I opened up Fdroid to check, and I found this one. I think it might be my new favourite calculator. I've always wanted something like speedcrunch on mobile.

https://f-droid.org/packages/com.vishaltelangre.nerdcalci

I prefer PipePipe to NewPipe, personally. It's got more sources. Otherwise, in no particular order...

• Shattered Pixel Dungeon
• Fennec F-Droid
• Xed-Editor
• AntennaPod
• VLC
• Forkyz
• AnySoftKeyboard
• KDE Connect
• Linux Command Library

If you like newpipe checkout tubular, it's a fork that adds some improvements.

Qr scanner. I like that it saves a history of scanned QRs and shows you a warning that scanning qrs can be dangerous

Money wallet, to keep track of expenses

Joplin, for note taking

Addy.io, for anonymous emails aliases

Shelter, let's you create a work profile to keep things separated on your phone

Thunderbird, email reading

Seeneva, to read comics

Organic Maps

• Droid-ify - much nicer F-Droid replacement front end that also works with Shizuku to automate installing updates in batches. Also supports many other repositories like izzy-On-Droid (which some of my items below may come from instead).

• Shizuku - gives elevated powers to apps written to take advantage of it. Not quite root, but definitely helps give abilities that make life easier.

• Kompact Image Compressor - I work with scanned documents a fair amount, and this new app has already saved me significant storage space.

• Key Mapper - I mainly use this for emulation, but there are plenty of other uses.

• URL Check - powerful sanitizer with the smallest footprint of those I've tried.

• DropCount - my latest game addiction

• Keyboard Switcher - sometimes I just gotta use a different input method, and this provides a consistent easy way to switch

• Hail - group apps to freeze all in one shot with Shizuku

• Insular - de-Googled Island app which makes working with the work profile feature easier

• FFUpdater - keeps my collection of browsers & Thunderbird up to date automatically with Shizuku

Glad to see many apps I already use here! Just to add ones I haven't seen mentioned:

• Lichess - the best chess
• Paseo - simple step counter
• Wikipedia - duh
• Gmaps WV - for when other maps fail
• Openreads - amazing and underloved books / reading tracker
• SherpaTTS - offline text to speech
• Whisper+ - offline speech to text
• FairEmail - email client
• Fcitx5 - Chinese keyboard
• AnkiDroid - Anki flashcards

• immich - photo gallery, sync, analysis, and sharing. A private server is a bit to install, but worth it.
• AntennaPod - Podcasts
• HeliBoard - keyboard. One feature is to move the cursor via the space key.

MedTimer

Can't ever remember if I took my meds an hour ago. This lets me track it.

because i use a "dumb phone" (non-touch android flip phone, Sonim XP3 Plus 5G (X320)) my apps reflect that need a bit more.

• TT9 invaluable app for T9 android phones, it works so so much better than the stock keyboard.
• SimpleEmail this was the only email client that i could find that could work without a touchscreen. So far I've been reeeaally happy with it--it's so nice to have a solid email client again.
• DSub2000 subsonic/navidrome client that "mostly" works without a touchscreen. it's not perfect, but for my use case it is usable when i don't want to pull out my MP3 player.
• Localsend OS agnostic "air drop", must have
• KDE connect Works really well on the Sonim for SMS, notifications etc (I had more issues previously when running older versions of Android on "dumb" devices)
• DAVx5 Contact and Calendar sync, works so well with fastmail (or self hosted options); this is a life saver for me so that i can use the built in contacts/calendar for my non-touch device.
• Delta Chat works surprisingly without touch. it's hard to get people to switch off text or signal. But because my phone doesn't support RCS, and signal is pretty mid (but still usable) without touch, delta chat has worked good for me.
• Privacy Friendly QR Scanner works perfectly without a touchscreen, and has been invaluable on devices that do not come with a touch screen.

These are a couple apps that are not on fdroid, but work really well on my device if anyone is curious:

• BIG Launcher Expensive AF, but I was able to purchase the launcher on my pixel (that runs grapheneOS), then send them an email saying it doesn't work on my Sonim X320 because it doesn't have google play services--they sent me an APK of the full version that does not need google play services. This is one of the few launchers that works on non-touch devices, and it's actually really good. The default launcher on the Sonim bugs out and does not show apps that are not pre-installed.
• PodLP is a podcast app that is specifically made with non-touch/feature phones in mind. The developer did some AI assisted work to reverse engineer the API's for the softkeys on phones like the sonim. While I don't like AI, and try to use software that is free of slop--this is really cool work that I haven't seen in any other applications. The developer just recently put out the apk on android it seems like maybe it will come to f-droid or something.
• MATVT Is the virtual mouse that I am using to get around not having a touch screen when needed. But TBH the scrolling is jank and only works on some apps... If anyone has another options or tips, I'd love to try anything else at this point.

I just picked up Daily You. Having fun logging every day so far. (Its only been a week, but still fun)

https://f-droid.org/packages/com.demizo.daily_you

FlashDim

If your phone's flash is dimmable, you can dim your flashlight. A life saver for middle of the night searching for something when I don't need the power of the sun

Hey, great post, really interesting to read other people's app recommendations.

The ones that I use frequently are:

Material Files - I use this solely to access/browse my local NAS

SimpleReminder - Super quick and easy to set reminders without needing go into my calendar and create a new event etc

Thanks :)

Edit: Formatting

• Amaze - file manager
• Github Store - app store for Github releases
• LavSeeker - toilets finder
• openScale - foss weight and body metrics tracker with support for Bluetooth scales
• Rethink DNS + Firewall + VPN - self-explanatory
• Seasonal Foods Calendar

Since most of my daily drivers are covered, i'll list the two that haven't been:

pie-launcheris... different in how it operates...

And Thump-Key is my by now loved keyboard that lets you type fast with no autocorrect (after a period of learning). I use it with a two finger configuration and a German layout.

There are setups for one finger too:

Among the ones not covered yet, as far as I can see:

• Alembicons + arcticons -- nice minimal icons, the former generates icons not yet covered by the latter:

• app manager -- package installer, inspector and tracker blocking (as long as you have root) tool;

• image toolbox -- reasonably nice image editor;

• USB gadget tool -- (root) custom USB profiles, needed for

• USB hid client -- (root) use phone as USB keyboard/mouse;

• read you noice lightweight (11.2 mb) RSS reader with tts support;

• sherpatts -- tts engine with an ok selection of models (no need to reinstall the app to test new ones, unlike the default Sherpa apps);

• tts util -- tts any text;

• ironfox, cromite -- browsers (both have their own repos, tho).

Lots of good recs in several different comments.

Some of the only ones I haven't seen posted are:

Idle Fantasy - A month-old, timed game, where you level up various stats

Vespucci - OSM editor

neutriNote - note taker

Equate - units/currency converter

https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fairscan.app

• Opentune : online Music
• Episteme oss : eBook & PDF reading (like kindle)
• Mondstern Acrylic Icons : organic DIY icons
• Android CBT : guided journaling
• RetroDrawing : so fun pixel drawing app
• Weblibre : basically Firefox Android

Fennec web browser.
Compass for well, a compass.
Voyager in case Connect breaks again

• Voyager: Piefed client
• VLC: media player
• Material Files: file manager
• Aegis: 2fa
• Syncthing-fork: synching app
• Pixel Wheels: car game
• Vector Pinball: pinball game
• SolitaireCG: solitaire game
• Librera FD: ebook viewer
• CalcYou: calculator
• Fossify Gallery: photo manager/viewer
• Notally: notes
• QKSMS: sms7

These are the the best I found of the ones installed

I geocache and hike a lot so there's one app that is fantastic for this, c:geo. I can import my trail map via gpx format, highlight the route, and download the geocahes before I hop on the trail.

https://apt.izzysoft.de/packages/cgeo.geocaching

I've also been messing around with Trail Sense, a lot of various tools for hiking. It has stuff like satellite tracking and an astronomy tool for finding where the stars and constellations are.

https://f-droid.org/packages/com.kylecorry.trail_sense

For exercising, I use an interval timer, I find Timer does this the best

https://f-droid.org/packages/io.github.deweyreed.timer.other

Tubular has been my favourite tube app, its newpipe with sponsorblock and a few other features baked in.

Droidify was my fave but fdroid might have a better UI at this stage. These app stores need better browsing and search for sure.

i prefer pipepipe over newpipe

termux allows using the phone like a normal *nix box

adaway and afwall is awesome, but kinda needs root (rethinkdns if theres no root)

audio recorder (by axet) is also great, i still haven't found anything better than it (proprietary or not)

My favorite launcher Dragon Launcher, it's as fun as a spinner and very minimal until you interact with it.

And a couple of games I've been hooked with lately: Vector pinball And Breakout 71

TrackerControl for blocking apps from connecting to the internet

Simple apps for Gallery and File Browser

Markor for mardown note taking

JustPlayer for watching videos

I've yet to find a good music player, since f-droid's search sucks - it only searches in the name and short description. I've tried Apollo and Odyssey, but neither has a fucking folder whitelist/blacklist setting and end up filled with audio from telegram and whatsapp. Also, most players completely ignore .opus format