On more than one occasion, we’ve picked great apps that aren’t available on Google Play either by the decision of their developers or because they circumvent some of Google’s store restrictions. And more and more often we find great applications in alternative stores to the Google Play Store, which undoubtedly deserve the appreciation of the public.
On this occasion, we have once again explored the catalogs of some of these alternative stores to offer you six free and open-source and very useful Google applications, the download that is not dependent on Google Play.
As always, before looking at the applications, it should be remembered that F-Droid is a completely secure alternative application store to Google Play, whose catalog consists of free and open-source applications. Some of them are exclusive to this store, and some can also be downloaded from the official Google Play store.
1-shelter
A shelter is a useful tool that allows you to create independent virtual spaces in your mobile phone, clone applications or install them in a work profile, isolate them and prevent other applications from accessing their data.
It also provides other options, such as “freezing” apps to prevent them from running in the background when not in use.
Although the app is available on Google Play, it is possible to download its latest version via F-Droid.
2-Hypatia
We have talked more than once about whether or not you need to install an antivirus on your Android phone. The problem with most programs of this type is that they are very intrusive and often take away more than they add.
That’s why we loved Hypatia so much, a background malware scanner that barely consumes memory or battery, scanning files downloaded to the phone’s memory for threats. The app lets you choose which storage folders to scan most frequently and works very fast (it can scan small files in just 20ms and larger files in just under a second).
3-Application Manager
An essential tool for more advanced Android users. App Manager is a tool that displays activities, services, permissions, signatures, libraries, and other applications installed on the device.
Moreover, it offers other additional options such as the ability to perform specific activities or create shortcuts, block services to avoid excessive energy consumption in the background, and much more.
It includes many different features, some of which are available to everyone, while others will only work on rooted devices.
4-Transporter
The transporter is probably the best free app for checking public transport schedules and routes.
The app has a very neat and intuitive design and lets you automatically create travel itineraries, check for upcoming flights or favorite routes, and more. It is free and open source and does not include ads or trackers of any kind.
5-Sushi
If you are looking for a good free app to track your expenses that is also well-designed and privacy-friendly, then you should give Sushi a try.
It allows you to manage your money in different accounts, being able to record purchases, expenses, transfers, or income. Moreover, the application offers useful graphs so that you can visualize the evolution of your assets.
6-Birthday
The perfect app for people who can’t remember their family and friends’ birthdays. Instead of writing dates in a calendar, Birthday allows us to keep track of the birthdays of all the people who are dear to us, thanks to a precise and intuitive interface in the form of a timeline.
It is a very light application, weighing only a few megabytes. Despite this, it has an infinite number of useful functions such as the option to import birthdays from the contact list, the possibility of customizing notifications, a search bar to quickly find birthdays, a widget of the home screen, and even a panel of stored birthdays.