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A group of open source Android apps without ads or unnecessary permissions (simplemobiletools.com)
380 points by memorable on May 24, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 166 comments



I don't trust this developer.

For the last two years or so they tried to retire "Simple Gallery" (which already had no ads or extra permissions required) and move people to its paid version by releasing updates with nag screens and fewer and fewer functions (edit: removals).

Every single time someone complained in a review, they would reply a canned answer: "Hey, there are many improvements in the Pro app version, it is definitely worth upgrading".

I have no issue paying for apps I like, but sorry, I won't reward scummy behaviour.


Agree. OpenSource but without the free as in beer. You have to pay if you don't want orange. They should try the service model every one else works on. App Stores are slightly responsible for reducing devs monetization options.


You or anyone can fork it, right?


Looks like it's all gpl 3 - so yes?

https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Gallery


I am a heavy user of f-droid and avoid these 'Simple' apps. The high level of nag is not just annoying but borders on begging. Having pro versions where you can change colors defeats the idea of open source. I hate bringing the negative energy, but there is a treasure of apps available with f-droid other than these. I am glad they have their own website and wish they just went and did their own thing there.


> Having pro versions where you can change colors defeats the idea of open source

Do you have any other ways the developer can make a living?

AFAIK the pro features (excluding the closed source 3rd party SDKs) are all open source. You can build them on your own or download it off F-Droid.


For what it's worth, when I modified the dialer app to add a feature the developer didn't want, I discovered that there is a nag built into every screen that triggers randomly for "unofficial" versions: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Commons/blob/5ad...


I'm seriously surprised by the number of people here not understanding what free software / open source means.

The tag line is literally "free as in freedom, not as in beer". How is it possible to miss this?


Free as in freeloading


The problem is marketing it as if it will be free and ad free, then restricting its capability based on price while notifying users to upgrade. It's a bait and switch.


> Do you have any other ways the developer can make a living?

Yes. Sell commercial software or If the developer cares about open source then charge for support. Its a disservice IMO to make the user install for free and then ask them money to use other features wasting users time. There is a incentive to make worst product in the free version which goes against the principle of opensource.


I am an oss dev. I make a living at my day job.


Same here. As a result, the vast majority of my programming effort goes into my day job, and my OSS projects are critically understaffed.

Which works okay for me and my projects, but if I wanted them to be serious players in the market rather than just side projects, I would need to find a way to earn money in a way which doesn't eat most of my time.

Personally, I want FOSS software to be able to be serious players in the market. Therefore, I want them to have enough developer resources to make that possible. Therefore, they need to make money.


> Personally, I want FOSS software to be able to be serious players in the market. Therefore, I want them to have enough developer resources to make that possible. Therefore, they need to make money.

I agree. I do not see anything wrong with earning money from open source software, lots of companies do it. Open source is always good for transparency than proprietary closed software. We should support open source devs to be successful, as you said, to go against proprietary monopolies.


Exactly, if you don't want to develop open source software, just don't do it


And if you don’t like how someone manages their open source software, don’t use it.


That's what peeps here are recommending. Save yourself a download if you are used to the normal OS model.


It doesn't mean you have to do it for free, even if you develop open source software.


Not every developer has a day job.


If they want to make money from their programming, they should get one.


If you want nice software, you should use your day job money and support the people who make it.


I contribute to open source by writing it and participating in the community, not by spending dollars.


Alas, neither my grocery store nor does my landlord care about nice feels. Hence I do HTTP 402 Pay me.


I agree, you don't owe me anything. You don't have to share your code for free.

My point is that if you want to make money for your code, either get a job writing software or create a business around the software you wrote.

I think open source should be created by people not trying to make money from it. I understand that not everyone feels this way, and I sometimes agree with the arguments. However, my overall feeling is that supporting open source work should come in the form of companies supporting their employees to work on open source work that is valuable for the company employing those people. They contribute to open source not because they are trying to make money from that work, but because they use that software to support their main money making work, and get more value by sharing the work than keeping it fully internal.


In particular open source shouldn't be a marketing gimmick.


And so your software will be poisoned by value extraction from the user, which will be inferior to software from someone not wanting to make money, which I'll use instead. :D


Name a non-abstract but existing superior free gallery software for Android downloadable from f-droid.

It must:

1. Support mediaapi - not be confused about where Whatsapp puts its images.

2. Allow management of files.

3. Be able to provide basic organization (folders/sorting[per folder]/cover images)

4. Support all modern image formats used by phones and the web.

5. Not crash.

6. Not delete/corrupt files by accident.

7. Be able to play modern video/audio files (pick top 20 popular codecs)


I love open source, but the general level of quality in most open source is... not great.


Don't call it Open Source if you don't understand what it means. Call it shareware or freeware with nag screens.


Don't talk about open source if you don't understand it. Paid binaries are the oldest form of OSS monetization.

Is the source open and with a OSS-compatible licence? Then it's open source, not freeware nor shareware.

Red Hat has nagging too.


I do understand OS. Read the preamble of gpl this explains the _purpose_ of os.

The _goal_ of open source is to provide free software. Software that is free to _use_ now, and in the future, not _just_ free to get the source, free to use. If you don't provide free software (and free build processes) it's not compliant with Open Source licences.

Paid binaries are permitted but you must be _willing_ to to give away your software free of cost.

Aguably nagware is a deliberate annoyance and time cost to the user that makes it not "free to use". Adding crippleware (making it not work after a period of time) is certainly forbidden.

If your are writing nagware with oss license no-one will take you to court, because they can fix it, but it's certainly deceptive. It imies you don't want your software to be free to use.

OS licenses were not designed as a marketing tool for individual developers to get you a foot in the door. You can do that, but don't be surprised if you get called out for it. That is not the _purpose_ of OS.

That's the purpose of a free tier.

As a RedHat customer I don't find any of the software use daily to be suffering from nagware.

If grep had nagware in it, I'd bitch about it on HN.


> The _goal_ of open source is to provide free software. Software that is free to _use_ now, and in the future, not _just_ free to get the source, free to use. If you don't provide free software (and free build processes) it's not compliant with Open Source licences

No, the goal of Open Source is to provide a user with ability access the source and do things to it. That's the difference between the Open Source and Free Software championed by FSF. FSF flopped. That's why we are still waiting for the Hurd to be useful.

Source: Sat in the room with Bruce Perens when this was happening.


> As a RedHat customer I don't find any of the software use daily to be suffering from nagware.

Don't enter your license key and you'll see

Why does CentOS exist?


That's what OP did.


Working on this suite of apps might be his day job. If he takes up a day job he might not be able to work on and maintain these many apps.

Can you develop and maintain a suite of 8-10 apps only on your free time? I was talking about how this specific developer who makes these many apps can make money, and not how you do.


Free in FOSS "as in free speech, not free beer."

As far as pro version is opensourced, distributed under free license and fully auditable, there is nothing defeating the idea of open source.


> I hate bringing the negative energy, but there is a treasure of apps available with f-droid other than these.

That's the problem with OSS and F-droid in general. Tons of apps. Very few polished enough for use of general population.

Simple is great. Simple Gallery Pro blows away every single gallery app on the market. A few minor bugs that the author(s) keep addressing.

P.S. Developers of useful apps should be able not to live on Ramen. They should be able to eat whatever they want and buy a house. Screw the entitled crowd who say "Shit should be free, open source blah blah" without maintaining a polished product for a few years.


We are past that point. The old complaint used to be that Android users don't want to pay, so iOS got all the cool apps that cost $2-$10 and Android got ad-ridden 'free' apps.

Now everything is on a subscription basis, regardless of which OS you use. Even 'dumb' apps like music players and file managers, that don't require online access are being priced this way.


And Android apps still suck donkey balls as those who normally would pay for them say "Just use stuff form the F-droid. I kind of works, ignore non-polished interface"


Wait, are you saying even the F-Droid versions nag you? I've never seen that.


I use Simple Mobile Gallery Pro from F-droid and have never been bugged for a rating or upgrade.


I've used several of their tools from F-Droid and haven't seen this either.

I wonder if parent accidentally installed the Play Store version, or if there are only one or two of the apps that have this particular anti-feature.


I use the calendar and gallery from f-droid. No nags here. Didn't even know that was a thing.


User buys a $600.- phone and then complains about a $2.- app. It's not enough that the application is open source, it should also be completely free of charge!


Yes, if its Open Source it should be free of charge.

Open Source means something, not just that the source code is available.


> Yes, if its Open Source it should be free of charge.

Nope.

> Open Source means something, not just that the source code is available.

That the source is openly licensed. Providing paid version is a different thing.


Read the manual

"there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable _reproduction_ cost, preferably downloading via the Internet without charge"

The software itself MUST be free, and the _reproduction_ costs reasonable.

You cannot add clauses that make me pay money or restrict my use. It must be free as in beer to use and redistribute either modified or in its original form.

When you pay for a copy you don't buy rights to use the open source software, you already had them. You buy the paper it's printed on.

And you can't deliberately make it hard for me to compile either.

Arguably nagware is that.

If you own _all_ the rights you can also release a version for cash, but if you then tell people that you are selling them open source software, and you sell them a version for which the source code is not freely available you are breaking the law/rules.

Even if that change is just removing the nagware.


The quote you have put there says nothing about binaries, only the source code. And indeed the source code has essentially no reproduction cost since it's downloadable via the Internet without charge as it's preferred.

>you sell them a version for which the source code is not freely available

But the source code IS freely available. All the nagware/restrictions/whatever is in there as a build option. Play Store builds have them enabled unless you buy a license, F-Droid & GitHub builds have them disabled.

In any case it seems you're mistaken about what free software exactly entails, and what is and is not allowed by GPL. For a TL;DR refer to the ones behind it.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLCommercially

>You are allowed to sell copies of the modified program commercially, but only under the terms of the GNU GPL. Thus, for instance, you must make the source code available to the users of the program as described in the GPL, and they must be allowed to redistribute and modify it as described in the GPL.


If you want the convenience of having pre-packaged build, pay for it.

Or get the source code for free, and build it yourself.

What's the problem? Pay for convenience.


What do you imagine Open Source means?

None of the inventors or well-known stewards of Open Source ideas share your belief.


Open source licenses are licenses that comply with the Open Source Definition — in brief, they allow software to be freely used, modified, and shared.

https://opensource.org/licenses


And how do these apps not allow that?


Unnecessary restrictions on use such as changing the colour of the gui, is not within the general goals of Open source software.


You can free to change the color of the GUI in the code and build it yourself. Change the values here to your liking - https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Commons/blob/mas... .


I have no problem paying for some features if that is what it takes to keep folks making / updating these apps.


If you don't mind please list the f-droid apps you use regularly. I have been few apps for the past few months and the apps have small memory footprint and have great performance.


Notification Cron - This is a great way to use your phone for reminders and learn Quartz Cron.

SunTimes - This app will set alarms at certain sun/moon points in the day. So whatever time sunrise is at your location an alarm can go off. I like to use it to let me know when Golden Hour starts and the day is almost ending.

QuillNote - I love this note taking app, and have taken to posting thoughts there to lower the number of tweets/posts I send. I get the dopamine rush of typing out and saving my thought, and it all stays local.

Mindful Notifier - Whenever this bell goes off (and I set it random between 90 minutes and 120 minutes) I take three very deep breaths. The sayings are okay, but the healthy intake of oxygen is great.

SMS Scheduler - An older app, but a great way to send a text at a later time. My daughter has a different work schedule than I do, so I schedule texts to her for when work is done. Also, if someone asks me to remind them of something later, I schedule the text and it sends as a reminder.

Dodge - Simple game of getting across the screen. My record is 13.

Snotz - I like this for non-thoughts (Quillnote) but tend towards quillnote more. It's a note taking app with nice colors.

FOSS Browser - This is a nice simple browser for when I don't want to be tracked.

Nunti - Pretty good feed reader that supposedly uses AI to tell what stories to share. I'm still training it, but prefer it over online news aggregation.

Vector Pinball - I played this game longer than I should have.

1list - great shopping list app, or any other list you may need to make, and all stays local.


You didn't bring any negative energy.

The app developer did that.


I use the calendar (installed from f-droid) and I don't recall being nagged. Haven't found an alternative calendar that I like better.



works on my phone, using Simple Notes and Simple Gallery and no nags here


I use the calendar one.

Since it went not free, the free version doesn't generate notifications or alerts anymore. I almost missed appointments or meetings because of this.

This is planned obsolescence at best. I seriously despise everything about this.


You only have to pay if you want to get it from the Play Store. They make the pro version available for free on F-Droid.


... This is obviously not about the money. Everyone here can easily afford to buy the pro version off the Play Store. The issue is about them pushing people to pay by removing features AFTER they already invested their time, data, and habit into the app.


[flagged]


It's obviously not that. The snark isn't appropriate here.

Bad faith practices / dark patterns are obnoxious, period.

These apps present themselves as free and make a point of putting this message front and center. Then nag you incessantly and quietly remove feature to push people to upgrade.

This is dishonest, counterproductive and simply lead to bad reviews and the apps being uninstalled.

The marketing is obviously an attempt to leverage the good faith around OSS and then does a full 180.

It's a con / scam and an ineffective one.


> The marketing is obviously an attempt to leverage the good faith around OSS and then does a full 180.

The level of entitlement here is staggering: source is available. Go modify it yourself and build it yourself. Oh, right, you don't want to because it is below your pay rate but you want others to do it for free.


That's odd. I got the calendar app off of f-droid and it works just fine for me.


Use the older version you liked then? I somehow feel a sense of entitlement here. Changing a pricing model for new releases has nothing to do with planned obsolescence; planned obsolescence is making something bad so that you have to buy it new sooner. You got it free. The whole concept also isn't a software thing: one can limit a license duration but software doesn't wear and break prematurely. A date-based kill switch might be the closest thing and that's not what happened here.


When software auto updates that’s effectively what happened here.


There's no downgrade option on Google Play Store?


There’s no such option on the store.


Nope.


Oh :| Then I guess all I can recommend is f-droid where there is such an option (and also the issue wouldn't have manifested in the first place but that'd likely be different if f-droid were more popular)


One of the very few apps I actually paid for. The mental peace that comes with not leaking my data to yet another calendar application alone was worth it. I find this business model lot more sensible than demanding that open-source developers should eternally martyr themselves. You can see the effect of this in the feature set of these applications.

If you are the semi-paranoid kind, the following stack of opensource apps will enable you to keep a calendar/contacts/tasks in sync between Linux and android without an internet connection.

On Android Side

     1. Simple Calendar
     2. Dec Sync (Fdroid)
     3. SyncThing
On Linux Side

     1. SyncThing
     2. Evolution with Decsync plugin
What Decsync does is keep your calendar/contacts/tasks data in a single folder in open format. This can be read on GNU+Linux side with any app that has a Decsync plugin. This folder can be backed up using whatever is your backup solution (For those who are curious - I do a encrypted incremental backup with BorgBackup (Vorta GUI) and then upload to cloud using Rclone).

Decysnc also supports syncing RSS feeds between applications, although I have not been able to find a working Linux RSS app that has Decsync plugin.


It's nice that a flow exists for your use case, but when I see things like this I'm always puzzled by the use case in the first place. The only reason I use a calendar on my phone is to sync my schedule with the wife/family. We put things on a shared calendar. I use it to capture appointments and check if we have commitments on a given date. Otherwise I would never use a calendar on my phone. So syncing between accounts over the Internet is a hard requirement.


The calendar app uses the internal Android calendar service, which can be synced via Davx. I sync mine with NextCloud.


In that case why don't you sync your calendar with Nextcloud directly using CalDav? I use DavX5 for this and it works great, actually i think DecSync is a fork of DavX5.


That is exactly what I do.


While likely not your situation, paying for an app doesn't guarantee it will safeguard your data :x


Right, this is why the Op chose FOSS software.


While likely not your situation, a free and open-source app doesn't guarantee it will safeguard your data :x


i'm using a very similar stack and find this works great for a linux RSS app with decsync support:

https://github.com/39aldo39/FeedReader


https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools

And of course, you should install these from F-Droid, not Google Play


Seems like they cost money on Google. Are they free on F-Droid?

Edit: It seems like they are, but without the word "Pro" in the title. I can't figure out what makes any of them "Pro".

Edit 2: Nope, some of them say "Pro" on F-Droid, too. I guess it's just in the name. Weird.


Some functionality is missing in the Fdroid versions though. E.g. the calendar app is missing the comprehensive editing tools from the Google Play version. The solution? Installing the binaries right from their Github repo.


AFAIK There's no paid apps on F-Droid, so it's likely that they are free.


Why?


I'm guessing because of what's mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31491321

TLDR: Their Calendar app became "not free" and you needed to pay to get notifications or alerts, but only if you downloaded from the Play Store. It's still completely free on f-droid


Having tested dozens of Gallery apps, I have to say that I had a hard time finding one that does not do magic with my files, but rather uses the file system (directories) to organize it.

I have thousands of photos carefully sorted, categorized and synchronized with other devices, and Android's way of managing photos just does not work for me. Everything is messed up and ordered or grouped by some magic algorithm instead of showing me directories.

It seems that the app I'm using is somehow featured here now, but the previous version disappeared from the store? I'm confused and afraid of attempting any update because I don't want this feature to disappear.


I have used some of these on and off.

In general, they are simple and functional and seem to be well made and privacy respecting ... but they are only "free" if you don't mind the nag screen and the orange theme which can only be changed in the purchased version.

What I don't like about purchased apps is the fact that you have to pay again for every upgrade. And I have to pay twice since I use 2 phones --- one private and one for work.


They are completely free and you don't have to pay for every upgrade.

They're open source, just get the builds from f-droid instead of the paid play store builds. You can still pay to support the developer.


Maybe this is the root of the problem and contention in this thread.

It seems even people who are reasonably technically savvy, as demonstrated by some posts, think that it requires various payments.

How did they come to this conclusion?


The Play Store isn't free to distribute in. The developers, reasonably, want Play Store users to help recoup that distribution cost. If you get it from Fdroid or build it yourself, it's free.


Should have been more clear --- by "upgrade" I meant a hardware change. Phone hardware is designed to be replaced every 2-3 years.

And I already pointed out the definition of "free" at work here.


Google Play app purchases are tied to your account, not your phone. You don't need to try purchase when you get a new phone.


Can I migrate them to my work phone?

In any case, I don't use "Google Play".


Then where did you get them that you paid for them?


Read carefully --- I never said that I did.


If you don't use Google Play and didn't pay for the apps, then why are you complaining? You can just use the ones from F-Droid, which will give you all of the functionality and no nags for free.


Wonder how I got nag screens? Must have been my mistake.


Yes, they are open source and free on f-droid.


Yes - do a build and throw the apk onto the new phone.


you can log in with your personal Google account for a few mins, install the app and logout.

E: not very useful if you don't use "Google Play" Store


I have a "Google free" phone --- meaning it is totally stripped of all Googly things and Google Play in particular.


I did not know that about android. You can’t migrate your apps from an old phone to a new phone?


Yes you can, I'm not sure what was the issue of OP but all apps (including paid) are linked to your google account, so they are available on any phone linked to your google account


Note GP asked about Android and you're speaking of a Google Play account that you can login to from more than one device to access its content including previously purchased content.

I guess for most people they see Google Play as an integral part of Android... ask Huawei what happens if Google can't do business with you or what if you don't like google so much.

Of course, one would be even worse off with Apple where there is no decent open source option to speak of, which GP is most likely to be locked into.


You can copy apps off of Android phones even without Google Play.


Yeah but it's not a migration. E.g. you don't get access to your data in many (most?) cases, often thanks to security consultants like myself who see their scanning tool warn that backups are enabled for an app and put a recommendation in the report to not let users access their own data. (FTR I've never done that, but had colleagues that I had to argue with...)

Just yesterday in an OpenStreetMap chat, I had to disappoint a user who wanted to access a locally stored recording in some app. They didn't have root and so they couldn't access it from outside the app.

Backups aka accessing your own data is one of the biggest problems I have as an android user, with as only solution rooting the device and treating it like a normal desktop OS where you also have root, except various apps start to complain when you do so. Apple really has the nicer solution here via the iTunes software.


You're absolutely right about the data, but I think the context of this thread was more about transferring the .apk itself, to avoid having to download (and potentially purchase) it again.


> they are only "free" if you don't mind the nag screen and the orange theme which can only be changed in the purchased version

Wow, add a gimmick as a little perk to those who donate without actually impairing functionality for free users and next thing people will comment on how annoying it is that the color orange can't be changed.

I've never before heard someone complain that a color can't be changed in an app, it's not a common feature.

I've got the orange theme myself also after donating, don't mind it. I also still get the nag screen in some of the apps once a month or so, not sure how to turn it off but it doesn't bother me enough to figure it out.


I don't think they're actually complaining that the color can't be changed. I think they're complaining that there's functionality which can only be obtained through paying; that functionality could be totally meaningless and it'd still cause complaints.

Personally, I agree with you; adding unnecessary customization options which are only available to pro features is one of the least unethical ways of making money for software.


I wonder how much does it cost to change the theme in the slack app, or whatsapp green , or tidal, or any other app that DOESNT even let you change colours.

People complaining about it is just complain to complain.


* it doesn't bother me enough to figure it out.*

Doesn't bother me either now that I use a different app.


Heh, that's also always a solution of course :)


I use the Gallery and File Manager apps. They are also among the very few apps I have ever willingly paid for, primarily to thank the dev for making a well-functioning product with great UI/UX.

If the author is reading this comment, thanks for your work.


They do have ads though, advertising their respective "Pro" versions.


I have been using a couple of these apps for years and have never been nagged to upgrade or pay. I'm an f-droid user, so that's probably why.

A lot of FOSS apps are taking this approach: offer the full version in f-droid, charge for it in the play store, both to encourage f-droid use and pay some bills. There's nothing wrong with it.

The only problem I've ever had with it was I used the contacts app when it was new and it didn't actually fill in phone numbers on vcard export. This was terrible, thankfully I had an older backup and only lost a couple of contacts, but still. Beyond that, these tools work extremely well.


I think it is a mistake not to link to apps in F-Droid, as the more this appeals to someone, the less likely they are to use Google products.


I still have old Android phones that I'm not using because of outdated kernels/OS versions and their disadvantages in terms of vulnerabilities, but given the hardware is completely fine I would use them as offline general purpose tools if I had an easy way to install old store apps in them.

So does anybody know if there is perhaps an archive of old APK app files (old as in Android KitKat and earlier)?


F-Droid has a few versions of history for each app, but that might not be enough for 4.4 compatibility in some cases. Many apps haven't been updated in years though, so those will surely work :). I recently installed a metronome thing whose last release is from April 2013, works as intended on Android 11.


back when Yalp Store was working, it would let you decrement version numbers. if the author hadn't removed them from the play store and you guessed correctly, you could download older versions. i think sites like apkmirror also provide older versions.


The newer Aurora store works the same, but you have to guess the version numbers and I'd assume they don't go back very far. Since Aurora and Yalp both just talk to Google's app repository, Yalp presumably has the same limitations and you wouldn't find something of 8 years old there.


APKmirror does allow you to download older versions. APKMirror started in 2014 so they may have versions of some apps which are old enough to work on KitKat, released in 2013, and older.


Someone else linked to the Github. If nothing else, you could build APKs for yourself.


I bought Simple Contacts Pro, it's great but it has enough papercuts to where I went back to True Phone. Here are my bug reports:

Set default phone number for contact: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Contacts/issues/...

Cannot create new group (category) for Nextcloud account/address book: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Contacts/issues/...

Favorites tab showing contacts from all accounts: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Contacts/issues/...


I see a number of comments here complaining that these apps cost money on the Play Store. To all of you, I say, the developer of these apps owes you nothing. You are entitled. These apps are a product built over a period of years largely buy a single developer. This developer has chosen to embrace Free Software and releases the entire source code to the pro-versions of these apps in order to allow you both audit them and build them yourself or fork them if you choose.

I only use F-Droid (which has the full versions gratis) so I donated to the developer's Patreon (until I switched to a Pinephone).

If these apps were proprietary, would you be entitled to them gratis (free of charge)? How does the developer granting you access to the source code change this?

If you use and enjoy these apps, please consider donating to the develop's Patreon in order to support them more fully.


Right on. The entitlement of some of the comments here is amazing.

Dude makes some android apps, decide to release them on Android for free, even sharing the code. Then he DARES to charge end users for downloading pro versions of the apps from the official Google Play store... while still making Available the functionality in the source code and in f-droid.

And people are complaining??

IMHO This is the best scenario a developer could provide with his software.


I've used Simple File Manager from F-Droid ever since https://review.lineageos.org/#/q/topic:nuke_cmfm (LineageOS getting rid of their built-in powerful one) happened.


I love these apps, they are great. I donated to the developer and really recommend doing the same.


Me too, they've been updating and maintaining this wide array of apps for longer than I've consciously sought open-source. It's a shame they've discontinued Open Camera, but their suite is still very impressive, and they likely work under the same thankless conditions as any developer of free apps. Lead Dev has a Patreon, and if you use a few of their apps, and appreciate their continued existence, it could be worth a regular pay-what-you-can-esque contribution.


I don't like that Patreon takes a cut. So I just sent the developer a bank transfer.


Can someone familiar with these make the case for why I should be using them (or at least one specific app in the suite)?


I use the gallery. It is simply a foldered list of my images - sorted by most recent. It doesn't try to upsell me anything. It doesn't have a tonne of features I'll never use.

It is much faster than my phone manufacturer's gallery.


Adding to this, it lets you zoom in further than most stock gallery apps, and doesn't do that annoying bounce-back thing.


I've used the audio recorder. Other than the permission to use the microphone, it doesn't use any other permission. It doesn't even ask for general filesystem permissions, and assumes you are savvy enough to know how to use the standard Share functionality to get the files where you want.

The app does exactly what it says (records audio) and doesn't phone home, try to integrate with any services, collect any information about you. It just works.

If that type of thing is important to you, and you have a need for the functionality provided by one of the tools, there's your use case.


I use a few of these - simple file manager, simple gallery - on (my wife's) devices which are encumbered by custom Android shells (Samsung and Sony to give a few examples) which make it harder than necessary to perform certain tasks. They are complementary to whatever is installed on these devices, they're not in the way, they're free (from F-Droid) and I don't really care about that orange theme since I only use them occasionally. If you have an AOSP-derived distribution like LineageOS installed there is not much need for this type of app but for those who are stuck with custom Android shells like Samsung's Touchwiz and Sony's Xperia some of these 'simple' apps can come in handy.


They are on F-Droid, which is an alternative Android app repo for open source apps (in fact I think the team builds the apps from source themselves). In addition to their requirements, they audit apps [1] and have been audited themselves [2]. The repo also lists any concerns (eg if the app has tracking) in the description, though the vast majority have no issues. And afaik there has not been a single case of malware (even though similarly sized repos have had them [1]). F-Droid is by far the best place to get FOSS privacy-respecting apps.

However due to the stringent requirements, you can imagine that the selection is smaller. For simple everyday things like a phone dialer, contacts app, gallery app, calendar, etc, Simple Mobile Tools will show up near the top of the list on F-Droid. A lot of alternatives are just old and unmaintained. Simple Mobile Tools gets the job done and has a decent UI, so you can uninstall whatever sketchy bloatware your phone came with and use these instead.

TLDR: if you care about FOSS and privacy, these are often your best option.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/3cjj2e/how_secure_...

[2]: https://f-droid.org/en/2018/09/04/second-security-audit-resu...


I made a free shopping list app its not open source as ive lost the source...I made this about 10 years ago. Play store basically shadow bans completely free apps from small developers without adverts as far as i can tell. This is the app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flabbyfish...


Do you have some evidence of that or is this rather a feeling of yours? (Genuinely interested)


I've noticed this as an end user. If I want to find a working free android app, I check FDroid first. The android store probably has whatever I will find, but it's usually hidden below dozens of completeley broken ad / surveillance supported ones.

Can devs pay for placement in the android store or something?


Play store search seems to filter result by location and sometimes even if you type the exact name it does not show you the app and if you visit the link from the developer site it does appear just not on search.


I use the Gallery app and it was really the best, until the developer had to remove the hide/unhide images due to changes in Android 12 :( .


I use the gallery app on android 12 (on a Pixel) and the hiding and unhiding works.


Do you use the Pro version?

The free one hasn't been updated in a few years so is not affected by changes to Android 12.


Yes, I use the v6.22.0 Pro version from the Play Store.


I'm on v.6.23.6, maybe v.6.23 is when these changes were introduced.


I digged a bit deeper and it looks like you're right.

In 6.23.0 it was removed: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Gallery/releases...

But in 6.23.6 it should be there again: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Gallery/releases...

But it seems it won't happen for the Play-Store version: https://www.reddit.com/r/SimpleMobileTools/comments/uqqqsj/c...


Note that some of these apps, the one that have "Pro" at the end, are not free (they cost $0.99). Here is the announcement by the author of the apps: https://tibbi.medium.com/some-simple-mobile-tools-apps-are-b...


Considering they're free (software; GPL), I'm surprised no one went full jerk mode and put them on store for free (ware; 0$).


Big fan of the gallery app.


Indeed. Have many years worth of photos on my phone (also backed up elsewhere ofc), well above 10k, and it has no problem browsing them. Many others bog down on this.

Love being able to browse so far back without having to go over internet (google photos or dropbox or ...).


Me too. It's a gallery app, but has "file manager" functionality easily available in the UI. I can rename files, move them to different folders, or create a new folder. I can't do any of that on the stock Samsung Gallery app, so I frequently lose track of images and have to look through the entire gallery if I want to find something.


Anyone know if the Simple File Manager is good at SMB shares? My previous preferred file manager for accessing my NAS was Asus File Manager, and that's gotten bitrotted since then (darn Android for moving APIs so fast).


Why do all calendar apps put months next to each other, instead of using a continuous vertically scrollable view with them on top of each other?

It's maddening!

Actually Google got this right at one point - but then they reverted to the stupid way!!


Business Calendar Pro uses a continuous vertically scrollable view for months. I love it.


acalendar, my favorite, does that as well.


Because down/up swipes are usually used to switch apps, or go to settings/menu's, so right/left swipes are a lot easier to switch months/days/weeks


Right/left swipes are used for back. They're a lot more problematic than up/down because screens are narrow and tall, so it's easier to confuse the back gesture.

Anyway that's clearly not the reason - Google switched back and forth years before navigation gestures were a thing.


Have there been any attempts to package multiple apps together as one? Imagine having a swiss army knife of FOSS apps for simple everyday tasks, with a single set of permissions and consistent UI/UX.


I think Öffi/Offi does that. I install one app and get three icons with different functionalities. I think it's a bit annoying, because I cannot hide them individually.


I'd love a better Android TV launcher. Google crammed my Nvidia Shield home screen full of ads.


The pitch sounds great, the app reviews do not


And I'd have to get it on Google Play.


I like this stuff but I'm a big no on nag screens. Would rather pay for app. Free not needed but don't want nags or ad.


I use the gallery app. Probably paid a little in the official app store. No nagging or issues.




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