OPEN SOURCE your Android Phone: open source Android ROMS and apps

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00:00 Intro
00:50 Sponsor: Get Onlyoffice, the open source office suite for Linux, Android, and everything else
01:53 Custom open source ROMS
04:24 F-DROID: your FOSS Play Store
05:44 Email Client: K9 Mail
07:05 Web Browsers: the usual suspects
07:45 Launchers: Lawnchair, and O Launcher
09:29 Camera: SimpleCamera, or OpenCamera
10:53 Image Viewer: SimpleGallery
13:22 Discover more (and give me your recommendations)
14:45 Sponsor: get a device that runs Linux perfectly
15:53 Support the channel

What you need to know is that it's possible to replace the Android version that ships on your phone, with something else, and there are a TON of options out there, that support different models.

One of the most well known is Lineage OS, which builds on top of the Android open source project, or AOSP, supports a LOT of devices, and is open source, of course.

Another interesting one if you want to fully escape Google's ecosystem is Graphene OS. The drawback of Graphene OS is that it only supports Google Pixels.

And yet another one that I personally really love is /e/ OS, and despite its terrible name, it is even more de googled than Graphene OS.

Android allows alternative app stores, and if you're looking for FOSS apps, your best best is F Droid.

Let's start with mail clients. And the obvious one here is K9 Mail. It does basically everything you'd expect a mail client to do, with IMAP support, dark mode, unified inbox if you have multiple email accounts, per mail account notifications, email signatures, email encryption with openPGP, push notifications, and it also doesn't track anything you do, write, or send.

For web browsers, it's pretty easy. You don't even need F Droid to install open source browsers and replace the default one. Most Android ROMS that manufacturers ship use either Google Chrome, or their own web browser based on CHromium, but they're generally not open source.

For launchers, you have Lawnchair. It's basically a copy of the pixel launcher, but you'll have to install it from their website, as the version on F Droid is old, like the one in the play store.

Another option is O Launcher, if you want a really super minimalistic launcher, with only a few links to most used apps, a daily wallpaper, and a list of apps that only appear by name. You can choose how many apps appear on the homescreen, which apps are opened by a swipe left or right, and that's about it!

For taking pictures, you basically have 2 really good options. If you just want to snap quick pictures and videos, and you don't care about the settings, the resolution, the framerate or any of that stuff, then SImpleCamera is for you.

If you like tweaking every single setting before taking a picture, though, you need OpenCamera.

And, to preview these images, your best option is probably Simple Gallery. It has albums, search, and a bunch of options to include or exclude folders, handle full screen previews, and it lets you star, share, delete, and edit pictures, with a lot of options to rotate, crop, invert, or apply filters, and you can save the modified image as a new one.

Also, you might have noticed that these "Simple Apps" look alike, and that's because they're all part of the same collection made by the same dev team:

OSMAnd has travel maps, offline navigation for cars, cycling or walking, and relief maps. It obviously uses open street map.

[dan]

Small correction about Lawnchair 12.1

It doesn't require Android 12 to run, it can run on devices as low as Android 8.1 (tho atm 8.1 support is broken), only feature requiring Android 12.1 is the integration with the recents menu and gestures through the Quickswitch module

[ozerune]

please make this a recurring series there are so many good open source apps but sometimes they can be difficult to find

[hlelpツ]

• Aurora Store - Play Store alternative
• KeePassDX - Password manager
F-Droid official client is pretty rough around the edges, luckily there are 3rd party clients that work better, I've tried many and I've found Droid-ify to work best for me but there's AuroraDroid (by the same dev as AuroraStore) G-Droid, FoxDroid and many others.
• Material Files - File manager
• Termux - Linux terminal for Android

[iamaj]

I found Organic Maps to be more user friendly than OSMand

Keyboard : Openboard is a good keyboard based on AOSP, but personaly I use Unexpected keyboard which is developed with developers in mind. If you are using command line applications or other compilers, this will come in handy with its unique swipe to input feature.

[PakoSt]

Generally, custom ROMs are very good.

The true problems come with portions that use proprietary sub-systems like the camera. The exposed Android Camera APIs are generally a fraction of the methods used with OEM cameras that take advantage of undocumented APIs targeting the firmware blobs (especially for post-processing and the like which could be coupled with OS level changes for whatever ungodly reason). This is doubly true for multi-camera setups.

Microphones may use similar low-level processing but generally are less of a problem.

Battery optimisations with always-on screens are a suspect if the used kernel isn't a derivative of the OEM one or if some part of the implementation is hiding within the OS layer like Samsung specific methods for example (because reasons...). Modem staying alive or the like, are within that group but less of a problem - usually the modem stays alive/ hibernated/ wakes up as expected.

We have the usual BS with DRM or other "security" measures that immediately try to raise a red flag if they do (very questionable) checks to verify if the device is rooted. Banking apps or lower resolution with Netflix are the most common examples of problematic behaviour caused by those checks. On the other hand, there are historical examples of OnePlus, Xiaomi and so on not passing those security checks with their official ROMs so... Yeah 😁 The banking apps or wireless payment can be annoying - this depends entirely on whether the individual views such functionality as a desirable feature or not.

If we go down the rabbit hole of VoLTE or WiFi Calling, counter intuitively the custom rom may enable this functionality in some cases (looking at LG's region implementations and crazy network provider systems...)


There is one usual caveat with any custom ROM - depending on the family of the custom ROM, security updates can be a question mark. Just getting an update, doesn't mean it includes a security one. Sounds scary but given the OEM most likely has already nixed support for the device, _any_ update is an improvement.

Overall, if camera quality isn't a must, custom ROMs are more than enough and can prolong the life of the device by a lot with minimal effort.

[rolandssavdons]

Note that some important apps (banking, for example) require a locked bootloader and Google APIs to use. Unless you're using OnePlus or Pixel phones (AVB v2), you're running a risk of bricking your device when locking your device's bootloader. Something that I learned just this afternoon.

[classicallemur]

Niagara launcher is really a hidden gem of a launch in my opinion. updates often and strikes a good balance between ergonomics, minimalism, and eye candy

[LBPSaperoth]

Neo Launcher is a great and open source, it is a great alternative to Nova Launcher. it has a google feed replacement that is just an RSS feed reader. they also have some other tools like a store for f-droid.

[MrGamelover]

Grapheneos lets you have sandboxed Google services, they don't use microG because it's insecure. Security and privacy are two different things, and it turns out that Google stuff is really secure even if it isn't good for privacy.

[Rod_SCL]

I disabled the YouTube app on my phone and watch all vids on brave browser, no ads and I enabled the option to keep playing videos with the screen off (great for music and poscasts).

[samik]

A happy LineageOS user here. It's amazing to have Anroid 12 and up-to-date security updates to my phone even years after manufacturer's end of support.

[editoron]

Your SOC is very important if you want custom android roms. Is easier to optimaze for Qualcomm Snapdragon than for Samsung Exynos. I had Redmi Note 7 with SD 660. And compatibility with other roms was very good (with Lineage OS is still running very well).

[TheWilldrick]

There are some really good FOSS apps around that I think you overlooked.
Starting with here YouTube, NewPipe (especially Legacy) is really good, is lighter on the battery and on older devices that would struggle to play a 360p video if the ad video started loading in the background of the actual video. There's Signal for messanging, but also SMS. It has some neat features like detecting 2FA codes in some cases and showing a "copy code" right on the notification popup, along with SMS blocking or custom ringtones/rules per contact. Infinity for Reddit is another one that is really useful, lightweight and simple.

[Akselmoi]

I recently got Fairphone 3+ with /e/os preinstalled from Murena. It's solid phone and the os works just as well as regular android (with banking apps too!) and highly recommend it.

[shrobbyy]

Bromite is pretty much the best browser you can have on Android. It's only available in F-Droid via adding their repo but definitely worth trying out.

[NinjaSpotted]

Regarding open-source apps that I use from F-Droid:

mvp - Video Player
Organic Maps - Offline maps support, even public transportation (google maps doesn't)
Fritter - Checking Twitter (no account)
Frost - Facebook client (with account)
Open Note Scanner - Camera Digitalizer to pdf document/image
NewPipe - Youtube Player
Tachiyomi - Manga Reader

[rfdiego]

I find FairEmail a good alternative to K9, it has a lot of useful settings (both great apps anyway). Also, apart from all the privacy concern, changing the ROM to an open one can really boost the performance of your device ( I still use a 2017 Samsung which with his original ROM was unusable)

[thalleshenrique]

Nick, just a small correction: Lawchair doesn't demands Android 12 (maybe just for some Monet/Material You related features, but it still runs on older devices). I used the recent version just fine on an old Android 9 device.

[oalfodr]

I pick my phones based on whether they have good support for lineageOS. My favorite apps are aegis for 2FA, simple gallery, YT vanced, and termux

[youtube.user.]

Perfect timing, I was just researching about android and it’s custom ROMs and you posted this :)