7 Free Privacy-Friendly Alternatives to Popular Android Apps – How-To Geek
Whether you want to replace invasive, closed-source apps with more privacy-friendly ones, or simply want to support open-source devs, here’s a list of some awesome alternatives to everyday apps.
Regular chatbot apps (Claude, Copilot, ChatGPT, and others) require you to log in with an account, and they can even use that data to train their AI. Let me show you a way you can access AI chatbots privately.
You will need the DuckDuckGo browser app, which you can install from the Play Store or the F-Droid store. It’s an open-source browser, designed to anonymize you on the internet as much as possible. It also has a mini app inside where you can talk to any of these chatbots:
When you have installed the app, tap the chat bubble icon next to the address bar to open the Duck AI interface. Here you can choose one of the AI models and start talking to it. By default, DuckDuckGo will also keep a chat history of the conversation threads. You can disable it in the settings if you like. In either case, the model thinks the prompt is coming from DuckDuckGo instead of you.
You don’t need to open the browser and then tap the bubble icon to get to the Duck AI interface every time. Let’s create a single tap shortcut on the home screen.
Long press on the home screen or pinch with two fingers and select Widgets. Scroll through the widget selection, find Duck.ai shortcut, and drag it to the main screen. Now you just have to tap this shortcut to launch the chatbot window.
The YouTube app connects with your Google accounts by default, and it tracks your activity to keep you hooked on the platform. If you want to watch YouTube without a Google account and without any algorithms pushing content on you, try NewPipe.
NewPipe is an alternative version of YouTube that has no ads, no recommendation engine, and no account sign-in. This YouTube app doesn’t have a Shorts feed either, so you’ll never doom-scroll on NewPipe.
It does have every feature you would want in your YouTube app though. You can play videos in the background, in the mini player, queue them, download them, and add them to playlists. You can also subscribe to channels, browse comments, see related videos, and bookmark playlists.
Since NewPipe doesn’t connect with a Google account, you won’t find a list of subscribed channels here. However, there is a workaround for it. You can download that subscription data from YouTube and import it into NewPipe. NewPipe will automatically populate the subscriptions tab with new uploads from those channels.
You can install it from the F-Droid store.
Aurora Store is an alternative to Google Play Store. Let me show you why it’s better. First, Aurora Store has every free app that the Play Store has, so you are not missing out on any free apps but abandoning the official Play Store and switching to Aurora. Second, it works without a Google account or reliance on Google Play Services, so you can browse the store and install apps anonymously.
The screenshots, descriptions, rating and review cards featured in the Play Store are available here too, but the Aurora Store provides you even more useful information. It’ll tell you if an app requires Google Play Services to work and if it has any trackers embedded in it.
On the Play Store, you can only download the latest version of an app, so if you don’t like an update, you’re just stuck with it. With Aurora Store, you can choose which version of the app you’re installing with a single tap. Even if you have already installed a new version, you can roll it back to a preferred version with this manual control.
I recently reviewed Heliboard and explained why it replaced Gboard as my default. It has pretty much every feature that Gboard does and then some, but the best part is that it’s 100% offline (as a keyboard should be) and never connects to the internet to send your sensitive typing data anywhere. That alone makes it more secure than any keyboard that connects to the internet.
You can customize it with themes, change layouts, and dimensions of the keyboard. There’s a clipboard history feature where you can pin snippets. You can force incognito mode, so the keyboard doesn’t learn phrases and words to suggest later (which it does by default).
HeliBoard also has autocorrect, a suggestion strip, and you can even enable gesture typing (but the gesture typing feature requires importing a closed-source library).
Your calendar dailies and agendas are sensitive data that you might want to keep private. You can quickly replace Google Calendar with Tuta Calendar. It’s open source and cross-platform, so it syncs across devices.
Install it from F-Droid and sign up for a free Tuta mail account. Once that’s done, you can import your schedule and agenda into the Tuta calendar. First, export the schedule from your current app in a .ics format and tap the three dots in the Tuta Calendar sidebar. Choose import and select the .ics file, and the app will instantly update with your dailies.
Mainstream password managers—like LastPass, 1Password, BitWarden—that store your login credentials in the cloud aren’t perfectly safe. Data breaches happen all the time, so just like keyboard apps, I believe password managers should stay offline too. That way, your data stays on your device, you have total control over it, and you can protect it with encryption.
I put together a list of some awesome offline password managers, but if you want a simple password manager that works on Android, Linux, and Windows, try Passy. It works on multiple platforms, available on Windows, Linux, and as a browser extension. The best part is that it doesn’t connect to the internet at all and your sensitive data never leaves your device’s storage.
You don’t have to rebuild the password database, if you already use a password manager. You can export it in CSV, Aegis, or KDBX formats and safely import it into Passy. Once you’ve imported it into Passy, delete the original exported file.
Passy also supports autofill and auto-sync with homelab setups. Other than passwords and login info, you can also store ID, notes, payment cards, and files in the Passy vaults.
You can replace your default news feed app with Nunti. It’s a cute RSS feed reader that can learn your preferences as you rate the articles. Usually in RSS feed apps, you have to manually paste in URLs to build a feed, but Nunti simplifies the process.
Launch the app, and start by picking a theme, and then build a feed by picking topics of interest. For example, I chose tech, science, and movies, and Nunti automatically populated the feed with articles from popular sources. You can also add feeds manually by feeding Nunti the URL of the RSS feed.
I can swipe right on an article to like it and swipe left to dislike it. After you’ve rated about 50 articles, Nunti will adapt to your preferences and filter articles that are most relevant based on your ratings. The more you read with Nunti and the more articles you rate, the better the feed becomes over time.
You can change how the articles are loaded: in browser webview, externally, or in reader mode. You can save articles for offline reading, bookmark them, and preview articles by long-pressing on the headline.
These free, open source alternatives will make your phone more private without sacrificing the core functionality of the mainstream apps. You can always explore an open source repository like F-Droid to find even more alternatives for your most-used apps.
We want to hear from you! Share your opinions in the thread below and remember to keep it respectful.
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Sorry author, Passy is NOT a good replacement!
NOTE: The others store locally and encrypted when send to their servers or “The Cloud” for you iSheeple. They can get hacked all day get themselves gigs of encrypted data. Why … it’s called zero-knowledge architecture. Look it up AKA research like what needs to be done before the first keystroke
The Bad: Informing user to switch to Aurora may lead them to much worse. Nothing against open source or developers as I’m a user and contributor, but this is the easy open for Malware. The apps my or may NOT be vetted and are bypassed by Google Play protect on installation.
You really should include a BIG ASS Caveat
I feel like I would be inviting malware onto my device by installing anything from f-droid.
Because of F-droid deciding that the Bible is NSFW, I will no longer trust them.
Which in my case makes me trust them even more.
Aqui-No It’s amazing how much hate liberals have.
RO you’re so oppressed (by yourself).
Can anybody tell me HOW TO DELETE MY ACCOUNT?
Aurora Store appears require and use your Google account, and not work without that. Using that DOES allow Google to track your access, software installations, and behavior through the app. They cannot track you as completely through Aurora as through Google Play, so it is an improvement. Make certain you select ANONYMOUS to get the more secure mode. F-Droid is better and only directly supports privacy aware FOSS applications.
KeePassDX appears to work better for many people than Passy (just FYI, in case Passy does not DO it for you.) .
