Hello I want to share with you all my random discovery of the day. I don't post much, I'm more in the comments, but I am so happy with these open source apps for my phone that it made me post it or maybe it is because I am under the effects of coffee and I never drink coffee LOL so forgive me haha.
The apps are in development, relatively new, so I think it is worth to share them anyway.
The developers ask for a one time fee payment to have a license forever but they also say nobody is going to stop you from using the apps without payment. I think it is always cool to support open source development. Nothing new.
These are a couple of must have apps if you are wanting to degoogle yourself. Instead of just providing you the links to these apps, I'm going to try and also do some proof of work describing the apps for you and telling me personal opinion.
Grayjay
Replace Youtube and other video platforms with this app.
website: https://grayjay.app
source code: https://gitlab.futo.org/videostreaming/grayjay
This is how Stacker News channel looks like on my phone:
Grayjay is a video player and source aggregator. You can install plugins to read the videos from different sources, like Youtube, Odysee, etc. One app to watch them all.
- You can then choose to see the list of all new videos from all sources in one page, or easily filter by source, or by type, (videos, posts, live streams)
- All subscriptions and settings are stored locally on your phone. Make sure you enable the auto backup all your settings too. If you like NewPipe, I think you will love it too. The player is very similar, you can watch on a popup window over all other apps, or in the background, and the best thing for me is that it has support for sending to the TV via Chromecast or Fcast. Very cool.
- You can make groups of subscriptions, for example all channels you like about Bitcoin, in one group, then browse all those bitcoin channels new videos like a personal RSS feed. Very Cool.
- You can make private offline playlists that are saved only on your phone, and you can easily download the videos so you can watch them later offline.
my personal opinion is that this app is better already than NewPipe and works really well so far. I think it is really worth to try it. Hopefully all content creators move from Youtube to other platforms like Odysee, but let's be real, it is difficult to happen, and this way we can have all the content creators from each platform in one app and the offline settings without sending your data to the cloud is great. Maybe one day NewPipe adds chromecast support? Maybe, but until then, this is my new app for watching videos on the phone or TV.
If some of you may be still using iOS devices, let me paste the info from the FAQ here
Do you have a iOS version?
Not in the near future, our focus right now is a first class Android application.
Futo Keyboard
Replace your Android Goggle Keyboard with this one.
website: https://keyboard.futo.org
source code: https://gitlab.futo.org/alex/latinime
This keyboard is so far the best alternative I've found to the google keyboard. I've been working with florisboard keyboard but it has been slow in development for quite a while now.
Keep in my that it is in ALPHA version right now. But so far it is working well. It has a good looking interface, and setup welcome screen, making it very easy to setup.
- It works offline, without sending the data you type to Google. It also comes with voice input using AI whisper models to for voice recognition and works really well. All offline. I don't know about you, but this is a must have for me at least because the keyboard is something you constantly use on a phone.
I like the design, it has several themes too. It has all the important functions you expect from a keyboard, coming from the goggle keyboard app. The only thing I miss for now, or I don't know how to configure is language autodetection for the auto correction and text prediction, the language at least can be switched with the space bar but auto detection would be nice. I guess they are working on it.
How to install
You can install them directly downloading the APK files from their websites mentioned or, more recommended to have update notifications, using F-Droid, adding a custom repository from here: https://app.futo.org/fdroid/repo/
or Using Obtainium
about Futo
FUTO is an organization dedicated to developing, both through in-house engineering and investment, technologies that frustrate centralization and industry consolidation.
to finish the post I thought it is interesting to mention the main Futo page with much more information https://futo.org and more great apps!!!
But I just wanted to mention these two, that I tested today.
worth to read the What is Futo page and what problem they are solving:
https://futo.org/about/what-is-futo/
Happy stacking!
Quark
It is only for Android devices.
Video
The License
Copyright License
Limitations