• AdAway – system-wide ad-blocker, works with and without root, but Adguard DNS work well enough so don’t bother if you can’t root.
• Aegis – clean OTP app
• AntennaPod – best podcast player with lots of customisation
• Breezy Weather (requires IzzyOnDroid repo; fork of the abandoned Geometric Weather) – brilliant, beautiful, ad-free weather app with Accuweather data
• CloudStream (IzzyOnDroid) – 🏴‍☠️ video streaming from all over the web
• Doodle Live Wallpaper – FOSS recreation of Google’s Pixel wallpapers with some extra customisation
• Frost for Facebook – pretty web wrapper for browsing Facebook
• LibreTorrent – FOSS, ad-free torrenting app
• OsmAnd+ – OpenStreetMap client with navigation, offline maps and loads and loads of customisation
• Antimine – infinite minesweeper game
• Neo Backup – root-based app data backup
• SimpleAppDowngrader – root-based, allows downgrading apps without uninstalling and retains data files
• Tasks.org – best tasklist available, self-hosted but also works with Google Tasks
• ViMusic – free YouTube Music client, works flawlessly and is very pretty
• Wave Lines Live Wallpaper – customisable wave lines live wallpaper

I used to make a lot of use of Newpipe, and probably should get back to using it more, but I’ve admittedly been preferring to use the mobile site with adblock for a while now, only switching to NewPipe for video downloads, due to how often NewPipe was having issues (presumably caused by frequent Youtube updates). Is that better these days? I sure hope so, it’s a lovely app otherwise that I’d love to use more.

As for my own favorite, it’s hard for me to pick, because there’s several I make use of daily. In no particular order:

• Simple Keyboard - Has been my main mobile keyboard for years now.
• Editor - Just a simple text editor, comes up surprisingly useful.
• Diary - I personally use this as a dream journal, and it works well.
• Simple Calculator - Does exactly what it says on the tin. For some reason, my new phone I got last year doesn’t even come with a calculator, lol.
• Simple Calendar; Simple Gallery - I prefer these to the default Android apps.
• Simple Voice Recorder - I make music sometimes, so this is useful to hum a quick tune before it leaves my head.
• TimeR Machine - I use this during daily exercise as a HIIT Timer.

I’d also recommend RedReader, but I can’t in good faith do that anymore because of what’s going on with Reddit these days. Haven’t used it or the site much since June.

I’d say my favorite is probably Simple Keyboard just due to how often I use it (read: literally all the time, because it’s a keyboard), but I’ve gotta give mad props to TimeR Machine. It’s genuinely a really polished app, and even gives you a quick walkthrough on how to use it on first startup that’s pretty helpful. It’d be neat to see more apps with those options.-

Unciv is a fully-fledged Civilization clone. It’s honestly insane that such a polished game is not only free, but also open source.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.unciv.app/

• tracker control
• libretube
• qksms
• etar
• mastodon
• podverse
• forecastie
• organic maps
• tracker control
• tracker control

Termux: It makes Android closer to a real computer. I can SSH into machines, rsync files to my NAS, and build and compile applications.

It’s usually the first thing I install.

OsmAnd~

Makes navigating around easier especially as someone who likes walking.

Edit because somebody mentioned about the lack of description and link of apps:

OsmAnd~ is a FOSS alternative to Google Maps and uses OpenStreetMap for its data. You can download it here.

Fennec or Mull for browsers.

• Antennapod, podcast
• DAVx5, calendar and contacts sync
• DuckDuckGo
• Element
• Fedilab, mastodon
• Fennec, firefox
• Florisboard, gboard alt
• Imagepipe, image privacy
• Jerboa, lemmy
• KDE connect
• KeepassDX
• KISS launcher
• Nextcloud
• Noice, ambient noise generator
• Ntfy, UnifiedPush notifications
• Organic Maps, openstreetmaps
• Read You, rss reader
• Shelter
• Simple calendar, contacts, sms etc
• Syncthing-Fork
• Transistor, radio
• Transportr, public transport
• Tuner, music instrument tuner
• UntrackMe Lite

TLDR:

• NewPipe for YouTube playback

• OsmAnd+ for great offline maps with lots of customisability

• Termux for terminal emulation and ssh

• StreetComplete to easily contribute map data to the OpenStreetMap project, which also powers OsmAnd+ without knowing anything about OSM

• KeePassDX for convenient and secure password storage including autofill (combined with Syncthing for syncing your databases this is a fully fledged password manager across platforms)

• AdAway as a reliable adblocker for all applications which doesn’t require root, but can use the benefits of rooting your device to increase its usefulness even more

+1 for all the NewPipe mentions, as it’s extremely useful especially for background playback

Also OsmAnd+ is incredibly useful if you don’t want to give your location data to Google constantly. The maps are equally as good as those of the tech giants and it gets expanded regularly with actually useful features, like most recently, weather data. Its biggest strength however is the customisability in my opinion, because you can style everything according to your needs, starting at the overlay and the style of the map and going on at the specific level of detail and custom navigation modes. Additionally, you can download maps of the entire world for free and they get updated regularly. Only downside: There is no traffic data as of now, probably because it would be difficult to implement without processing user data. It’s also on the Play Store, but there the “+” version costs money and because the project in itself is commited to being open source I think it’s important to list

Lastly, Termux really is the best terminal emulator for Android out there. It is extremely powerful, even allows sh hooks into system utilities like brightness and biometric login, and has great styling and widget support. You can even install full Linux-OS’s in a sandbox via proot!

edit: add even more great apps

NewPipe for Sure. Normal YouTube apps is bloated as hell + NewPipe is very nice to listen music

I wouldn’t want my boss to know how much time I’m spending using Feudal Tactics.

• Organic maps - OpenStreetMap (OSM) client with offline maps
• Street complete - Convenient way to contribute OSM by adding missing information
• Markor - Markdown note taker
• Scrambled exif - Metadata remover from images
• Librera reader - PDF & eBook reader

TrackerControl

The in-app search of f-droid sucks, tho.

• Newpipe (adfree YouTube client)
• Thunder (responsive Lemmy client)
• Geometric Weather (great weather app)
• FBreader (low resource eBook reader)
• KDE connect (sync between phone and laptop)
• Glider (HackerNews app)
• Orgzly (needlessly complex org-mode renderer)
• Skymap (Position-aware constellation viewer)
• Open Camera (impressive photo app)
• PianOli (fun piano app)
• Moonlight (game streaming client)
• WLANScanner (find hidden WiFi camera/devices/networks in hotels)

Syncthing, which syncs my files between my phone and computer. I can rip a music CD on my computer and it’s instantly sent to my phone so I can listen to it on the bus or wherever.