what is your favorite f-droid app?

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/

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)

Geometric weather ☁️ is awesome 👍
- use breezy weather as geometric isn't updated anymore
  u/tetris11
  how does ping work on lemmy?
what's the org name for Thunder? Searching thunder or lemmy doesn't get results, search is pretty shit.
- https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.hjiangsu.thunder
It seems on FDroid at least that FBreader is no longer available as a FOSS app.

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.

Organic Maps for fast FOSS raster maps
This is the überapp, 10 yearsinddevelopmenrt and I'm still fascinated reading the changelog on major releases. Use it almost daily.
I keep trying OpenStreetMaps based mapping apps, but giving up on them because they can never seem to find locations I search for by address.
- Yeah I don't think they're as accurate and I'm trying to fix it for my local area. For some reason, updates to the map are a bit slow to update.

Termux (Linux terminal) is super cool, and you can install a lot of cools programs through it as well. Add in the plugins for tasker integration/etc and it can be used for some pretty cool things (ie, use wol to wake up your computer when you get close to your house, etc).

Yeah. Termux is really useful to quickly ssh into something without having to go to my pc.
That's really interesting. Are you using a keyboard and mouse? Or is this like on a Android desktop setup?
- By default the app is just a terminal with an on-screen keyboard. Packages installed and run through it are normally terminal only, although there is some amount of support for connecting to a separate app that runs an x server.
  
  There are several other projects that download arm Linux distributions, and install them inside termux to get a full desktop going though. Normally for these you actually interact with the desktop through a VNC client connected to a localhost VNC running on the Linux distro. A VNC client is a good way to handle accessing the desktop since most of them come with a lot of UI design/polish for controlling a desktop computer via a phone screen.

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.

Is the sync LAN only?
- Yes. With a vpn you should be able to bypass that restriction.
- Syncthing can work over the internet with no additional config, they use Relays for that (similar to what Plex offers when port forwarding is not possible)

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

Thanks for this list! Breezy Weather and Tasks.org just made it into my rotation

There's so many I could list, I'll just mention 2 underrated ones I don't see mentioned as much:

LibreTube - Best YouTube client imo, has a very nice and modern interface, proxies videos through Piped for maximum privacy (No direct connections to Google are made), No ads/tracking, SponsorBlock + Return YouTube Dislikes, support for downloading videos, etc. It's everything I'd want and more out of a YouTube client.
URLCheck - Excellent app that allows you to preview what a URL is before you click it, includes tons of features such as scanning for malware, removing any tracking parameters, upgrading links from HTTP to HTTPS, etc. I can't recommend this app enough for the security, privacy, and general peace of mind it gives you.

URLCheck is extremely underrated!

It also prevents other apps from knowing what app the URL originated from (by acting as a proxy), and lets you customize the activity flags too

KISS launcher is the easiest way to avoid Google search.

TrackerControl is the easiest way to just disconnect an app from the internet.

I can't express my love for KISS launcher enough
+1 for TrackerControl. Love blocking/allowing specific categories/domains for an app. If the app doesn't need it to do what I want it to do, I block it (looking at you, ads).
How to get "at a glance" in the launcher ? The thing that shows day,date and weather. Also is there an app drawer? Like swipe up to show all apps instead of scrolling

Gotta be AdAway this thing is a must especially for root users

What does AdAway do differently for root users?
I recently switched to AdAway from AdGuard. More ads seem to get through in apps, but combined with unlock in Firefox websites are completely clean.
- Were you using the Adguard app or the DNS's?
  
  I usually use AdAway with root and with my pihole at home (and outside home with VPN) and I barely see any ads, although I haven't tested with Android apps.
Looks cool! Can anyone weigh in on how similar this is to DDG's tracking blocker feature? Is it the same but open source?
- Its basically just a host file. It pulls in a huge file with all the ad domains and whenever your phone tries to connect to one it gets ignored. Therefore it also works for ads in apps.
- Does DDG allow you to import lists? Does it have a VPN-less mode? Can it work system wide?

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

I use Libretube, newpipe x sponsorblock, Liftoff, Aegis, all the Simple apps (Gallery, Draw, File Manager, etc) I use too many

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.

I've always wondered, how exactly does termux work? Is it fully emulating the terminal, or does it somehow accelerate processing by tapping into the underlying Linux kernel on Android?
- According to some post on Reddit it's actually using the Android kernel
  
  https://www.reddit.com/r/termux/comments/y7yqls/is_termux_a_virtual_machine/

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

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

+1 for StreetComplete. I downloaded from a recommendation on Lemmy and have enjoyed contributing to OSM on my daily walks!
I see you've mentioned scrambled exif and I want to recommend FFShare. It also scrambles exit data but also can compress media before sharing it.
- ImagePipe is another one. Handles exif remove, compression/scaling, and a bunch of other transformations. I've been really happy with it.
- Thanks for recommending it. I installedi it few weeks ago, but haven't even tried it because of my old habit of using Scrambled exif. I actually though that FFShare is only for compression and removing metadata from videos. I'll give it a try soon.

Probably KeepassDX, Syncthing and Mull. Newpipe is also a good one, especially since it also supports PeerTube.

Edit: Oh and I forgot about Jerboa.

I'm a LibreTube person myself, but only because I can't figure out how to access a YT channel's playlists in NewPipe. A couple of my subscriptions have unlisted videos that are in playlists (for example MLIG live streams). LibreTube isn't perfect though. I cannot fully disable the "Home" page.

Also

AntennaPod (Podcatcher), Imagepipe (Image manipulation esp exifdata), Tusky (mastodon client)

Fennec or Mull for browsers.

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

NewPipe has only one problem: the inability to log into your Google account and keep your subscriptions and watch later playlist synced.
- "Problem."*
  
  Those of us who degoogled see this as a pro not a con.
  
  I'd also blame youtube, iirc there is no way to export your playlists to a .csv, which could then be imported to something like newpipe easily. Of course, youtube doesn't want to let you do that because the only thing keeping people from newpipe is really this "sunken cost" aspect to it.

AppManager. Super stable, feature-packed app that can do nearly everything with your apps.

AdAway. No ads in apps. At all.

Simple utilities. Just very good replacement for Google proprietary suite of apps. Good design, feature-rich, simple to use. Developer is really awesome!

Can you add a link to simple utilities, I can't find it on f-droid
- It is just apps from one developer in one suite: Simple Gallery, Simple Calendar, Calculator, Clock, Phone etc.. Link to Simple app suite website.

Hm, nextcloud and DavX5 are crucial for me (file, calendar and contact sync)

Also Aegis as 2FA client and KeePassDX as PasswordManager (both synced via nextcloud)

I wont list all the messengers ^^'

I use KeePass and Syncthing, but for mild fun I like Lexica and StreetComplete.

Lexica is a word finding game on a grid with a timer, and it's very customizable (size of grid, min length of words, length of timer, etc). Words can and often do cross over themselves and run in all directions. Invariably I will miss stupid obvious words, and I'm always interested to see the list of missed words at the end. They provide definitions for the ones you just don't believe and have to click.

StreetComplete is a way to update Open Streetmap with goals and badges and all that gamification jazz. For an additional personal challenge, try updating house data without making homeowners look at you funny and/or call the cops.

Oh yeah, I use IITC-CE too, because Ingress is life. And Niantic can take a flying leap.

Kotatsu - manga reader ViMusic - a nice online music player NeoStore - a nice, modern f-droid front end.

Kotatsu is a good one, people often don't recommend kotatsu. Maybe that's because tachiyomi offers more features.
Speaking of manga readers, Komikku is also a manga reader on Linux for Gnome. It's really awesome

kiss launcher it has changed how I use my phone

it's so simple yet so effective.

bonus, I can set the default search engine away from useless Google.
Does it support Quickswitch?

I can't stand animations with A13 and third party launchers.

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.-

Newpipe has been very stable lately.

Behind NewPipe it would be Gadgetbridge and Feeder

Termux and KDE connect.

No love for DNS66? Are there better ways to block ads now?

I love dns66 it's the only way to adblock on my network provider and it works great
I use nextdns in 'private dns' options on my android phone to block ads. This give me the option to use VPN, which I wouldn't get if i use DNS66 or Adaway.
How does this compare to AdAway?
Can someone tell me how it compares to PiHole?

AntennaPod (Podcasts)
Feeder (RSS Feeds)
Markor (Text Editor)
OsmAnd~ (Offline Maps/Navigation)
Scrambled Exif (Metadata Remover)

Seconding AntennaPod. I moved to it when Player.fm got insufferable with suggestions to upgrade.

It could improve in a couple of issues, but I general it's amazing.

Droid-ify (I prefer it to F-droid)
Immich
Syncthing
Paperless Mobile
WireGuard
Joplin
VLC
Aegis Authenticator
Obtainium
Shelter
Catan Dice Game

Oh yes Aegis Authenticator. Its so essential, I forgot. Plus Bitwarden Passwordmanager
Immich seems cool! Its website warms it's under active development, what do you think of it? What do you think of it compared to other gphotos alternatives?
- Until recently, I was using Photoprism. I'd donated via Github a couple of times, as they were promising multi-user capability. They delivered it - behind a paid subscription model. Immich makes it available as is.
  
  I finally took the plunge with Immich a couple of weeks ago, and I love it. I haven't really experienced any major bugs - the facial recognition is... OK. Not (yet) Google Photos good, but getting there. The machine learning has also done a recent job on object recognition. I can usually search for the main object in my ~15k of photos, and get a small enough set of results that I can reasonably quickly find the exact photo I was looking for.
  
  I'm about to onboard my wife onto it, now that I'm satisfied (and have my backup strategy in place). That will be the next test.
  
  The dev is very active and responsive - I posed a question in the tech support channel on the Immich Discord server, on a weekend, and he responded in about an hour with a couple of suggestions. Colour me impressed - he'll be getting my next tech donation, for sure.
  
  Keen to see where he plans on taking it - the app definitely needs some additional features to get closer to parity with Google Photos. Auto-sharing of recognised faces would be great (so my wife and I can auto-share pics of our daughter with each other), plus some basic search filters - dates, places, faces all in a single search would be a good place to start.

There's a really good third-party Photoprism app on F Droid. So much nicer than using the web app.

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

For anyone looking for tracker control, it's called trackercontrol on f-droid, and only showed up for me when typed as one word.

Thanks for the recommendations!

TrackerControl

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

I like Termux (terminal emulator) and Xeonjia (fun little game)

Simple Gallery and Simple Filebrowser are awesome! Also KDE Connect, Davx, Catima and Etar, my favourite calendar app!

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

People have mentioned a lot so I'll just add Freshdrops as an RSS reader. Can work with self hosted ones, etc.

Don't forget to donate to app devs!

I can't seem to find it. Is it on some particular repo?
- Ugh, mixed up my RSS service and the app. It's Readrops. Sorry about that.

I haven't been on fdroid in years but I and mostly my kid used use play this silly matching game called Doda the Explodad or something, themed after Doria the explorer

I haven't explored the other options too much yet but 90% of the time, my pad is running Librera FD https://f-droid.org/packages/com.foobnix.pro.pdf.reader/ which I think you have to pay money for at the Google store. It's a great document reader and I really like the musician mode.

Subtracks, its an client app that plays music that's streamed from your self hosted music server.

Anuto TD: addictive tower defense game

Check out Mindustry, It's on fdroid.

torrent-csv and Amnis player instead of streaming services.

Amnis is a play store app.

Insular and IceRaven to name a few.

What was your decision process in choosing insular above shelter?

How seamless is freezing and unfreezing?
- I chose it after someone recommended it to me to run banking apps while rooted. Has worked fine for all my payment and banking apps so far. Haven't tried freezing and unfreezing as they work without doing these steps.

Handy reading

Neostore (I prefer that to f Droid) LibreTube/NewPipe Sponsorblock Aves Libre for gallery Aegis authenticator for 2fa Bitwarden Fairmail Doodle - live wallpapers Liftoff for lemmy Antimine - minesweeper Mull/Bromite/Fennec/Chromium for browsers

Pie launcher + faster. The lightweight minimalistic combo for a distraction-free phone.