What is a privacy friendly application that you'd love to have, but no one has developed yet?

Open source cars…

They already do this with farming equipment.

They have blueprints to build your own tractor with DIY materials from the hardware store.

Although open source cars might lead to tons of safety issues...
- Although open source cars might lead to tons of safety issues...
  
  They said open source, not DIY.
- Fully DIY stuff is usually a bad idea. Production lines have a purpose. Also when a component goes out of stock it usually becomes a hassle.
  
  Repairability and spare parts are way more important
Might be easier to start with something "simpler" like the ECU or infotainment unit.
I feel like this would be more helpful than a lot of things

An open source and private chat app that everybody wants to use

Signal works. The adoption is fairly slow, but I've had friends slowly begin to use it.
- Signal gets some things right, but others wrong, such as phone numbers and centralized architecture. As such, it doesn't fit the "everybody wants to use" part.
- I've been using Signal since like 2016 and have not seen any appreciable adoption rate whatsoever within my social network.
  
  I used to actively try to get people to use it but I got enough ambivalent or negative responses that I just stopped asking.
- My biggest problem with Signal is how much battery it uses when you don't have Google services on your phone.
  
  It easily uses 30-40% of my battery compared to the rest.
- Signal is great. I miss when it worked with SMS. There are 2 E2EE SMS apps that I'm aware of, bit one is not well supported and the other needs quite a bit of UI work before it's usable by the general public. Also, neither can be used as the default SMS app on Apple phones,but that's not the app's fault.
- My problem is that it does not work on multiple devices at the same time, so I have personally given up on it. Maybe it has changed, did not check for a long time.
- They are currently in bit trouble as their funds are gone
We got reasonably close with signal, but I know what you mean. I've had friends think I was some sort of escaped convict just because I'd rather use Matrix to chat instead of FB.
https://signal.org/ ?

I love it and have gotten everyone to want to use it?
- Lucky you
Signal feels the closest, it's basically equivalent to other messaging apps. Somewhat cleaner and easier to use IMO

The only downside is chat backups for people coming from Messenger, in particular those on iOS devices. Streamlining that process might get me to go "contact me on signal, I don't check messenger often", but right now I get why there's a last bit of friction with my friends

WhatsApp has a similar limitation but they walk you through the backups process. Even then, they limit backups to google drive iirc. Signal could do something similar, but much better by explaining the process and opening up backup locations
Session is coming along nicely, and has true anonymous accounts. But that "everyone wants to use" requirenent is a killer.
The problem here is that a really private application would be p2p over i2p/TOR, but with people behind CG-NAT that is becoming quite troublesome
Some of the hurtles I've encountered using privacy focused chat apps with friends and family is the lack of smooth group chats and adding people remotely.

Some apps have a QR code feature but also allow you to enter a code. It can be a challenge to setup with older family members.
- boomers will always complain and cry.
  
  in their minds, they should be able to buy a device and when they open it up, it should already come pre-installed with their granddaughter's name and contact ready to go through a mind reading technology that knows that knows who bought the device and knows who exactly they want to talk to and when.
  
  Star Trek on steroids or something idk.

NFC payments app.

Same. It sucks that most banks wouldn't jump on this train :(
Payment industry regulations are just too much for an open source free project

I know it's an unobtainable dream, but a banking app for every bank on any platform.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_banking

All banks in EU have APIs for this purpose (also see PSD2).
- Banks in the US use Open Banking APIs too, they won't open it up for the public to use, though. Every company, not just banks, wants us to have their app on our phone.
- This seems to be more of bank-to-bank protocol than a bank-to-customer protocol.
Banks could simply come together and develop an open banking standard for customers. Would probably save them a lot of money too, since the development of their stupid apps presumably costs them a lot.
- Yeah, but think about all the data they can gather for their marketing team and the ads they can send over notifications.
- no way bro that would be too simple and easy for the customer! nah best to just have tracker injected bloated apps infesting everyone's phones.
Maybe thats not too dreaming in some countries... Brazil for example (use the translate that u prefer from pt-BR)
Just use a psyche processor on your Navi and then you can figure out the rest by yourself.

Software that burns down the server of any website that asks for data they don't actually need.

Converse, the fucking shoe company refused to sell me shoes unless I provided a DOB near payment screen. I put in a fake one and my payment didn't validate.

Not that DOBs are private anymore with the last 10 years of breaches, fuck I had medical history AND DMV breached separately in the MoveIt heist this year...and these companies just want us to keep shelling out data

health smartwatch app, with sleep n all features in some opensource format that could use any other app data... utopia, i know

GadgetBridge (Android). You need one of the (many) supported smartwatches. Data is easily exported and processable with, eg, R.
Apple health lets you export the whole shebang as XML if that helps at all
- I've heard Garmin can also be used local only with the data exported?
How about this? https://gadgetbridge.org/

I'm able to use it with a Mi Band 7 and I haven't lost any of the original functionality
I like the pinetime, although it definitely isn't all that.
ty all, ll look for them
Gadgetbridge supports a lot of watches.

Not sure if this already exists in some form, but I want something that always records where I've been. I am a very forgetful person and the Google maps timeline feature has been very helpful more than a handful of times. Unfortunately, it means that Google knows exactly where I've been also...

I just want to be able to check where I was the afternoon of a random Tuesday three years ago!

Assuming you can self host, check out OwnTracks (Android). It does that, and you control all the data.
Someone mentioned GPSLogger & Location Map Viewer here: https://lemmy.ca/comment/5402752

I haven't tried them yet, but that could work. I'd also love an easy-to-use version of this, it's just so useful.

When did I last go to the doctor? What was that restaurant we ate at that night?

so helpful
I use GPS Logger as well. Everything is saved locally in a kml file. The trick is to find an optimal settings which gives you enough data points but doesn't kill your batteey in the process.
This is something I'm very interested in too.

Signal to work for SMS again 🙄🙄🙄

For real! One of the things that made using Signal a non-issue for me was due to it being able to use SMS as a fall-back and therefore didn't need me to push friends to also install another message app. I really only first installed it because it was the messaging app my local chapter of the SRA was using. I was excited that it did the shit I loved about the old Google Hangouts before they unnecessarily chose to break shit back out into three replacements. Being able to use a more feature rich messaging service when the people I am messaging also have it is awesome. But being able to still send a basic SMS from the same app without leaving is super nice. It is the main thing I always envied about how iMessage has worked basically forever.

Fortunately some of my friends and co-workers also have needed to install Signal for similar reasons I did or for remote therapy stuff. But it is so hard to get others to just install it just because it is privacy focused and since we already have Facebook Messenger/Discord/Snap/IG/Line and of course SMS. Also hate feeling like I am being pushy or annoying unless I am directly asked about apps to try or some specific reason.

I also have fond memories of using Gaim/Pidgin back in the day for being able to just have one IM client that could work with basically whatever any of my friends/contacts liked using. A universal chat/message client really seems like something that would be cool to see come back.
- I know right? Makes me so mad, I used to donate to them, but removing SMS is gonna kill uptake
- Sms isn't secure or private, it doesn't make sense to include it in a privacy focused messaging app.
  
  I also would like to have a universal messaging client but sadly it doesn't seem possible , just look at the recent reverse engineered iMessage apps, why would you waste all that effort reverse-engineering proprietary chat apps, when they can get (and will get) shut down by the service. Especially while better, open protocols exist.
- Try beeper, it'll let you use sms and signal (among others) on the same app, the app isn't open source but their server infrastructure is open source and self hostable (it might not be easy to self host it though)
I wish!!!

A browser addon that utterly floods advertisers and trackers with dummy data. A single person using it is easy to single out. A thousand start to eat into the profits. 100k should make them go offline (DDoS'ed) with an interesting frequency.

There is one that clicks every ad it sees. Adnauseam.
- Something like that, but that manages to click at least 50 times would be awesome
This would be amazing

A ridiculously user-friendly encrypted email default.

DeltaChat?
I'm so used to GPG, I no longer know which parts aren't user friendly.
- The hard part is getting used to it. How do I share my public keys? How do I use GPG (the program)? How do I access them easily? What do I do when I want to encrypt my mails on desktop (maybe Windows+Linux), laptop, and phone? It's just relatively much work to gather the knowledge.
  
  + the fact there're not many people using it
Even between providers? I think it won't ever be easy as long as the protocol isn't encrypted by default (which it will never be honestly)

Something that produces a wealth of plausible web traffic on my connection and browser that woefully misleads anyone monitoring it as to what I actually am browsing. Rather than hiding my traffic or ensuring some hyper level of encryption I simply want to use maybe an LLM or something to create such a close facimilie to "normal" online traffic that my online fingerprint becomes useless as sub 5% of my traffic is actually real.

Essentially I want privacy through drowning out everything with noise. It seems like the harder the to unwind in the end if done in a clever way. That plus some basic security protections and I will feel fairly secure.

That's the premise behind AdNauseam, albeit only for ads and not general navigation: It clicks all the ads in the background, so the data won't ever target the real you.

Do services count? Because in that case, ride-hailing. A replacement for services like Uber and Lyft.

A private ride hailing app sounds like a safety nightmare. It's one of those things you want blazingly documented and auditable
- I agree that data collection is a good security measure in this case. But privacy friendly does not necessarily mean there is no data collected. Important is that nothing is shared with 3rd parties and all data is well protected.
So true! In Germany we have Blablacar and Flixbus / Flixtrain, which have soo much better services to travel cheaply. But its proprietary "install our app" garbage
What's wrong with taxi services?
From a client perspective Uber and Lyft don't solve any issue that taxi services don't. They may be more convenient/accessible by providing an app, but that's not an unsolvable issue.
But from a privacy perspective taxis clearly have a leg up since you're an anonymous customer.
- Off the top of my head, taxi services lack:
  
  Convenient hailing. A phone call works okay if you're home, where there isn't much noise and you speak the local language, but a web form is often much easier and less error-prone in other situations.
  
  Efficient coverage. Many areas either have sparse taxi coverage, or multiple taxi companies competing in an area, and if the one you call doesn't have enough drivers available and nearby, you're stuck waiting unreasonably long even if there are other ride options with better availability.
  
  Up-front journey-specific prices. We now have the technology to see what the total cost will be before we commit to a ride. We should be using it.
  
  A single point of hailing, where I can submit my location and destination, and be presented with my ride options from all the available providers.
  
  Accurate pick-up and drop-off time estimates. Even better with real-time taxi location.
  
  Quick arrival.
  
  Automated ride-sharing coordination among strangers.
  
  Fuel efficiency incentives. Most taxis I've taken have been heavy vehicles that guzzle petrol, passing the expense on to the environment and the customer.
  
  I think most (maybe all) of this could be solved by something like a clearinghouse for taxi rides, effectively federating the various taxi services in an area, with a web app available for hailing.

I just want GoG but for movies

There are some apps on fdroid that aggregate shows and movies from several websites
- Sorry I should have clarified.
  
  I want to legally buy my movie paying it to the creators, and be able do do whatever I want with my copy with me knowing I bought it just for buying it and being allowed to Own it without it being a DVD, because I don't want DVDs, because I live in 16m² and I move way to often, while keeping the concept of buying it

Me getting ideas from this thread

please take them :)

Not sure if this counts, but a simple FOSS BIOS/UEFI option that could be installed on most desktops and laptops. The current options (Libreboot, coreboot) are very limited in compatible hardware.

Android auto

There are some projects that already do this

A version of WhatsApp that doesn't require full access to all your contacts to work properly. I have about 10 people I need to Whatapp with - I just want to add those people. Meta doesn't need to know my Doctor's phone number.

Not sure if its useful to you but grapheneos has contact scopes that lets you choose which contacts an application has access to.
You can't do that because its proprietary software. Also meta makes money from data so it makes sense they would want to analyze your contacts
- I never said it was attainable.

I would like a browser addon that drops poisoned data when surfing the web. Instead of trying to restrict how much of my data gets collected, spread useless data across their sites.

Adnauseum does this. I think it simulates clicks to ads and corrupts your advertising profile.

A local personal assistant that isn't just focused on media consumption or purchasing. I want to ask about my most efficient route or ideal presents for my partner or a medical condition without it being data mined.

What about mycroft?

an anonymous front-end for viewing Facebook pages á la Nitter or Invidious.

Yes please. Very frustrating encountering businesses and groups that only have a presence on facebook, no dedicated website or anything 😒

An open source app for those bag, key, and wallet trackers. Maybe I just haven't been able to find one

That won't really work because the trackers themselves need other people's phones to work so they basically have to be integrated with some large phone vendor's or phone OS vendor's infrastructure.
- I'm not looking for a Tile-like network. Most of these cheap devices seem to work off of just letting you know when you are disconnecting from their Bluetooth as far as I know.

I made a weather app for android because most of them wanted my data.

Which one? I'm using geometric weather, and there is a FOSS clone/adaptation called breezy weather that I'd love to use but unfortunately there's an unfixable bug, so I'm more than happy to look for alternatives.
- It's called Weather Warbler. It's very simple. Still adding additional features when I have time.
- I like wX on F-Droid.

Good Todolist app like MS Todo, but better and privacy friendly and open source

Not sure if this exists at all, privacy friendly or not, but it is something where privacy would be extremely important.

I would love to have some sort of application that allows the mapping of atomic (as in minimal) political statements and their logical relationships (e.g. if this is true then this other statement can't also be true) and evidence from media for their truth or falsehood. Probably also some sort of glossary of precise word definitions and which statement uses which of the definitions. This part should probably be done publicly and shared with other users apart from maybe a mechanism to obscure who added which information but this next part can not be public but lots of people would want the information. You should be able to mark each of those statements as something you agree with or not and then explore the implications of your opinions.

I feel something like that would be nice to replace the constant repetition of the same arguments on the same issues, especially if one could publicly link to individual statements from anywhere on the internet.

hmm, that sounds interesting. have you checked out Ground News? this reminds me of that
- I like the concept of Ground News, but about the privacy...
  
  According to Exodus, their mobile app contains 9 trackers:
  
  Amplitude
  
  AppsFlyer
  
  Facebook Analytics
  
  Facebook Login
  
  Facebook Share
  
  Google Analytics
  
  Google Crashlytics
  
  Google Firebase Analytics
  
  Google Tag Manager
  
  Also wants location, camera, phone state, and advertising ID access?!
  
  No thanks.
I'm going to keep this in mind, I'm working on a similar tagging API

For Signal to actually show notifications, I don't understand how this bug still exists after years of it being known.

Mine does on android ? Or you mean like popups?
- Members of my family on iOS bitch about this regularly. I'm tired of hearing about it. Works fine on my android device.
- Android!!
  
  And like 5 different people I know have the same issue on android.
  
  The only fix I was able to do was use molly-foss which doesn't use google push notifications but it really drains the battery

Ever since Signal removed SMS capability I've really hoped to see SMS added to the FOSS fork Molly.

A good Invidious player with locally stored datas.
AntennaPod fork with improved local music management (tags).
A dedicated good PeerTube app.

check out freetube for invidious

check out newpipe as well for peertube

Search engine like yacy. Open scource and p2p.

Havent tried every app but If I had to think of some:

an offline foss calendar that can import ics files (simple calendar is the only option soon fossify)
an app that can display Checksums for files
a dark privacy overlay for phones that can't use privacy screen protectors, like newer gen pixels

Edit: Second an offline fitness tracker where a person can manually input info. Been using an ods file for a couple of years but its a pain to use collabora on android

an offline foss calendar that can import ics files (simple calendar is the only option soon fossify)

khal, for Linux. For mobile there's an ICS adaptor for use with your offline foss calendar app - there are several in fdroid.

an app that can display Checksums for files

DeadHash calculates and validates a half dozen different hash sums for files.
- Damn I appreciate you. Thank you

An open-source, federated, and privacy-protecting alternative to the dominant advertising services. Something that gives the individual web user full control of which ads they see; from which indies, organizations, companies or any other groups. And where they can also filter ads based on clear categories, values, or tags, rather than everything being dictated by algorithms and "relevancy".

I actually didn't think about it much, because I block all ads. But consumerism can be fun, I wouldn't mind ads if I had a say in which I see.

Weird how neolibs are proponents of the free market all the time, but at the same time insist on shoving crap we don't want down our throats. I like your suggestion.
I think that is called eMail-Newsletters...

eMail is federated, there are newsletter-services that are open source, and you can subscribe and unsubscribe very easily.

Well working, good looking airgaped password manager

There are some, but they are mostly like proof of concept

Keepass?
- Love keepass, but I mean something different
  
  A password manager that can keep passwords on one device, and use the passwords on the other, without the storing one being connected to any network, etc

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Not directly what you are looking for, but did you check syncthing?
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Does sync.com meet all your needs? Not sure about point 3 as not sure what you mean
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Sounds like something like that should exist, there are many alternatives to nextcloud, plus nextcloud itself is working again on its e2e
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Could Cryptomator and any cloud service be a solution for your needs?
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They are dozens of great, free software applications developed… the problem is getting the masses to use these applications.

A google Keep alternative where I can share certain notes with someone and have live collaboration on them.

Have you looked into nextcloud? It has live collaboration but I'm not certain if it has a Google keep esque format (they have most of the other gsuite apps on it as far as I know though). You'll just have to host it yourself but that's a pro not a con imo
cryptpad
have you found an alternative or work-around for Keep or Tasks?
You can self host Joplin or Trilium.

A messaging app/service that can work via both regular stable connections but also via non-online. Briar is kind of similar to what I am talking about. But it can't/doesn't go as far as I mean. It can send messages via cell data, WiFi, and Bluetooth but as far as I am aware, it can't do a mix of them. And it would still require the person being messaged to be within range of my phone's Bluetooth if not on cell/WiFi. So it doesn't do the hopping I am really interested in (to my understanding).

So I am wanting to be able to have basically zero cell or WiFi signal on my phone, but be able to just have shit be able to bounce around via all methods to get to the person I am trying to reach. So like I could be in a no service spot for my carrier but maybe a friend that also has the app and does have a signal be used to bounce my message from Bluetooth to their cell or WiFi that is working. Then it either get to the final person from that bouncing, or maybe still get it if they are also in a no-signal area but still near another friend that does and is also in their Bluetooth range.

So the message would just hop whatever chain of devices and connections even if it takes a little more time (like if it just had to keep hopping from a number of phones completely through Bluetooth jumping. Would also be cool if it could jump even if the other devices didn't have the app and was just encrypted text-only blobs hopping like how data hops around various servers when online. But aside from the fact that data costs money and would mean basically everyone's shit would get used at all times. The nightmare of how the messages/service would know how to get places, or if maybe it already arrived via one method while a different chain was still trying would be massive. In addition to literally all the other things that would have to be figured out. And that is all before making sure it could be still private in any real way.

You wanted Firechat. It was closed-source, though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireChat
- When I found out about this app, I was blown away about how cool the concept is. Sadly it was already dead, at that moment it made me wonder why other services weren't build like that. I don't think it will be easy to create a service like that and probably have too many downsides I'm not aware.
Privacy.com, but in other countries than the US

Ummmm, ALL of them.

Decentralized encrypted email.

Create a key, identify it by a hash of it, and encrypt all mail sent to the account with the key. Allow it to run on top of regular email using one or more email addresses as an alias, but have the key itself be the identifier.

Client 1 creates a key pair > uploads email address(es)/"aliases " that client controlls (signed with key pair) > client 2 searches for emails based on client 1's key or aliases > client 2 sends email through one or more of the accepted inboxes encrypted with public key > client 1 reads encrypted email.

Basically a modernized version of PGP that also handles identification, and similar to how it's been proposed to change Matrix accounts to in order to make them decentralized.

I mean, delta.chat exists...

The other way would be a dht of hashed email addresses or hashed keys, but then you could look up live email addresses to send spam to.

The magic of tor v3 is that the plain address record is needed for some time based calculations about the dht record, e.g. they publish the descriptor's of the site using the public key as a reverse lookup

But that wouldn't work to obscure the email or use the email as a lookup because the dht wouldn't have a way to prove the record was true to that email, unless it was sending emails from it

I guess that leaves DNS records or some kind of activity pub system with webfinger
Unfortunately I don't think email can ever really be that private or secure.

Project Management and CRM ecosystem -___- Who's down to make one. LOL.

For project management there's quite a few, Taiga.io and Plane.so look the most promising to me.
Idk about CRM though, even after reading what is, I still don't exactly get it
Project management: Projeqtor

CRM: Dolibarr

Both: Odoo
I use SugarCRM when I need a quick and dirty CRM. There are various open source forks. Its fairly easy to integrate. There are a few other FOSS CRM options, too. Never tried them but OnlyOffice has one, GNU Enterprise, SuiteCRM, Dolibarr, etc

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_CRM_systems

IMO, the move would be to pick one and build integration for FOSS PM tools.

a shared calendar app!

🫣🫣🫣 since when those don't exist?
- one that respects your data and privacy? i’ve not heard of one

I'd love a self-hostable tool like trakt or simkl, to track my media consumption, as well as release dates.

Something like invidious and libreddit but for tumblr. Its currently borderline impossible to use tumblr without am account and it drives me NUTS! Ive been tempted to pay somebody for this at this point, im so desperate lmao

Not sure if this exists but digital privacy awareness apps and mini games for educating people. (graphical content)

Self-sovereign identity, with granular information sharing, and good encryption/signing support. I want to:

be able to create ad-hoc identities
own my identities independent of any third-party provider
be able to slice identity information and selectively share subsets of possibly signed data
cryptographically attest other peoples shared data
have all of this on blockchain, rather than depending on service providers

There's a fair amount of almost solutions, and except for blockchain, nostr has most of the necessary structure. What's missing is a NIP for an identity/profile data format standard, and a spec for data handling. But mainly, apps that make it easy to use, to publish, to verify and validate, and to authorize.

I'm sick of having hundreds of distinct identites scattered around the internet. Having the option to be anonymous or a distinct persona is important, but it shouldn't be necessary every time, and I should always be the owner of that identity.

As usual the blockchain really adds nothing to your proposal. Just allow people to host it on a random web server, there is no reason to have a centralized component at all for this.
- Publishing. Forcing people to use web servers comlicates it for non-techies, or centralizes control.
  
  Lookup. Having data scattered aroud the web makes lookup hard, or (again) centralizes control.
  
  Cryptographically verifiable auditability.
  
  Do you understand how blockchains work? I ask to gauge whether you have technical solutions for the problems blockchains solve, or are repeating criticisms of cryptocurrency you've read online.

Foss matrix client with OTR support. For android and linux.

What does OTR mean in this context?
Why OTR? Even XMPP clients have mostly moved on now in favor of OMEMO.
- Probably because Im old. I was not aware of OMEMO. Looking for end to end encryption.
Or just any well working matrix client because for me they all feel unstable
What do you mean by OTR, in this context?

https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/OTR

Eta: Probably "Off-the-record?"
Element has added so much to Matrix that the barrier for even making an MVP app is a bit intimidating IMO

Pen and paper