F-Droid, Keyboard Libraries, and Choosing a Browser

• Obtainium

  102 5,111 9.8 Dart

  Get Android app updates straight from the source.

While F-Droid will manage updates to anything installed through it's shop, you aren't stuck manually checking and updating things if you go decide to download APK releases directly. Obtanium is essentially a tracker/updater for managing your APKs from a broad range of sources. At the moment I'm only using it for a Bluesky client I grabbed off GitHub but I can see replacing the F-Droid shop with it once I've really settled on my app choices. Something on the list to investigate later.

• FlorisBoard

  163 5,326 8.6 Kotlin

  An open-source keyboard for Android which respects your privacy. Currently in early-beta.

  

I didn't last long with the stock keyboard before installing AnySoftKeyboard which is one of the few FOSS alternative with support for swipe typing. The experience was... OK. It felt slow and it's accuracy left a lot to be desired. I still had to be slow and pretty accurate, so it didn't really feel like much of a change from the stock experience. FlorisBoard have also introduced their own implementation but the feedback I read suggested it would be much the same as my experience with AnySoftKeyboard's gesture typing.

• InfluxDB

  www.influxdata.com sponsored

  Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  

• AnySoftKeyboard

  53 2,754 9.5 Java

  Android (f/w 2.1+) on screen keyboard for multiple languages.

  

I didn't last long with the stock keyboard before installing AnySoftKeyboard which is one of the few FOSS alternative with support for swipe typing. The experience was... OK. It felt slow and it's accuracy left a lot to be desired. I still had to be slow and pretty accurate, so it didn't really feel like much of a change from the stock experience. FlorisBoard have also introduced their own implementation but the feedback I read suggested it would be much the same as my experience with AnySoftKeyboard's gesture typing.

• afwall

  16 2,635 6.2 Java

  AFWall+ (Android Firewall +) - iptables based firewall for Android

I considered what many others have done: installing Gboard and using Graphene's settings to deny it network access, potentially even going the extra step of using a root firewall like AFWall (something I plan on looking into later regardless) but I was curious to see if I could do without.

• OpenBoard

  49 2,474 0.0 Java

  100% foss keyboard based on AOSP, with no dependency on Google binaries, that respects your privacy.

  

After reading a lengthy GitHub discussion at the Openboard repo that went into the logistical options and challenges I decided to go with the less-than-ideal option of using Helium314's Openboard fork with the proprietary Google swipe library (libjni_latinimegoogle.so) imported. I've been using it for a few weeks now and though it feels slightly different than the Gboard I'm used to, the difference has been negligible and I'll be sticking with this setup for the foreseeable future.

• HeliBoard

  9 1,459 9.8 Java

  Customizable and privacy-conscious open-source keyboard

After reading a lengthy GitHub discussion at the Openboard repo that went into the logistical options and challenges I decided to go with the less-than-ideal option of using Helium314's Openboard fork with the proprietary Google swipe library (libjni_latinimegoogle.so) imported. I've been using it for a few weeks now and though it feels slightly different than the Gboard I'm used to, the difference has been negligible and I'll be sticking with this setup for the foreseeable future.

• openboard

  29 127 0.0 Java

  100% FOSS keyboard, based on AOSP (by erkserkserks)

After reading a lengthy GitHub discussion at the Openboard repo that went into the logistical options and challenges I decided to go with the less-than-ideal option of using Helium314's Openboard fork with the proprietary Google swipe library (libjni_latinimegoogle.so) imported. I've been using it for a few weeks now and though it feels slightly different than the Gboard I'm used to, the difference has been negligible and I'll be sticking with this setup for the foreseeable future.

• WorkOS

  workos.com sponsored

  The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

  

• Vanadium

  88 722 9.1 Shell

  Privacy and security enhanced releases of Chromium for GrapheneOS. Vanadium provides the WebView and standard user-facing browser on GrapheneOS. It depends on hardening in other GrapheneOS repositories and doesn't include patches not relevant to the build targets used on GrapheneOS.

  

While Graphene comes with Vanadium, their own Chromium-based browser, pre-installed I chose to go with Mull as my default browser. There wasn't anything wrong with Vanadium, it's just that I've been using Firefox (and the wonderful uBlock Origin plugin) on my Linux machine for a little while now and have really grown to prefer it to Chromium-based browsers. In my research I had seen a lot of mentions of Mull and Fennec, both based on Firefox but with further hardening and privacy modifications. This detailed browser comparison chart (produced by the developer of Mull) is what ultimately led to me choosing Mull. It's definitely worth a look at the chart even if you aren't in the market for a new browser!

• Mull-Fenix

  32 461 7.2 JavaScript

  Build scripts for a web browser built upon Mozilla technology

  

While Graphene comes with Vanadium, their own Chromium-based browser, pre-installed I chose to go with Mull as my default browser. There wasn't anything wrong with Vanadium, it's just that I've been using Firefox (and the wonderful uBlock Origin plugin) on my Linux machine for a little while now and have really grown to prefer it to Chromium-based browsers. In my research I had seen a lot of mentions of Mull and Fennec, both based on Firefox but with further hardening and privacy modifications. This detailed browser comparison chart (produced by the developer of Mull) is what ultimately led to me choosing Mull. It's definitely worth a look at the chart even if you aren't in the market for a new browser!

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