.. meta:: :description lang=fr: Liste d'applications Android™ utiles pour tous :description lang=en: A list of my favorite Android™ apps ############################# My favorite Android™ apps ! ############################# .. seealso:: `My new list of apps (2020) `_. .. note:: This page is about Android™ apps For more details, maybe you should first read one of these: * for instance on `Android™ on Wikipedia `_, * or on `www.Android.com `_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Some lists of applications -------------------------- There are a few lists of some useful apps, kinda sorted by category. .. note:: What is an application? An application (*app*) is a program for a laptop, a tablet or a smartphone powered by the **Android™** OS. These programs are distributed as compressed archives, with the ``apk`` format, which means "*Application PacKage*", as the *EXEcutable* program for **Windows™** with the ``.exe`` format, or the *Disk iMaGe* for **Mac OS X™** with the ``.dmg`` format. .. warning:: Might be out-of-date! This list was written in *June and July 2014*, so now it might be a little bit out-of-date… I checked it in *July 2017*, and it was alright. However, I am not using all these apps anymore (my phone in 2017 has way less memory than the one I used in 2013 !). Applications "for the confinement" in 2020 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ .. todo:: Finish this list! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Apps everyone *should* have ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ * `Dolphin Browser `_ a good web browser, :gray:`(old)` * `F-Droid client `_ to keep your apps up-to-date with the F-Droid repository, * `File Expert `_ a great files browser, full of nice features, and with some cool plugins, :gray:`(old)` * `Firefox™ portable `_ another web browser, but it might be two *heavy* for some phones, :gray:`(old)` * `GO SMS Pro `_, a good text messaging client, :gray:`(old)` * `Jota Text Editor `_ or `Jota + `_, the best text editor on Android™, with a large panel of programming languages being supported with good syntactic coloration, and even with an easy to use integration with `SL4A`_ ! * `Micro CPU Monitor `_ to always keep an eye on your device's CPU level, to be able to quickly kill a bugged process, before she consume all your device's battery, * `Moon+ Reader (free version) `_, a pretty good e-books reading software, :gray:`(old)` * `Perfect Viewer `_ an awesome PDF reader (with `this plugin `_), which also supports some other formats (`this other plugin `_ can be required), * `Silent Boot `_ to suppress any sound when booting, and to automatically put your device in quiet mode after booting, :red:`(root)` * `Smart Task Bar `_ a cool and small lateral bar, useful to easily access all your other apps without having to exit the current one, :gray:`(old)` * `Super Backup `_ is the best solution I found to backup your text messages, your contacts, your call diary, or your apps, * `Timer `_ a simple but effective chronometer, :gray:`(old)` * `Traduction (Google™ Translate) `_, to not be too `lost in translation `_, * `TTPod `_, a very good music player, with some pretty original feature (you can ask it to be quiet after a certain amount of time, for when you go to bed for example), :gray:`(old)` * `VLC™ (lite or beta version) `_ an other music and video player, :gray:`(old)` * `Wikipedia `_ to quickly access to Wikipédia. It's really a shame that MathJax is not included in the app! :gray:`(old)` .. note:: « What about iPhones™? » or « What about Windows™ phones? » I have not yet got the chance to own and use on a daily basis a phone using either one of these mobile OS, opponents of Android™ on the market (and this is not a reason of faith or ideology or whatever, just a coincidence). However, it should be easy for you to look for in the `Apple™ "App Store"™ `_ or the `Windows™ "Application Store" `_ to find apps similar to the one presented here. Apps for *geeks* ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ * `Android™ Assistant `_ (free version) is a good admin utility program, useful for instance to clean the cache, kill a bugged process, or quickly uninstall apps, * `Android™ System Infos `_ is another one of the same kind, :gray:`(old)` * `APK Manager `_ is a tiny but well designed app, to simply and quickly manage all your other applications, :gray:`(old)` * `Clip Stack `_ is a copy-paste history manager, perfectly well designed! Very handy if you like to send the same text message to several people (by changing bits!). .. sidebar:: About VoIP For some additional details about this technology, one curious reader could read the wikipédia page about `VoIP`_, or these explanations on `how to use VoIP `_ (in French, a reference in English coming soon) on the `Crans wiki `_, or also `these explanations on doc.ubuntu-fr `_, especially some details on the `SIP protocol `_. * `CSipSimple `_ (and this `codec pack `_) is an amazing app to use the `VoIP `_, similar to `Linphone`_, :gray:`(old)` * `Gmote `_ is a good remote controller for your personal laptop, to be used `with this small client `_, :gray:`(old)` * `Irssi ConnectBot `_ is the best app to use `SSH `_ to connect to another laptop or server, * `Linphone `_ another good app to call and video-chat with `VoIP `_, :gray:`(old)` * `Notification Toggle `_ for Android™ v2 (2.2 to 2.3.8), :gray:`(old)` * `Pokedextra `_, a good and complete *pokédex™*, * `ROM Toolbox Lite (free version) `_ is another well designed admin toolbox, mainly for rooted devices, :red:`(root)` * `"Symbols" ou "SymbolsPanel" `_ are useful to insert special symbols, in text messages for example, :gray:`(old)` * `Terminal Emulator `_ is the best terminal emulator for Android™, * `Unified Remote `_ is another remote controller application, to use your smartphone as a remote for your laptop, with `this Unified Remote client `_, :gray:`(old)` * `Voice Notify `_ is a small accessibility service that speak every incoming notifications (using "*text to speach*"), * `VuDroid `_ is a pretty good document reader, which accepts not only PDFs but also `DJVU `_. :gray:`(old)` Apps for McGyver's fans ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ * `Army Survival Guide `_, but it should be a good idea to read *before* going on an adventure! :gray:`(old)` * `IP WebCam `_ to use a smartphone's camera as a webcam, works well with a local Wifi hotspot generated from your computer (or from your smartphone), :gray:`(old)` * `Magnetic Field Log `_ to read *raw* data from magnetic field captor (as beautiful as useless), :gray:`(old)` * `Network Info II `_ to read precise data about the different wireless network your cellphone is connected to (and especially geo-localization, with 3G, 4G or Wifi, and you can get it much faster than with a heavy cartography app), :gray:`(old)` * `Open Food Facts `_ to pretend you are interested about knowing what's in your dishes, :gray:`(old)` * `Wifi Analyzer `_ to read very precise data about the local Wifi networks. A few videos games ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ * `Chess `_ is a good app to simply play Chess against the computer, :gray:`(old)` * `GBC A.D. `_ is a good Game Boy Color™ emulator (of course, it does not include any roms), * `Inotia™ III `_ and `Inotia™ IV `_ are two pretty good *hack-n-slash* game, :gray:`(old)` * `Mojo GBA `_ is an excellent Game Boy Advance™ emulator! * `Mumble client `_ is a client for Mumble (and this description is not a tautology…), :gray:`(old)` * `Pixel Dungeon `_ is a pretty good *rogue-like*, well conceived but impressively difficult, * `SNesoid `_ or `Snes9x Ex `_ are two good emulators for Super NES™ (a tablet is more appropriate), :gray:`(old)` * `Zenonia™ 1 Free `_, `Zenonia™ 3 `_, `Zenonia™ 4 `_ and the last one `Zenonia™ 5 `_ are good *hack-n-slash*, similar to Inotia™ (only the 2nd one is not free). :gray:`(old)` Apps for scientists ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ * `AddiPlot `_ and `droidplot `_ allow you to make graphics with `GNU octave`_ , :gray:`(old)` * `aGrep `_ to (try to) use a *grep*-like command, to look for a text pattern in a bunch of text files, :gray:`(old)` * `Andie Graph `_ is an emulator for Texas Instrument™ calculators, from TI-79™ to TI-84+™ (of course, you have to use your own roms), * `Banque Exos MP CCP `_ is a pretty good app to work you mathematics, with hundreds of exercises, for prep school level "MP" (created by the author of ``_), * `Detexify `_ is an Android™ client for `Detexify on KireLabs.org `_, an awesome web-service to recognize a LaTeX symbol thanks to `hand-writting recognition technology `_ (you know, that pretty cool technology which read your bank notes, and is a pioneer problem in automatic machine learning), :gray:`(old)` * `Git `_ is the best Android™ client for `Git (more details here on Wikipédia) `_, the *Git* version management system, :gray:`(old)` * `Grapher `_ is a simple app to draw scientific curves and graphics, :gray:`(old)` * `Hacker's keyboard `_ is a software keyboard (ie not a material keyboard), especially designed to be used with a SSH client, or any command line app, :gray:`(old)` * `handyCalc `_ is an excellent calculator for Android™, with very advanced features, :gray:`(old)` * `OCaml Toplevel for Android™ `_ is an awesome client for `OCaml `_ (made by `Romain Vernoux `_, a comrade of 2011 batch of the `Computer Science department at ÉNS Cachan `_), * `GNU octave `_ and its plugins, to use GNU Octave on your phone (but do not use it to cheat during your exams, of course!), :gray:`(old)` * `Python™ for Android™ `_ is a good solution to use `Python™ `_ from everywhere, *because that's cool*! :gray:`(old)` * `SL4A `_ is an app designed to use certain scripting language, as Python™, :gray:`(old)` * `TryHaskell `_ is a client for the website ``_, simple but efficient, :gray:`(old)` * `VerbTeX `_ is a client for an online LaTeX compiler. Not perfect, but it works. :gray:`(old)` Apps for secrets agents (or paranoid people) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ * `AdAway `_ to remove almost all advertisements in other apps, especially the ads for the Google Ads service, :red:`(root)` * `AFWall+ `_ a complete and ready to work firewall, in order to limit your data use, and forbid some apps to access the Internet, :red:`(root)` * `Gibberbot ou ChatSecure `_ to use Jabber in a secured and encrypted way, :gray:`(old)` * `Gnu Privacy Guard `_ to use `GPG `_, :gray:`(old)` * `Network Log `_ to check which apps access the internet at every single moment. Can be used to check that `AFWall+`_ is running as desired, :red:`(root)` * `Obscura Cam `_ to take pictures without adding any meta-data to them, :gray:`(old)` * `Orbot `_, a `TOR `_ client to access the web anonymously, :red:`(root)` * `Orweb 2 `_, a browser to use with `Orbot`_, :red:`(root)` * `RecForge Lite `_ to record sounds and conversations, :gray:`(old)` * `RedPhone: Private Calls `_ to secure your phone calls (only with other users of the same app RedPhone), :gray:`(old)` * `TextSecure: Privacte Messages `_ to secure your SMSs (only with other users of the same app TextSecure). `WhatsApp `_ started `recently `_ to use the same secured protocol. :gray:`(old)` Misc. ^^^^^ * `La Boite à Kaamelott `_ is a French application containing many oral quotes from the famous Kaamelott TV show, it's basically a lighter version of the awesome website `Kaamelott Soundoard `_, * `QR Reader `_, even if we all know that `QR codes `_ are useless, :gray:`(old)` * `QuickOffice `_ or `OfficeSuite 7 `_ to read or modify OpenDocument documents (like *Word™*), :gray:`(old)` * `Skype™ `_, even if it could be a good idea to prefer `Linphone`_ or an other clone which has the advantage of being free, open source and more secured, :gray:`(old)` * `WordPress™ `_ to read or write on your WordPress™ powered blog. :gray:`(old)` ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ How to use Android™ **without** a Google™ account ? --------------------------------------------------- Other repos ^^^^^^^^^^^ Among many apps repositories, my favorite is `F-Droid `_, mainly because it's completely free and focused only on Open Source apps. For instance, there is `the page for AFWall+ `_, the best `firewall `_ on Android™. .. seealso:: `Aptoide `_ It is another good alternative to Google™ Play, like `F-Droid`_. Direct download ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ `apk-dl.com `_ is a wonderful website, designed to simply download apps from the `official Google™ Play repository `_ without having to log in with a Google™ account. For instance, there is `a direct link for Jota Text Editor `_ (one of the best text editors on Android™, for which I designed the `syntactic coloration `_ configuration files for ``OCaml`` and ``rST`` !). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Old version ^^^^^^^^^^^ `The first version of that page `_ was in French, on the `Wiki `_ of the `CRANS `_ association. .. (c) Lilian Besson, 2011-2021, https://bitbucket.org/lbesson/web-sphinx/