ANDROID

Privacy + Adblocking Guides To Look Into

  1. DNS - DNS can hide the queries to ISP and to some extent hide ads on network level (hiding ads on some apps)
  2. Messengers - Some End-to-End encrypted messaging platform
  3. 2FA (2 factor authentication)
  4. Password Managers - Manages password and can generate strong passwords. (Recommended)
  5. AppStores
  6. BROWSER - It is the gateway to internet so at least keep it much more secured and don't click on random links!
  7. Browser Extentions - Usable for both chomium and firefox
  8. Calculator - If somebody wants it ig?
  9. Calendar
  10. Call Blocker & Spam Filter
  11. Camera
  12. Clock - if somebody wants it ig?
  13. Contacts
  14. Dialer
  15. Document & PDF Viewer
  16. Email - Convert or start using privacy focused emails
  17. Email Clients - Clients that can replace Google Mail App, most of them have unified inbox so all emails can be seen in one place if you have multiple emails.
  18. File Sharing - across personal devices, like pc or lap or mac etc
  19. Firewall - helps to disable network access to apps
  20. Gallery
  21. Image Editor
  22. Keyboard
  23. Navigation - if you want to replace gmaps
  24. Note-Taking
  25. Sandboxing - to isolate certain apps in a different profile to limit data shared.
  26. Search Engine - Browser and search engine are 2 different things, browser is the app you use to search. Search engine is the place where you enter your query. If you use the most hardened Web browser but still uses google, then it's not making much change.
  27. Streaming
  28. SMS
  29. Synchronization - Syncing files across devices
  30. Torrenting
  31. Video Players
  32. VPN
  33. Weather
  34. YouTube
  35. YouTube Music
  36. Misc. Tools - I didn't know where to put them, but they are quite useful!

DNS - DNS can hide the queries to ISP and to some extent hide ads on network level (hiding ads on some apps)

Using DNS and VPN together doesn't make you more anonymous, if anything that just makes you stand out. Also if you're using VPN, most probably you'll be on VPN's DNS connection anyways.

Messengers - Some End-to-End encrypted messaging platform

  • Signal (require phone number,E2E)
  • Matrix (multiple clients,E2E, no need of phone number) ( List of Matrix Clients )
  • Conversations (haven't used it, but sounds promising with PGP or OMEMO encryption)

2FA (2 factor authentication)

AppStores

  • Accrescent
  • Obtainium
  • PlayStore
  • AntiSplit-M

    This is not an Appstore, if you download apps from APKMirror (Untouched APK sourced from playstore), some apps are in APKM format, use this app to convert it into APK

F-droid and it's Forks (Neo-Store, Droid-ify, F-Droid Classic, G-Droid) is a good option to find FOSS (Free Open Source Apps), but the poor monitoring, taking long time to update and not really checking the hash values are concerning for security reasons. Aurora Store is considered as an alternative for PlayStore and it provides an option to download apps with a shared "anonymous" account which is also a privacy concern, aurora store makes connection with google store anyways so just cut the middle-man at that point.

  • Vanadium

    (Developed by Graphene OS devs, currently only on Graphene OS officially) There are ports of vanadium but need to download through graphene os appstore FORK (this is unofficial port)

  • Brave Browser

    (vanadium does not offer content blockers, use brave for content blockers)

  • URLCheck

    Not a browser but link analyser and scanner, designate this as default browser app, add virus total scanner toggle in module section in the app (require virus total account) and it allows you to scan any link you click and always scan before entering into any link

Firefox and it's forks like Fennec or IronFox are decent but in terms of "security" sticking with chromium browsers are more encouraged, if you wish to use firefox or it's forks please use hardened user.js Arkenfox or use Hardened user.js Betterfox

Browser Extentions - Usable for both chomium and firefox

Calculator - If somebody wants it ig?

Calendar

you can sync fossify or other calenders with google if you so wish, it needs davx5 support (calDAV, CardDAV, WebDAV) for various syncing purposes, using tuta is just seamless with calender and contacts.

Call Blocker & Spam Filter

call blocking is generally available on phone/dialer apps. for spam filtering (atleast in India, use TRAI DND app and register your number and report as you please. open source spam filtering cannot achieve the levels of truecaller simply because the data collection of truecaller cannot be achieved by any opensource apps and the apps that does provide spam filtering does need your input to work, like entering patterns of numbers or entering usual patterns of texts etc.

  • SpamBlocker is a good choice but i'd just say to cut the use of 1 app and register yourself for blocking the spams.

Camera

Clock - if somebody wants it ig?

Contacts

  • Connect You (supports syncing)

    you can sync fossify or other calenders with google if you so wish, it needs davx5 support (calDAV, CardDAV, WebDAV) for various syncing purposes, using tuta is just seamless with calender and contacts.

  • Fossify Contacts

Dialer

Document & PDF Viewer

  • LibreraReader (supports PDF, EPUB, EPUB3, MOBI, DjVu, FB2, TXT, RTF, AZW, AZW3, HTML, CBZ, CBR, DOC, DOCX, and OPDS Catalogs)

    requires storage access, might not sit well with everybody!

  • PdfViewer (Graphene OS Devs)
  • Document Scanner :- OSS-DocumentScanner

Email - Convert or start using privacy focused emails

Email Clients - Clients that can replace Google Mail App, most of them have unified inbox so all emails can be seen in one place if you have multiple emails.

File Sharing - across personal devices, like pc or lap or mac etc

Firewall - helps to disable network access to apps

Image Editor

  • Image Toolbox
  • AndroidOCR (Extract Text from Images)
  • exif-eraser - Removes Meta Data from pictures

    Always remove metadata before uploading to social media or when sharing it to anywhere. Meta Data means the datas associated with the picture or embedded in it, like the location, the camera, the device it took, time etc.

Keyboard

If you remove gboard, make sure the your current keyboard has can be used in lockscreen, Heliboard has that functionality.

  • OpenStreetMap (Open Community Maps)
  • GMaps WV (Restricted Google Maps WebView Wrapper) basically a web-shortcut of google maps

Note-Taking

Sandboxing - to isolate certain apps in a different profile to limit data shared.

Search Engine - Browser and search engine are 2 different things, browser is the app you use to search. Search engine is the place where you enter your query. If you use the most hardened Web browser but still uses google, then it's not making much change.

  • Brave Search (the most closest result to google, at-least for me)

    If you use Brave Browser, Brave Search is the default.

  • SearXNG (the link provides various instances which you can configure, but if you wish to get one that just works then you can find it here SearXNG )
  • StartPage
  • duckduckgo

    Its's basically Bing but more privacy focused. It's the most recommended but people have hard time adapting to it.

Streaming

  • Stremio Guide Official addon-page Community Addon-Page

    need an account, addons can be synced across multiple devices due to having an account, addons like torrentio grants you the ability to "stream" contents, but it is dependent on the torrent

  • CloudStream Guide Alternative for Stremio, using Streamplay addon can enable user to watch local and global media. This is more like direct streaming from server so less dependent on the availability of torrent (stable for local contents).

SMS

Synchronization - Syncing files across devices

Torrenting

Video Players

VPN

  • ProtonVPN
  • Orbot (tor)
  • InviZible

    tor connection with DNScrypt encryption with I2P connection. I2P is the free internet protocol, it's completely anonymous but extremely slow, basically it works like torrenting. it is not suitable for daily usage, it is used to access i2p sites, it's more like parallel internet

  • NymVPN (paid)
  • Mullvad (paid)
  • IVPN (paid)

VPN does not "anonymizes" you, it would only mask your IP and encrypts/hide requests send to your ISP, if you want to be anonymous, use TOR

Using DNS and VPN together doesn't make you more anonymous, if anything that just makes you stand out. Also if you're using VPN, most probably you'll be on VPN's DNS connection anyways

Weather

YouTube

  • GrayJay
  • LibreTube
  • NewPipe
  • Clipious

    (Android Invidious Client) Invidious is a front end for youtube accessible from browser, this is a client to run on android device

  • ReVanced Manager Guide

    not really recommended for security/privacy due to the usage of microG and the connections established to youtube, but if you require revanced this is the link!

YouTube Music

Misc. Tools - I didn't know where to put them, but they are quite useful!

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Pub: 15 Aug 2025 04:38 UTC

Edit: 18 Aug 2025 11:49 UTC

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