Adda

Brave Search currently, but I am still in the experimenting and search engine-hopping phase. Henceforth, Brave Search is not my final search engine, either.

I had used it for a while in the past. The results were surprisingly good. I have moved to other search engines to experiment since then, but I have nothing bad to say about my time with Qwant.

Syncthing encrypts the data, so it will be encrypted when being transferred. However, Aegis can export the vault into an encrypted file, too. So the vault file you will be transferring over an encrypted channel is encrypted itself as well. That means that the vault is secure even when at rest on some device.

It is way better now, but it is still a work-in-progress, especially regarding some more advanced features (none of which I found myself missing when on trips) and some polishing (not enough man-power to polish everything as of now).

I am going on trips with Anytype as well. Worked fantastically for my last two week-long trips. Relatively quickly, you can prepare on your PC an itinerary with files such as boarding passes, tickets, both as a normal file and embedded images to show at gates and similar. You can copy-paste e-mails, information from the web, links (URLs, etc. with additional context). Prepare for your travels, tick off things to do before leaving for your trip as well as creating tasks (as reminders, though without an actual reminder in your notification bar on mobile. You have to check the app for them.) to do before each day on the trip. All of this can be dumped into a single “page”, or organized into a hierarchical structure annotated by tags, relations between the objects and more.

To put it simply, I always find something missing in various itinerary apps. Anytype gives me the freedom to input every and all type of information I need for and during the trip.

Slight warning: If you input the files on PC, you need to them click on them (download them to your local storage) in the mobile as well. Then you can access them without requiring connection to the internet from your mobile later on. If you do this, everything you put in your Anytype itinerary will be accessible offline. Ideally, try accessing everything on mobile when your Wi-Fi and data connections are turned off.

Aegis is so great especially because it allows you to set an automatic backup every time you add a new TOTP. This way, a backup is made immediately after modifying the MFA vault, stored in your phone storage, where it can be grabbed by your synchronization system of choice (e.g., Syncthing), replicating the backup on your other devices, for example. This way, you can rest assured you will always have your MFA vault no matter what.

Librera Reader is the best reader I have had the honour to try. I have been using Librera Reader for several years now, and I think it is safe to say I love the app. It is actively maintained, and new features are added continuously. There are plenty of settings to allow you to modify the user experience exactly to your liking. If you are considering reading any e-books or PDFs on your Android devices, give Librera Reader a try. It is a fantastic app.

K-9 is rebranding as Thunderbird for Android, indeed. But since many users of K-9 expressed their desire to keep the logo and name of K-9, Thunderbird agreed to publish both versions: one rebranded as Thunderbird for Android, and the other keeping its original branding as K-9. We will see whether that will complicate things for Thunderbird team too much yet.

The Venn diagram of “FOSS app users” and “software enthusiasts” is closer to a circle.

Now this is the quote of the week for me 😂 It is mostly accurate, unfortunately, but I cannot stop giggling about it.

Beside concrete suggestions, I would suggest having a look at the applications you use. (Decide whether you actually use and need them first.) Search for the application on AlternativeTo or similar sites and look for a FLOSS alternative there. And also search the internet for general FLOSS replacements for the use-cases of the applications you use. No need to rush anything. Even replacing one application a week is good progress.

GitUI is amazing. The only caveat to many developers is that GitUI is still unusable when you GPG sign your commits, even after so many years and with functioning PRs already created. This excludes, in my opinion, a large portion of the possible users from using GitUI. However, it might still be useful for everything Git-related which does not require creating/changing commits.

That is example that looking for new apps part I mentioned. I know there are FOSS Android video and proto editors. I just never needed any of them, so I don't know which one is better or worse, but I know there are a few I have heard about in recent years. I know I have seen several contacts and dialler apps on F-Droid. Time to check them out one by one and hopefully one will fit the needs with minimal concessions. Others in this post have already mentioned some apps. See if they might work for you, too. I wish you best of luck looking for the right apps for you.