Brax3 Apps for the New User

Hey Guys.
Here are some of the apps that I have tested with the Brax3. It’s a short list, but it will help some of the newbies looking for replacement apps.
If you use a replacement app listed here, please disable or delete the original app (if possibly) so you don’t have a conflict.
Like other community members, I am a big fan of Fossify apps. You might see a few on the list below. :grinning_face:

If you’re coming from iphone to the Brax3 also check out @Mycenius post here for additional apps and info from his testing.

I will update the chart below with new apps as I test them.

ITEM APP REPOSITORY NOTES
Text, Calls, Video Calls SimpleX Chat F-Droid Alternatives would be Briar or Molly
File Manager Fossify File Manager F-Droid Secure file manager, better options than default
Calendar Fossify Calendar F-Droid Privacy Focused calendar
Calculator Fossify Calculator F-Droid Private. No permissions, Completely offline
Photo Gallery Fossify Gallery F-Droid Open source with editor. Ad free. Private.
Contacts Fossify Contacts F-Droid Manage contacts privately with vCard Support
Notes Fossify Notes F-Droid Ad Free, Privacy Focused Notes, checklist, etc.
Music Fossify Music Player F-Droid Private, Open source and Ad free
Music Rhythm IzzyOnDroid A privacy first music player
Shazam Audire IzzyOnDroid You will have to use split tunneling if you use a VPN
Camera Open Camera F-Droid Original version by Mark Harman; Not the iodeOS Version.
Video Editor Open Video Editor F-Droid Open Source Video Editor
Saving to Folders Save Locally F-Droid Note: Not needed if Fossify File Manager is installed FFM gives option to save locally
Maps CoMaps F-Droid Installed on Brax3 by Default
Clock Chrono F-Droid Modern clock with alarms,timer & stopwatch
Video Player VLC F-Droid Supports a wide range of video formats
Image Editor Image Toolbox F-Droid Crop, filter, convert, Resize
YouTube Alternative NewPipe F-Droid View YT videos with privacy Alternative Grayjay
Podcasts AntennaPod F-Droid IMO this is the best open source Podcast manager & player
E-book Organizer OpenReads F-Droid Open Source Alternative to Goodreads.
Password Generator WassWord F-Droid Generate Password up to 128 Characters, PassPhrase up to 24 Words
News Reader Feedflow F-Droid RSS Feed Reader. An Alternative would be Feeder
Weather Breezy Weather F-Droid Installed on Brax3 by Default
eSim Manager OpenEUICC F-Droid Installed on Brax3 by Default
Password Manager KeePassDx F-Droid FOSS Password Safe. No internet connection.
App Security APP Lock F-Droid Lock individual apps, block removal of APP lock with password
Panic Button Ripple F-Droid Panic Button: Select what apps to wipe in an emergency
Photo Privacy Scrambled Exif F-Droid Remove metadata from your photos before sharing them
Wearable Devices GadgetBridge F-Droid Use your SmartWatch/Bluetooth Devices and keep your data private
Text Encryption BlueCheese F-Droid Encrypt text messages sent by the Carrier *Recipient also needs the app
Text & File Encryption DroidCrypt F-Droid Uses AES 256-GCM for encryption encrypt both text and files.
Lost Phone Locator Find My Device (FMD) F-Droid Locate and control your device remotely
Language Translator Translate You F-Droid Privacy Focused translator built with MD3 may not work with VPN If so, use split tunneling
VPN Mullvad VPN F-Droid Anomymous No logs, DNS leak protection Wireguard
VPN Proton VPN F-Droid No logs, Perfect forward secrecy, DNS leak protection
Document Viewer LibreOffice Viewer F-Droid View these formats: odt,ods,odp,odg,Docx,slsx,pptx,doc,xls,ppt
PDF Scanner FairScan F-Droid An Alternative would be MakeACopy
PDF Viewer Sav PDF Viewer IzzyOnDroid Private PDF Viewer; No Permissions
Ebook Reader Librera Reader F-Droid Reads: Epub, Mobi, DJVU, FB2, RTF, TXT,
Zip Files ZipXtract FD F-Droid Fully Open Source; AES 256 Encryption
11 Likes

This is very useful. Thank you for sharing!

4 Likes

For anonymous and free VPN I like Rise Up VPN:

XMPP messaging is a must for encrypted and decentralized messaging. Conversations does this:

TOR is a must too and u can get there with OrbotOrbot in Guardian Project Repo.

A good web browser is IronFox:

https://droidify.eu.org/app/?id=org.ironfoxoss.ironfox&repo_address=https://fdroid.ironfoxoss.org/fdroid/repo

2 Likes

Whats a good keyboard app for brax3 with spell check predictive text and emojis?

1 Like

I’ve been using the Futo keyboard and voice recognition. Louis Rossman is connected to this and says the keyboard and voice recognition is on device only, everything stays on the phone and nothing reports back to the mothership.

It’s very quick and probably 99% of my voice gets captured as the proper text

6 Likes

Just use the default Heliboard one and add the emoji dictionaries…

I tried the Fossify one but it was a bit annoying despite having some good features…

Otherwise @Ricketts is right and you should probably go to the FUTO option if you want TTS/STT and similar. They have a bundled install of keyboard and voice… (I have this waiting in the wings myself as next option if I decide to start using STT, etc.)

2 Likes

I just installed it moments ago and so far I really like it. Speech to text is so much easier and quicker. I’ve been typing everything out until now and I’m so glad I found this keyboard. Thanks to all of you for putting the information out here.

2 Likes