What are the most useful Android phone apps?

Question

41

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Considered

184

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Recs.

Dec 6, 2021

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

38 Options Considered

What are the most useful Android phone apps	Price	License	Platforms
89 F-Droid	FREE	FLOSS	-
81 AdAway	-	-	Android (Host-file)
-- Signal	-	-	Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X
-- FairEmail	Free+	-	Android
-- Nova Launcher Prime	$4.99	-	-

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score 19 · Answer 1

F-Droid

Top Pro

All titles are free and open source

All apps and games on F-Droid are free and open source (FOSS), making for a complete store resource for users who want to use only open source software on their device. See More

Top Con

No ratings/comments/number of downloads

All apps are presented equally. It is difficult to judge an app's quality/popularity before trying it. On the upside, descriptions are fair (written by the F-Droid maintainers, not by the app authors). See More

Specs

License:FLOSS

Top Pro

Non-profit

Free and open source applications that are not for profit See More

Top Con

No screenshots

It can be difficult to tell what an app is like without installing it. See More

Top Pro

All apps have no ads nor tracking

This alone can be a great reason to use the apps available on F-Droid, but there is also the fact that this can increase battery life due to tracking and ads never requiring a data connection, since they are not present. See More

Top Con

Small selection

F-Droid has a small selection of apps when compared to other major Android markets. This is due to every app being open source and given away for free, something not many people are willing to do with their time and creations. See More

Top Pro

Previous versions of apps remain available after updates

If you don't like an app after an update, you can download the previous version again. This is not possible on GooglePlay. See More

Top Con

It doesn't have all the open source apps

There are many open source apps that aren't available on F-Droid due to their authors not making it available on that particular app store. One example is Omni Noted, which is on the Play Store but not F-Droid. See More

Top Pro

File sizes are shown

For those running out of room, the size of the APK is always shown. See More

Top Con

Descriptions are only available in English

Though the store app is multilingual, the app descriptions are only in English, meaning you must know English to find an app, even if the app is supposed to be multilingual. See More

Top Pro

F-Droid compiles all packages

F-Droid compiles all the packages themselves ensuring a high level of security. Other stores just allow the developer to upload the app already compiled, meaning anything malicious could be in the app. See More

Top Con

A lot of apps lack polish

Being that every app on F-Droid is FOSS and released for free, the polish of many are lacking when compared to other markets and their paid app selections. See More

Top Pro

Non profit

F-Droid is a non profit volunteer organization. Anyone can join to help out or contribute funds, and there are no secret agendas or hidden methods of monetization. See More

Top Con

Updates are not automatic

You have to click the updates one-by-one in order to make them happen. See More

See All

score 13 · Answer 2

AdAway

Top Pro

System-wide blocking

Use the hosts files to block ads, so it works for everything. See More

Top Con

Needs root (by design)

Needs root to update the hosts file. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android (Host-file)

Blocking:System-wide

Top Pro

Doesn't consume CPU time or memory

The app updates the hosts file periodically but doesn't need to run in the background in order to block ads, which is especially convenient for older phones. See More

Top Pro

Can use custom host files

Lots of people and keep their own updated host files used for blocking ads and ad away supports loading them in or even adding their source for autoloading. See More

See All

score 11 · Answer 3

Signal

Top Pro

Supports sharing of various different media types

Signal supports: emoji, pictures, videos, audio, contacts, any location and GIF. See More

Top Con

Single device

Signal can only be registered to one mobile device at a time. But you can link Signal to Signal Desktop. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X

Publisher:Open Whisper Systems

End-to-end encryption:Yes

Media:images / audio / video / files / contacts / GIFs / location

See All Specs

Top Pro

Provides security and privacy

Signal uses an advanced end to end encryption protocol that provides privacy for every message every time. See More

Top Pro

Recommended by Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden uses this messenger and recommends it to everyone who is concerned about his privacy. See More

Top Pro

Note to Self feature

Allows you to "send: messages to yourself and sync to desktop so you can use Signal as a kind of encrypted Pushbullet alternative See More

Top Pro

You can easily view all media exchanged

You can easily view all media shared in the chat without scrolling back to when it was shared. See More

Top Pro

Message mirroring on Signal Desktop

Signal Desktop is a Chrome extension that allows you to mirror messages from your phone, including replying. See More

Top Pro

Supports encrypted group chats

Top Pro

SMS/MMS support

Signal can be your default SMS/MMS text messenger. Encryption is not possible when sending SMS to your contacts, however. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Signal is free and open source software, enabling anyone to verify its security by auditing the code. It's the only private messenger that uses open source, peer-reviewed cryptographic protocols to keep your messages safe. See More

See All

score 5 · Answer 4

FairEmail

Top Pro

Multiple account support

Multiple identities per account, notifications per account or contact. See More

Prasanth's Experience

நல்லாருக்கு. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android

Publisher:Marcel Bokhorst

Search:Yes

IMAP:Yes

See All Specs

Top Pro

Open source

Top Pro

Can show plain text of html mails

Top Pro

Encryption support

Supports standard OpenPGP encryption for total privacy. See More

See All

score 9 · Answer 5

Nova Launcher Prime

Top Pro

Has a more customizable stock Android experience

Nova Launcher provides an experience that's similar to stock Android, but adds multiple customization options. Customization ranges in ways that interactions and the user interface can be changed both aesthetically and functionally. See More

Top Con

Overwhelming at first

Nova Launcher offers such a huge amount of customization that at first it is quite a bit overwhelming. There are settings everywhere and other launchers offer more of a step-by-step setup process. Nova Launcher could take you hours to set up how you like it. On the other hand the pure amount of settings allows you to set it up almost exactly how you like it. See More

Specs

Publisher:TeslaCoil Software

File Size:8.35MB

Required Android Version:4.1 and up

In App Purchases:None

Top Pro

Stable

Solid performance for getting work (and play) done, no crashes, no slow downs. See More

Top Con

High memory usage can slow down phone

Uses far more memory than the built-in TouchWiz launcher on Samsung devices. This extra memory use slows down the phone if it is low on memory. See More

Top Pro

Custom grid size

From the Nova Settings menu, users can create a custom grid size for their desktop and app drawer, up to a maximum of 12 columns and rows. Discriminating users can also adjust the size of the margins on the top, bottom, left and right. This allows for users to set how many widgets and apps can fit on these screens. See More

Top Pro

Gesture support

Use gestures (swipe up, double tap, etc.) to easily launch apps. See More

Top Pro

Fast

Speed of Nova Launcher is one of the app's key points. Even with a lot of widgets Nova Launcher performs speedy. See More

Top Pro

Outstanding widget support

With the custom grids, most widgets can be sized to specifications which give added control over Android home screens. See More

Top Pro

Useful visual customization options

Allows you to customize scroll effects, scroll speeds, animation speed, app animations, gestures. All of these options allow for very individualistic differences in how the launcher performs and looks, making for a great way to set ones phone apart from others. See More

Top Pro

Supports unread counts

Nova Launcher Prime offers unread counts for all supported apps, a feature not available on all launchers. Although it requires the free installation of TeslaUnread. What TeslaUnread does is add unread count numbers to certain application icons in ones application drawer and home screen, giving a quick overview of how many unread notifications they have in that supported application. See More

Top Pro

Extra dock pages

There are extra bottom row dock pages accessible when swiping left or right on the dock. In Nova's settings there is support for a maximum of five dock pages and a minimum of one. This way you can set up to 25 shortcuts in the dock that can be scrolled though, leaving plenty of room on the home screen for widgets and other apps. See More

Top Pro

Tapping & swiping a shortcut can have different results

Nova has the ability to add an assortment of action shortcuts to the home-screen which can be performed when swiping on particular areas or icons (as opposed to when tapping). See More

Top Pro

Drawer style options

Options include horizontal pages, vertical scrolling or list. The user is also able to adjust the background transparency. This way the users drawer can look unique while also offering more or less apps on the page depending on their preference. See More

Top Pro

Custom icon packs

Not all custom launchers allow custom icon packs. Nova supports most custom icon packs that are in the Play Store. See More

Top Pro

Can automatically sort inside of folders alphabetically

The user can sort their folders in the drawer and home-screen alphabetically. See More

See All

score 2 · Answer 6

OsmAnd Maps & Navigation

Top Pro

Excellent general map viewing

Sometimes one needs more than just navigation, they have a need to view a map or specify a specific route. OsmAnd provides a very nice, detailed map. This can be good for seeing what is around you or showing a place you are talking about to a friend. It also provides a means to add waypoints on the map which can be used to dictate a specific route (not simple enough to do routinely). See More

Specs

Platforms:Android, iOs

License:GPLv3

Top Pro

Works offline once the maps are downloaded

See All

score 5 · Answer 7

Smart Tools

score 6 · Answer 8

Telegram

Top Pro

Saved messages

You can write messages to yourself. You can write some notes, add links, and see everything across all your devices. See More

Top Con

"Secret Chat" feature is not available for desktop client

Secret chats with end to end encryption are only available on mobile apps. See More

Yanis's Experience

Very useful too ! See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, macOS, BSD, Windows phone, UWP

Publisher:Various companies affiliated with Telegram

File Size:2048 MB

End-to-end encryption:Secret chats

See All Specs

Top Pro

Possible to send photos and videos without compression

Top Con

Only "Secret Chat" messages are encrypted end to end

The only way to get end-to-end encryption (client-client) using Telegram is to use the Secret Chat function, anything through the service is server-client encrypted. Also secret chat is only implemented in the mobile apps, meaning there is no way to encrypt messages end-to-end when using the desktop client or the web browser client. See More

Top Pro

Supergroups of up to 200,000 people

In Supergroups, anyone along with admins can delete their messages from all sides. A message can be pinned to the top. All of the user's messages can be deleted by an administrator, and they can be banned and reported as well. Supergroups can have a public link (outside of Asia, due to high spam volumes), which is also a username. See More

Top Con

Not fully open source

Telegram has an open API and protocol free for everyone, but the backend software is not open source. Therefore 100% privacy can not be evaluated. See More

Top Pro

Cloud chat keys are kept in different jurisdiction

Even though encryption used for cloud-based storage (e.g. Gmail, Facebook, iCloud) may not be as secure as end-to-end encryption or zero-knowledge storage, Telegram does the most that it can by holding keys to chats in different jurisdictions, requiring intergovernmental cooperation to obtain the keys. This is aside from whatever other security measures have been taken, of course. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android iOS, Windows Phone, and Firefox OS even. Has a web app that changes it's appearance based on the device it's running on and if it's browser is full screen, etc. See More

Top Pro

Secure

Telegram uses an open source MTProto encryption protocol that provides complete end-to-end encryption for secret chats. To show off their confidence in the protocol the company behind Telegram has organized $200,000 and $300,000 challenges to break the encryption. So far there have been no winners. See More

Top Pro

Save time with inline bots and link previews

Unfortunately, on the desktop videos don't play, but images are viewable without visiting popular websites like imgur and Instagram. You can play YouTube videos and others within the app, so you don't need to embed code or anything. With inline bots, such as @gif, @pic/bing, @vid/YouTube, etc, you can look things up without leaving the client or chat that you're in. Simply type the name and some keywords and wait for the results to load. See More

Top Pro

@mentions

You can ping people to get their attention by @mentioning them. See More

Top Pro

Desktop app handles HIDPI

The desktop app has a built in setting to scale the UI of the app up to 200% which allows for those with 4k monitors/screens to use the app without scaling issues. See More

Top Pro

Two-step verification

You can set up an additional password to your account, which can be reset by your email. You don't have to use an email if you do not want to. If you lose access to your email or forget your password, you will be able to reset it via text message if your account is over seven days old and will receive it within a week (in case you recover anything before then). See More

Top Pro

Media messaging

Videos, gifs, images, geolocation, and documents. See More

Top Pro

Channels for one way broadcasting

Broadcasting channels suitable for announcing things. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful UI

Very customizable with a lot of clean looking options. See More

Top Pro

Privacy focused

In addition to the end-to-end encryption that provides privacy to communications, the app also includes self destructing timers for chats, and the ability to permanently delete messages, yours and theirs, from your device. See More

Top Pro

Free of cost

The application is available free of cost. See More

Top Pro

Free and convenient large file sharing

Copy/paste videos, gifs, images, geolocation, documents, and even executable files. Drag over files for practically any time up to 1.5GB in size. Images can be compressed, too. See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 9

Pocket Casts

Top Pro

Excellent, easy to use discovery system

Clicking the plus button in the top-right corner will bring you to featured podcasts. From there you can access multiple ways of finding new things to listen to such as: top charts (that can be separated in audio and video), search (that allows searching both by name and feed URL), a list of podcast networks and different podcast categories. They also have a great selection of podcasts to choose from. The team behind Pocket Casts work hard to maintain a reliable and high quality catalog so you can avoid out of date listings, problems with raw feeds, etc. See More

Peter J. Mello's Experience

I have used this app more than any other in the Android ecosystem through a horde of different devices. If you love podcasts or just talk radio in general, your life will be changed immeasurably if you start using it. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android >5.0, iOS, Windows Phone, Web Player

Top Pro

Automated playlist creation

Pocket Casts has a feature called Episode Filter, that allows automatically creating playlists based on setting such as playing states (unplayed, playing, played), status (downloaded, downloading, not downloaded), episode type (audio, video) and of course podcasts themselves. You can also customize the appearance of the playlist with a color and an icon to help it stand out easier. See More

Top Pro

Remembers playback speed & starting position

You can set a 'start from' position for a podcast to skip a set number of seconds from the beginning of an episode. Great for when you don't want to listen to an intro you've heard a couple of dozen times before. Additionally, you can also change the playback speed, to slow down fast talkers or speed up slow talkers. See More

Top Pro

Sleep timer built in

Setting the sleep timer will stop the podcast after a set period of time. See More

Top Pro

Auto download specific podcasts

You can set Pocket Casts to automatically download the latest episode of a podcast, whenever a new episode is released. See More

Top Pro

Quick access to shownotes

When listening to a podcast you can swipe right to bring up all the shownotes with clickable links. See More

Top Pro

Queue up next podcasts

From the playback screen swipe to the right to access your podcast playlist. From there you can easily queue up your next podcast. See More

Top Pro

Sync with iPhone, iPad, Android

If you use Pocket Casts on more than one device, you can synchronize settings, playback positions, etc., across all your devices. See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 10

Quora

Top Pro

Rewards "top writers"

With badges, events, and swag. See More

Top Con

No context-based ranking

Each post is attached to a specific user and each user can only post once in a thread, so it's impossible to rank. (There is a communal wiki on each question.) The format is best for qualitative responses. See More

Top Pro

All subjects are covered

Unlike the SE which only allows questions on very narrow topics, all questions can be asked at Quora and are neatly categorized with tags. See More

Top Con

Need to log in to see content

Quora forces people to log in to see content, which severely restricts the usefulness of the site, and limits willingness to write content for the site. See More

See All

score 2 · Answer 11

Tasker

Top Pro

Infinitely tweakable

Tasker has an impressive amount of triggers, actions, and parameters that can be used together in an incredible variety of ways. It can even accept scripts to follow instructions. See More

Top Con

Awful user interface

While it's incredibly powerful, Tasker's user interface is counter-intuitive, confusing, and just plain clunky at every turn. See More

Top Pro

Create powerful custom applications

Tasker has the ability to create custom applications, effectively replacing multiple installed apps in your phone with tasks that are triggered automatically. What's even better is that they will be custom tailored to fit your specific needs. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Tasker lacks good documentation or tutorials, which is important as the learning curve is very high if you want to use its advance features where this app actually shines. See More

Top Pro

Export tasks as standalone apps

Tasker allows exporting workflows you've created as standalone applications that can then be shared or even put on the Google Play store. See More

Top Pro

Awesome plugin support

Tasker has awesome plugin support to connect with hardware that usually requires installing specific apps. For example, it has a plugin for Pebble smartwatch so that you can automate tasks that require using Pebble. See More

Top Pro

Can adjust system software

With Root access it can also dabble with system software which other apps are not likely to achieve at the moment. See More

See All

score 2 · Answer 12

Zenkit

Top Pro

Powerful and simple to use tool with a clean design

Easy to use and easily understandable for everyone. See More

Yanis's Experience

Getting better and better on my Android ! See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iPhone

Search:Yes

Multiple Accounts:Yes

Open Source:Only as Linux Snap

See All Specs

Top Pro

Native apps

Native apps for iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux. See More

See All

score 11 · Answer 13

Spotify

Top Con

Free account have lots of ads

If you hate commercials, you would buy Premium or go on using something else. See More

Top Pro

Huge collection of music and fast access to newly released songs

Spotify has over 20 million songs and arguably the largest collection out of its competitors and usually has the fastest access to new music. The Spotify desktop client allows local music files to be imported with the option of syncing with a mobile device which largely mitigates the issue of missing artists. See More

Paolo's Experience

This is my go to music player/music streaming service as it is really convenient to use and has tons of songs. The Extreme Quality song downloads is also a huge plus for me, as I can enjoy my music with very good detail/clarity. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web; Android; iOS; Linux; Windows; MacOS

Playlist Sharing:Yes

User-Created Playlists:Yes

Offline download:Yes

Top Con

Not available in a lot of countries

Top Pro

Curated playlists

Public playlists on Spotify created by other people are great for finding new music. See More

Yanis's Experience

Big fan of podcast, but still love music ! See More

Top Con

Discovery is terrible

The discovery algorithm is poor and does not learn fast enough. Not obvious how to train it. See More

Top Pro

Has a free version

A free, ad-supported account allows streaming from an extensive library of music. See More

Top Con

Poor audio quality

There's a high range of bitrates and most of vary from average to bad. See More

Top Pro

Weekly Discover playlist uses a great algorithm

A playlist generated by Spotify based on your listening habits and released every Monday. The algorithm used by this playlist is great and stands out from its competitors. See More

Top Pro

Related artists

Helps to find new authors based on your previous picks See More

Top Pro

Client's functionality can be extended via third-party apps

Spotify desktop client allows for third-party apps. They extend the functionality of Spotify and many of them offer new ways of discovering music. Noteworthy apps include Moodagent, Last.fm, Swarm.fm, ShareMyPlaylists, The Hype Machine, We Are Hunted, Shuffler.fm. See More

See All

score 5 · Answer 14

SwiftKey

Top Con

Privacy, automatically saves unknown words

E.g. passwords entered in plain text fields, place names, people names etc. See More

Top Pro

Can be resized to as large or as small as you want

You can choose between five different sizes to resize the keyboard. See More

Peter J. Mello's Experience

What could be more important on a mobile device than a good touch keyboard? SwiftKey has been my favorite of the various keyboards to grace the Android spotlight over the years, offering reliability, responsiveness, and the best predictions I've ever found, which sync between all my devices. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android, iOS

App Stores:Google Play, Apple/iTunes

Top Con

Bought by Microsoft

Will undoubtedly lead to less innovation. See More

Top Pro

Free

Swiftkey is free to download and use, though there are in app purchases to unlock more features. See More

Yanis's Experience

Such a great keyboard, love it. See More

Top Pro

Gestures typing or tap typing

Swiftkey supports both popular methods of typing. Either way the methods integrate perfectly with the predictions featured above the keyboard. See More

Top Pro

Fast access to Emojis

When users type the name of the desired Emoji, a small list will come up where the right one can be selected. See More

Top Pro

Ad-free

SwiftKey is competely ad-free. See More

Top Pro

Various convenient layouts available, also for tablets

Top Pro

All the typing information saved from SwiftKey is synced across devices

Any learned words, phrases (inc. email addresses) will be backed up to the cloud and available across multiple devices. See More

Top Pro

Users can view in-depth usage statistics

SwiftKey will even provide you exciting data about how you type such as a heatmap. The more you use SwiftKey, the more your heat map will transform from perfect circles into blobs where you tend to press. From the Heatmap you'll know where you tend to make mistakes and how SwiftKey is improved. Other stats provided include: Distance flowed in meters Keystrokes saved Typos corrected Words completed See More

Top Pro

Supports Google voice dictation

Even though SwiftKey is a third party keyboard, Swiftkey still uses the preferred Google voice dictation. See More

Top Pro

Can be customized to have a numbers row in easy reach

Users can optionally display a number pad above the keyboard. See More

Top Pro

Multiple simultaneous languages

Keyboard can integrate multiple languages into one seamless autocorrect engine. See More

Top Pro

Can be customized with plenty of themes available

Swiftkey offers a wide range of different themes to add personality to your keyboard (some are free.. others paid for via in app purchases). See More

Top Pro

Has a large number of languages available

Has 61+ languages available that can be downloaded. So chances are the languages you need will be available. See More

Top Pro

Highly acclaimed for its constantly improving prediction engine

The prediction engine of SwiftKey is continuously being improved by using data from social networks, text messages or even emails from the user's device. Predictions appear above the keyboard as soon as a letter is typed. By adjusting to the user's writing habits and style, it really helps to save time when writing. See More

See All

score 1 · Answer 15

Instapaper

Platforms:web, Android, iOS

score 4 · Answer 16

Google Maps

Top Pro

Accurate mapping

Top Con

No plan-ahead for commuters

Cannot plan trip ahead based on commuter lane. See More

Yanis's Experience

Use it for so many things, coffee shops first ! See More

Specs

Platforms:Android, iOs

Developer:Google

Top Pro

Secondary routing

Google Maps can now search for and add a route for a second location on the way to the primary location that you are going to and have already routed. Note that it cannot do a third or true multi routing like the desktop webapp can. See More

Top Con

Sometimes takes too long to load

Top Pro

Updated constantly

Nearby my house, there is major road construction in progress. Apple maps didn’t show this at all, but google maps did. There was also a new, small road that was finished around 3 days ago. Google maps shows this road. Apple maps still hasn’t shown the major construction. See More

Top Pro

Most ubiquitous third party app integration

Asides from the stock Apple Maps app, Google Maps is the most commonly supported 3rd party map. 3rd party apps often have links for directions, Google Maps is usually an option whereas other 3rd party GPS apps are not. See More

Top Pro

Best execution of save location feature

Recent updates have made it so you can label a place instead of being stuck with some address or GPS coordinate and forgetting what it represents. Saved places show as stars and are all on one layer as long as you're logged in. There is also the ability to create maps (parallel to groups) for things you might not want to see or have show up all the time whenever you're using google maps from day to day. This feature is highly helpful for planning, even if you're a person who likes to wing it. See More

Top Pro

Offline functionality

You can download offline data per city or parts of cities if you live in an especially large city, but not for states or countries. Points of Interests are generally more relevant & current than the typical stand alone GPS unit. See More

Top Pro

Navigation background change based on ambient light

This is great for night driving or even when going through tunnels as the map will be more visible for low light situations. See More

See All

score 1 · Answer 17

DuckDuckGo

Top Pro

Very protective of user privacy

DuckDuckGo does not collect or share any personal information. Their privacy page has a great rundown on why privacy is important. The most important repercussion of this is that DDG doesn't use the data collected to tailor results, avoiding exposure to the "Filter Bubble". See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, Android, iOS

Category:Search engine

score 3 · Answer 18

Fantastical

score 1 · Answer 19

Plex

Top Pro

Accessible via web browser

A modern web browser is enough to get everything Plex has to offer. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Android

Top Pro

Supported on many devices

It's pretty hard to find a NAS or STB that doesn't support Plex. See More

Top Pro

Added lots of media databases

Metadata for media files will automatically be updated by using media databases. This provides posters, movie trailers, descriptions, information about actors, etc. See More

See All

score 4 · Answer 20

LastPass

Top Con

Has been hacked before

And becomes extra bad as you are forced to have everything at one central cloud place. See More

Top Pro

Has a free tier and a cheap premium tier

LastPass offers a free tier. The paid tier ($1/mo) adds unlimited use of LastPass mobile apps, more multifactor authentication options, ad-free and priority assistance and tools for locked-down computers. See More

Yanis's Experience

Works great on my phone too See More

Specs

Storage:Online

Supported platforms:Windows, OSX, Android, iOS, Windows Phone

Browser integration:Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, Maxthon, Dolphin

Encryption methods:256-bit AES and rounds of PBKDF2-SHA256

See All Specs

Top Pro

Fingerprint verification

Some fingerprint readers, like TouchID on iOS devices or on Samsung devices, can be set up to be used to access LastPass instead of a master password. See More

Top Pro

Does not require a standalone app

While many password managers require a standalone app to be installed on the system, LastPass does not and can function via browser plugins. See More

Top Pro

Can create one-time passwords for accessing the Vault

LastPass allows creating passwords for accessing the LastPass Vault that can only be used once. Great for accessing the Vault in public or untrusted places. See More

Top Pro

Allows sharing passwords with one person or a group of people

LastPass allows sharing login data for a site with another user of LastPass without exposing the password. Great for allowing friends, family or coworkers access a site. See More

Top Pro

Automatic security monitoring

LastPass will check for re-used and unsafe passwords. See More

Top Pro

Clean and intuitive UI

Since version 3.0 the LastPass interface is clean and easy to navigate on all platforms. See More

Top Pro

All encryption and decryption is done locally

All the encryption and decryption is done by the client (JS/App) so even LastPass doesn't have access to passwords. See More

Top Pro

Seamless autofill and password generator via plugins for all popular browsers

All common browsers, including Opera, have plugins that allow automatically filling in forms and generating passwords. All form fill information syncs across all platforms, devices and browsers. Password generator can be adjusted to use or exclude certain characters and patterns. See More

Top Pro

Automatic cloud backup and cross-device sync

LastPass keeps an encrypted copy of all passwords locally as well as an encrypted copy on their servers. That way, passwords can be accessed locally while offline, or through their server while online from any machine. See More

See All

38 Options Considered

My Recommendation for F-Droid

My Recommendation for F-Droid

All titles are free and open source

No ratings/comments/number of downloads

Non-profit

No screenshots

All apps have no ads nor tracking

Small selection

Previous versions of apps remain available after updates

It doesn't have all the open source apps

File sizes are shown

Descriptions are only available in English

F-Droid compiles all packages

A lot of apps lack polish

Non profit

Updates are not automatic

My Recommendation for AdAway

My Recommendation for AdAway

System-wide blocking

Needs root (by design)

Doesn't consume CPU time or memory

Can use custom host files

My Recommendation for Signal

My Recommendation for Signal

Supports sharing of various different media types

Single device

Provides security and privacy

Recommended by Edward Snowden

Note to Self feature

You can easily view all media exchanged

Message mirroring on Signal Desktop

Supports encrypted group chats

SMS/MMS support

Free and open source

My Recommendation for FairEmail

My Recommendation for FairEmail

Multiple account support

Open source

Can show plain text of html mails

Encryption support

My Recommendation for Nova Launcher Prime

My Recommendation for Nova Launcher Prime

Has a more customizable stock Android experience

Overwhelming at first

Stable

High memory usage can slow down phone

Custom grid size

Gesture support

Fast

Outstanding widget support

Useful visual customization options

Supports unread counts

Extra dock pages

Tapping & swiping a shortcut can have different results

Drawer style options

Custom icon packs

Can automatically sort inside of folders alphabetically

My Recommendation for OsmAnd Maps & Navigation

My Recommendation for OsmAnd Maps & Navigation

Excellent general map viewing

Works offline once the maps are downloaded

My Recommendation for Smart Tools

My Recommendation for Smart Tools

My Recommendation for Telegram

My Recommendation for Telegram

Saved messages

"Secret Chat" feature is not available for desktop client

Possible to send photos and videos without compression

Only "Secret Chat" messages are encrypted end to end

Supergroups of up to 200,000 people

Not fully open source

Cloud chat keys are kept in different jurisdiction

Cross-platform

Secure

Save time with inline bots and link previews

@mentions

Desktop app handles HIDPI

Two-step verification

Media messaging