Web Browser

Fennec is 3rd party, community version the official Firefox Mobile app. It is identical to the official app other than removing proprietary code and Mozilla’s data collection. It’s a good but flawed and otherwise inferior to chrome-based mobile browsers in many ways. It doesn’t perform as well, to a degree that you can actually feel. And it is sometimes unable to render pages correctly, when the same page is fine in chrome.

Then why prefer it? Because it respects your privacy more than the alternatives, as well as providing top-shelf ad & tracker blocking through extensions. My favorite extensions from the desktop version are fully supported: uBlock, Privacy Badger, and Decentraleyes.

I care a lot about digital privacy and software freedom, and if you do as well then I strongly recommend Fennec.

Email Client

I use the official Thunderbird mobile app to access email on my phone. It’s very good, the best mobile email app that I’ve used. It was launched in 2024, and is based on an older client called K-9 Mail. I strongly recommend it, especially if you already use Thunderbird on your desktop.

Reddit Client

Red Reader is a mobile client for the social platform called Reddit. Following the API Pricing Controversy in 2023, this is one of the few freely available apps with Reddit’s blessing to continue using the API. It’s a decent app with a simple UI that doesn’t get in your way. It supports anonymous browsing, and has good accessibility features, which is the reason why it was exempted from the new API pricing. If you were looking for a 3rd-party Reddit client, I definitely recommend this one.

Soft Keyboard

I use a custom keyboard on my android phone called Futo. It’s a soft keyboard that has all the modern and advanced features that are available in the first party offering from Google, without any of the privacy concerns.

In particular, I love the voice input. It is done entirely on-device, and you can even change which AI model gets used. For me it has been very accurate, and I’ve come to rely on it for my day-to-day use of my phone.

Futo does nothing new, but it was a revelation for me since I avoided Google and other’s offerings for so long due to privacy concerns. I am concerned no more, and I highly recommend this app.