GlytchMeister I have been using Heliboard for my keyboard.

The project looks promising. I will spend some time with it and see if it feeds my needs and pick either FlorisBoard or HeliBoard.

N1b Of the recommended apps the only one supporting shorts to my knowledge is https://github.com/libre-tube/LibreTube

LibreTube supports Shorts. The only problem I'm having is the authentification at the instance. I'm getting the error that I have to sign in to show that I'm no bot. If I select "Disable Piped proxy" everything is fine but the requests are loaded directly from YouTube servers in that case.

N1b Powerful alternative is https://github.com/tasks/tasks

Great alternative. It has everything I need (and much more).

          Heliboard is great.
          Getting swipe working is just two steps to configure.
          If you can live with the proprietary library

          AcidDemon

          Re: Libretube thing: if you use a good VPN, the Proxy is redundant.

          Its a dirty 'fix' that largely defeats the purpose of the main distinguishing factor between Libretube and Newpipe, and the Libretube dev(s) are copping a combative/defensive attitude to anyone who pointed out the issue in the first place, then to anyone who points out that this kills a big part of what makes libretube uniquely privacy-friendly... So make of that what you will. I haven't been back to their github page in a while after a couple interactions in their issues section went rather sour.

          Their subscribed channels feed page thingy is also not actually pulling like... 3/4ths of the videos because it apparently depends on libretube or maybe piped users manually visiting channels... probably piped, because I manually visited every channel I'm subscribed to and it didn't fix my feed. So there's that, too. At least with Newpipe, you can actually see at least the long format videos your channels post without having to manually check each one yourself.

            YouTube
            One of the Pipe ones or Grayjay. Right now I'm using PipePipe since it supports viewing Shorts on creator profiles whereas Grayjay doesn't support that yet. Grayjay is still in early development though so it will probably be where I end up. I like their anti-censorship goals such as enabling multiple plugins and polycentric comments. Though, I usually just use the browser for most random searches anyway and just use the apps to manage subscriptions. Grayjay also supports FCast, a new open-source protocol as a Chromecast alternative.

            Keyboard
            FUTO Keyboard. It has built-in swipe typing and it has open-source language model predictive text suggestions and auto-correct, which I don't think any other alternative keyboard has. It's like 90% as good as gboard. FUTO Keyboard also has a built-in speech-to-text that competes with Google's in terms of quality. You can also install the FUTO Voice Input App separately if you want to use it with another keyboard like Heliboard instead.

            Browser
            Brave + Vanadium as a main browser. If you need a browser that supports extensions, try Mull Browser (it's a hardened Firefox browser). You can login to a Firefox/Mozilla account using Mull. Just know that Firefox-based browsers on Android don't have the best security and lack site isolation, so I only use it as a secondary browser. Cromite (fork of Bromite) is also a project worth keeping an eye on for the future.

            Gallery
            If you're comfortable self-hosting, look into Immich. It looks and functions very similarly to Google Photos, but it's self-hosted and privacy respecting.

            Social Media
            I'm biased since i don't actively use social media. But i just do it in the browser if I need it on mobile. Unless your job requires it, you'll probably benefit mentally from not having social media on your phone anyway. I mostly just browse reddit, X (Twitter), and YouTube these days, but there are privacy web-based front ends like Redlib, Nitter, and Invidious. (Some nitter instances still work for light casual browsing).

            Note taking
            Standard Notes, Joplin

            Music streaming
            Also look at RiMusic (uses YouTube Music)

            Password manager
            Also can look into Proton Pass, it's part of the Proton Suite.

            RSS
            Feeder

            Weather
            Breezy weather or Weawow if you want more weather sources like Dark Sky (Apple Weather)

              AlphaElwedritsch I'm referrng to the transformer language model
              https://gitlab.futo.org/keyboard/keyboard-wiki/-/wikis/Keyboard-LM-docs

              Futo supports both their transformer LM and the AOSP dictionary algorithm.

              Its still experimental, but for me, the transformer LM is light years better than the AOSP dictionary algorithm approach that you'll find in apps like Heliboard. It's the closest thing I've found to replicating Gboard"s text prediction. You can set how much you want to prefer using the transformer LM over the AOSP dictionary in the futo keyboard settings app. I changed mine to almost entirely prefer the transformer LM and it works great.

                10 days later

                I have found great substitutes for the categories named in my first post.

                Regarding info about public transportation I found Magic Earth to have good results.

                What I haven't found is something to replace Genius Scan (scanner app. Used to take pictures of documents incl. picture enhancements (and OCR)).

                For the browser task I'll stick to Brave and Vanadium.

                Are there any (none Firefox based) browser with Socks support (I haven't found one)?

                6 days later

                I have spent the last hours looking through different MediaPlayer apps for mp3 playback (mostly). I named VLC in my post because of its versatility but one thing I dislike is its handling of the library.

                I've thoroughly tested Musicolet, Symfonium, and Poweramp. Symfonium's search functionality and overall user experience left me wanting, so I narrowed my focus to Musicolet and Poweramp.

                Poweramp seems to have better options (I didn't find a way to change the default decoder, sampling rate etc.) when it comes to the decoding process in Musicolet.

                Are there any specific reasons to prefer one app over the other, or are their differences primarily in personal preference?

                AcidDemon I took a look at the project. It hasn't been updated since two years

                There is a fork, rimusic. Its active and excellent. Its also on accrescent.

                  AcidDemon YouTube

                  Libretube

                  AcidDemon Password manager

                  I love Bitwarden. Especially with the new native mobile apps.

                  AcidDemon Aegis

                  Or Ente auth

                  AcidDemon ente alternative

                  I use ente but Stingle may be an alternative

                  AcidDemon reminders and notifications

                  Notesnook has it but not very advanced. A lot of people seem to recommend tasks.org

                  AcidDemon birthdays automatically appearing in the calendar

                  Posteo does it ! E2ee. I would hope that Proton finally do this. Don't know if Tuta does but Tuta integrates natively in the OSs contact apps.

                  AcidDemon Cryptomator combined with a clouddrive like Protondrive

                  Seems redundant.

                  AcidDemon Fairmail or K9 mail

                  Yes. I would opt for K9 because nicer UI and backed by Thunderbird and less new I think.

                  AcidDemon Adblocking

                  Use the ad blocking from your VPN provider, Mullvad

                  AcidDemon Notesnook

                  I love it

                  AcidDemon Vanadium or Brave

                  The only acceptable choices in Android if you want my opinion. Brave has a bit more features : e2ee sync, translator, …

                  AcidDemon Mullvad

                  Perfect ! 👍 I also like Windscribe. IVPN is a pain. I don't like Proton a lot. Never used Mullvad.

                  AcidDemon Suggestions?

                  I use Feeder and I love it

                  AcidDemon Weather

                  At the moment I would recommend Breezy Weather because it is very feature rich. Bura Weather is good and wants to add more features in the future to become a bit like the iOS weather app imo.