I would say that RethinkDNS is quite different from a VPN (although it partly acts as and takes the place of a VPN) since it provides with an on-device DNS filter.

Overall, this is a good list and could definitely be useful for people starting out. A couple of suggestions, if I may:

  1. Remove Binary Eye, which is made redundant by Secure Camera, which has QR and barcode scanning functionality.
  2. Remove Secure Photo Viewer, which seems to be from 2018 with very few reviews.
  3. Perhaps you would like to include launcher recommendations. From my experience, Lawnchair and Kvaesitso are both FOSS and very nice to use, especially as the default Launcher3 is fairly barebones.
  4. RSS readers might also be worth considering. I’m currently using Feeder, which is another great, FOSS app.

    phnx

    Remove Binary Eye, which is made redundant by Secure Camera, which has QR and barcode scanning functionality.

    Redundant? Have you seen the feature set of BinaryEye?
    @OP Leave it in, do not remove it!

      phnx 1 & 2 done! Have updated the list.

      Will think about 3 & 4. Thanks for your contribution!

      (Although I think Binary Eye seems to offer way more)

        phnx

        I think secure photo viewer just doesnt need an update. It displays a picture on the lockscreen, nothing more.

        There is no alternative, and in most cases people wont hack you but might scroll through your phone. So that app is brilliant!

        Weather apps are often really location dependend.

          Additions:

          Add F-Droid basic as appstore. All the others are no stores as they either have too little apps, or none at all.

          F-droid basic is modern and really optimized. If you trust the packaging, F-Droid is actually better than downloading random APKs that include whatever dependency that FOSS devs may get loaded in their Android IDE.

          F-droid builds are reproducible. And also you can just use the app as a feed and add a ton of repos. Then copy the source URL and use obtainium if you want

          For anonymization, add RethinkDNS and I2P. Rethink also has Tor, I2p is better for actually being anonymous.

          For chat, add conversations for XMPP.

          The mail client could be updated to thunderbird, it is already released with that Branding. Tough one, likely not your power.

          Not sure if binary eye has QR code generation. This is what I currently use "secuso qr scanner" for.

          For cloud, obviously Syncthing (maybe Syncthing-Fork, the main one is no longer maintained) as that works with no servers at all. And Nextcloud, which you can rent

          For PDF, "MJ PDF" has more features and also uses Vanadium Webview.

          As local music player, anrimians music player is nice.

          In social networks, Grayjay and Jerboa are missing!

          In Calendar, DAVx5 is essential to sync with a good mail provider. Not private at all though.

            Productivity, you could add Googles Snapseed, works offline. Also Ankidroid. And maybe CollaboraOffice but that has no features.

            StirlingPDF is awesome here but needs hosting.

            Open Videoeditor maybe.

            OSS Document Scanner for scanning stuff.

            Streetcomplete to improve OpenStreetmaps!

            For navigation, adding NeoStumbler is essential. The app allows you to collect wifi, cell towers and bluetooth beacons with the GPS location. You can upload it to beacondb.net which offers a database you can then download and in the future use offline for network location positioning in GrapheneOS.

            For navigation, TTS is essential too. Sherpa onxx is brilliant here, awesome quality, all local.

            Wormhole for file transfer P2P over the internet.

            YetCalc for a nice calculator with conversion stuff.

            ConverterNOW for more conversion stuff.

            IMHO Rethink > NetGuard:
            Rethink is fully free and supports the same features as NetGuard (DNS and application logging, DNS filtering, etc.) except without a paywall (yes, you can access the locked NetGuard features if you have some programming knowledge). Moreover, Rethink works well in user profiles and can even allow you to connect to a VPN like ProtonVPN (and still use the DNS logging/filtering features)