5 open-source alternatives to Google apps
When you purchase a new phone, there are certain quality-of-life applications that you expect to see, features that cater to the daily tasks that we've come to consider the bare necessities. Gallery, web browser, navigation, and calendar apps could all be expected software features on our respectable Android phones; their absence would be confusing. Google's ecosystem provides useful renditions of the above examples, all preinstalled and ready for use upon startup. But users don’t have to settle for all of Google’s baseline services, thanks to the Play Store’s healthy open-source app library.
While you might sacrifice some initial convenience getting into them, open-source services allow users to get under the hood to enhance their experience and engage with the app's community — and funnel less of your personal data into Google's algorithms. With real-time development updates and direct channels to the designers for providing feedback, open-source will always bring people together around a great service. Here, we’ve gathered some of our favorite open-source alternatives to the Google services you’ve likely been using for years, in all their community-driven glory.