Shelter for Android–An Android Sandbox App

Shelter is a free, open source app for Android that implements a limited sandbox where you can run other apps.

Run “Big Brother” apps inside the isolated profile so they cannot access your data outside the profile

“Freeze” (disable) background-heavy or seldom-used apps when you don’t need them. This is especially true if you use apps from Chinese companies like Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent.

Clone apps to use two accounts on one device

Time Until | Beautiful Countdown App for Android

Recently I wanted an app that would let me create a widget on one of my home screens to count down the days until a major life event. There are a lot of apps on Android to do this, but since this is a fairly niche featureset, most of them looked like garbage.

Ultimately I ended up settling on Bruno Schalch’s Time Until | Beautiful Countdowns app.

The app is free, but the home screen widget feature requires paying $2.99 for the premium version.

CloudFlare’s Encrypted DNS App for Android and iOS

CloudFlare recently released an app for Android and iOS that makes it easy for users to encrypt their DNS queries using CloudFlare’s 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver.

For once, I’m really not sure what the point is of a security tool like this. One of the criteria for using the 1.1.1.1 app is you need to turn off any VPN you have activated. But I’m not really certain what the use case would be for wanting encrypted DNS but not a VPN.

Personally, I use ProtonMail’s VPN on my phone when I want privacy from the local network operator. There are issues with Proton, but it’s security is more than good enough for anyone not concerned about state actors in their threat model.

rcloneExplorer for Android

rcloneExplore is an Android app that,

  • Allows to browse rclone remotes, including encrypted ones
  • Import configuration file from rclone
  • Create new remotes from the app
  • Download and upload files
  • Move, rename, and delete files and folders
  • Create new folders
  • Streaming media files
  • Serving directories over HTTP or Webdav
  • Dark theme
  • Customizable primary and accent colors
  • Supports ARM and x86 devices
  • Supports SDK 21+ (Lollipop 5.0)

The one potential drawback with a[[ this is that it is only available as an APK that would need to be side-loaded. There is not a version of this available from the Play Store as far as I can tell.

InboxIt App for Android

InboxIt – Share to Mail is an app for Android designed to improve how Android handles sharing links via email, primarily for emailing links to yourself that you want to read later.

There is no need to type your email address, email title or body. InboxIt with a ‘single click’.

In addition, InboxIt grabs website’s image and description for nicer and more readable emails, no more clicking on emails to figure what article this is, images & videos are also supported (up to 25mb).

The premium 99 cent version will also automatically add a +keyword label for sharing to Gmail addresses, which makes it easier to sort these “read later” emails from other emails.

I have a variety of ways to track stuff I want to read later, and tend to email myself links that I need to follow-up on in the near future. InboxIt just makes those emails all the more useful.