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Fossify apps pick up where Simple Mobile Tools left off (free and open source suite of Android apps)

When the lead developer behind Simple Mobile Tools sold the business to ZipApps last year, many long-time users of this suite of simple, free, and open source Android apps were wary. And, as expected, ZipApps soon started inserting ads and locking features that had once been free behind expensive subscriptions. But a developer who had […]

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F-Droid now supports automatic background updates (Free and open source Android app store)

F-Droid maintains a repository of free and open source (FOSS) Android apps, and the F-Droid client for Android devices basically functions as an alternative to the default app store on most Android devices: the Google Play Store. But up until recently, F-Droid lacked one of the Play Store’s key features: the ability to automatically install updates […]

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Android app maker Simple Mobile Tools acquired by ZipoApps

Simple Mobile Tools is the developer behind a suite of open source Android apps that live up to their name, with simple, ad-free user interfaces and features. Simple Voice Recorder has long been my go to recommendation for anyone looking for a no-nonsense way to record voice memos on an Android phone, and the developer […]

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Lilbits: Arm IPO, Atari 2600+ and the “first conformant” GPU driver for Apple M1 and M2 chips

The folks behind Asahi Linux have been had to reverse engineer Apple’s CPU and GPU architecture in order to get Linux up and running on the latest Macs with Apple Silicon processors. But one of the developers responsible for much of the work that’s gone into creating open source graphics drivers for Apple M1 and […]

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Scrcpy 2.0 adds audio support to the Android screen mirroring utility for PCs

Scrcpy is a free and open source tool that lets you mirror your Android device to a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. This lets you view your mobile apps on a PC, remote control them, or make screen recordings. Now the developer has released scrcpy 2.0, which brings support for new video codecs and support […]

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Microsoft Store backtracks on policy that prohibited sales of some open source apps

Last month the Microsoft Store issued policy updates meant to crack down on developers charging unreasonable prices for apps… and on copycats who use the store to sell clones of open source software that’s normally available for free, a problem that’s been plaguing the Microsoft Store for years. But the language Microsoft used suggested that […]

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Lilbits: Linux laptops and handhelds, iOS 16 beta, and Microsoft Store policy change blocks sales of some open source apps

The thing about free and open source apps is that anyone can take the source code and make their own version of an app with few (or no) changes. Many open source licenses even allow you to redistribute your version of an app. So it’s unsurprising that app stores are sometimes litters with unofficial versions […]

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Lilbits: Steam Deck software update, beginning of the end for the Pixel 3a, and Audacity in the Microsoft Store

Valve’s latest beta software update for the Steam Deck brings experimental support for controlling the screen refresh rate in games and allows the Linux-based operating system to control the fan speed as well as when the fan activates in the first place, which can cut down on unwanted noise in some circumstances. Unfortunately there’s also […]

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Lilbits: Pixel 6a confirmed (sort of), USB-C charging comes to power tools, and Face ID works with face masks now

Google’s next smartphone is expected to be a cheaper version of the Pixel 6, featuring the same Google Tensor processor, but an older, less powerful camera system. Google hasn’t officially confirmed that the Pixel 6a is real yet… but it’s come pretty close with a mention of the unannounced phone spotted in a coloring book […]

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ReactOS 0.4.14 brings new features, more hardware support to the open source Windows clone

ReactOS is an open source operating system designed to be compatible with Windows applications. It’s been in development for more than two decades and is still very much work-in-progress software, but the first major release in more than a year brings a handful of new features and support for additional hardware. ReactOS 0.4.14 is now […]