UPDATE 2021-10-11: Added Excellent [APKGrabber] ▓ ALTERNATIVE FIRMWARE As for firmware, I recommend to use [LineAgeOS] if your device is supported. Neat FW with minimal tracking and no bloat from big corps. If there is no native LineAgeOS support check [XDA forum threads] for unofficial ports by community enthusiasts. If your device is not supported in both cases I do not recommend to update stock firmware to prevent bloat’n’telemetry installation.

UPDATED ON: 2025-10-019
List will be updated in the future.
Most of the applications can be found on [F-Droid market] and work on Android 8.0.
Permissions checker: [Exodus] .
Most of applications do not require wild amount of permissions, but exceptions could occur.

Of course you run into situations when you would like to copy “non-standard” files to your Android smartphone and dumb MTP protocol showed up window like this one: And this torture repeated after every new file type copied. Such imbecility can be removed by following command in admin console: regsvr32 /u wpdshext.dll That’s all, limitation is gone. Another hint, which potentially can help to overcome weird design of MTP protocol.

UPDATED ON: 2023-02-20 Note is totally rewritten to match 2023 reality. Today it is not an easy task to do. There are plenty browsers out there. “So, what is the problem?” you may ask. Most of them are based upon google chrome. This means that all of them are dialing back to google to share your private data. That’s the main problem. Here is my personal list of browsers that I use in a daily workflow on Windows machine: Main surfer: [Iceweasel 110] ► replaced IceCat For visiting geo-restricted sites: [TorBrowser 12.