I just got a new Android phone, which is actually my first smartphone, and am wondering what apps you would recommend.

One thing is that I would like to avoid the Play Store as much as possible, as it sells DRM encumbered apps.

Also, I note that this is a low-end budget phone, so apps that require lots of computing power (for example) are a no.

Currently, I have installed:
* F-Driod
* Fennec (F-Droid version), with an ad blocker
* Termux
* RetroArch (but no cores)

What I am particularly interested in:
* A music player that respects the directoty structure. (In other words, I should be able to navigate music by folders on the file system rather than having them all dumped into a single long list.)
* Cores for RetroArch that are suitable (currently interested only in systems that have no more than 2 face buttons, so NES and GBC but not SNES); said cores should have decent accuracy and compatibility without sacrificing performance or using too much CPU resources

So, any advice?

I always suggest the Simon Tatham Puzzle Colelction.

OpenCamera is a nice FOSS camera.

WX is an advanced weather reader for the NWS, so it's useless if you're outside the US.

Total Commander is a fine file manager that's commander style.

ZXtune will likely be my choice for media playing on mobile for the foreseeable future.

I use Just Search as my search assistant.

And this is my launcher of choice currently. It keeps things catagorized.

You can't forget about KDE connect. Unless you don't use KDE.

Here is Aegis Authenticator, something more fully featured than Redhat's FreeOTP.

AnysoftKeyboard is finally at a competent level and has enough themes to make it feel good.

Trackbook GPS might be nice for going on walks, but there are some quirks in behavior.

Timely is my alarm program of choice.

As a bonus, here's the Living Worlds application.



Edit: as for Retroarch Cores, SNES9X should be suitable, Nestopia UE, Gambatte, those are what I suggest.

HikiPlayer for music player. Total Commander already mentioned - excellent file manager (I'm also using the Windows version). AFWall+ for firewall. Link2SD, SD Maid, Titanium Backup for managing apps, cleaning, etc. Don't delete the empty files or folders - many cleaning apps have options for doing this but it is not recommended.

All these apps, with the exception of the music player, work better with a rooted phone, which I believe you have. So maybe look into Xposed Framework and some of its modules, like AppOpsXposed and XPrivacyLua.

Actually, my phone is currenty not rooted.

You can actually do quite a bit without root these days. For example, it's possible to run Termux and even run a Linux distribution via AnLinux (which uses some trickery to make the system think it has root when it really doesn't).

(Anyway, I'm also currently looking at what hardware accessories might be good for the phone, but that will be another topic.)

I use MortPlayer. Good stuff with a truly random shuffle. You can play by folder.

Free apps from the Play Store:

MapFactor Navigator (choosing to use the free OpenMaps maps): works great as an offline car/cycling/pedestrian navigator, you can load even the whole world's maps into it if you want, provided you have enough free storage on the device. Good especially if you are abroad because no data roaming is needed, you can even remove the SIM from your phone and use the navigator in a completely offline mode. Then you don't get Google (maps) search results though, so having a data connection is preferred, but not required.

There are some features I'd like it to have more and changing some things, but overall it works great as a free (offline or online) navigator

VLC as a generic (offline) media player, both for music and videos.

Speedtest to test how fast your phone's data connection is.

Duo for free video phone calls.

Firefox as an alternative web browser.

Keep as a generic notebook, to make your shopping lists or whatever you want to write down.

MobileVOIP for cheap overseas calls (if the receiver doesn't have an unmetered data connection; if they do, then you could use Duo for a video call anyway),

Sound Meter to measure the noise level around you (in dB); no idea how accurate it is but I presume it gives you an idea.

Get Google Opinion Rewards. With it, they send you occasional survey questions, and for answering them you get Google Play credit, which you can then use to buy books, games, songs, etc.

I know you said want to avoid Playstore but I use Asus file manager to transfer files from and to the computer easy by local network.
For retroarch all the cores give me the same touch interface with a lot of "buttons", even if the emulator doesn't support all.
For GBC I used Gambatte
N64 Mupen64Plus
Psx PCSX ReArmed

There are games that require few buttons like Bust-a-move
Don´t know about the accuracy though, just installed to see how well it runs.

Here are a few Android apps that I recommend, and personally use myself.

Music Folder Player (free and Full) is a great, lightweight folder based music player, with lots of options to configure it to most tastes.

Opera Beta (Browser), Which is (AFAIK), the only mobile browser (on Android) that supports 'Text Re-flow' when zooming in on web pages, which is great for reading tiny text (especially on small screens) without having to constantly scroll horizontally to read blocks of text.

AlReader, is a great, free ebook reader that supports many book formats, and has numerous configurable settings to allow tweaking to your own personal taste.

You can change the overlay in the settings.

(This is definitely helpful, as otherwise the graphics might not align with the area you actually need to press which, needless to say, is rather frustrating.)

For paid games you can get most games made by Kairosoft. They actually fun time waster on mobile.

Mario Run is a good free game. Good visual for a mobile game (because it's Nintendo, duh!)

Seedship, simple text game. It felt like FTL if you remove all the fancy graphics.

ESET antivirus. It's lighter than other antiviruses (well, according to my experience)

Always get a VPN. Probably XpressVPN or NordVPN.

DuckDuckGo browser because you can erase all your trace after browsing.

Also you can get adblock app but not from Google Play. Now it's third party app you need to install separately but it's worth it.

Oh and if you can root your phone.

it's own by a awful company, don't use it

Please elaborate why it's awful.

EDIT: It was bought by McAfee!? HOLY SHI-

Ok editing the list now. No more Tunnelbear for me then.

Is it work worldwide?
Do you have suggested developer for such app?

I don't know if it's worldwide. I didn't think about that. Sorry. As far as the developer, I assume Google made it with its own staff.