Image Source : Lucas Zallio
Most probably, you might be using at least one Android device… You might have tried various amounts of apps on your devices. The Google Play have thousands of apps for you to try. But the question is, what are the best? Recently, we heard that there are number of malware apps in Google Play and Google is doing their best to get rid of them. There are also fakes and poorly coded apps which can crash your whole device. So, the question is, how to find the right android apps? Well… Here are some apps for you to start with. (Note : I tried my best to find a good app which can take use of the “allow mock locations” feature in Android. But failed to find something good! )
Anti Virus Apps :
Don’t think Android can do without an Anti Virus. There are a lot of malware trying to get into your device. You must install an Anti Virus in your device to get rid of them!
Avast is a free anti-virus app. Recently we heard that most of the free anti-virus apps in Android are useless. But not Avast. According to the latest test results, Avast stays at the very top as a very powerful anti-virus app. It have many features including a Firewall and a very sophisticated anti-theft program. But to take the full use of this app, you need to have a rooted Android device.
Kaspersky is better than Avast when it comes to detecting and removing Android malware. But it’s not free. There is a free version but I don’t think it can do it. Kaspersky have separate versions for Phones and Tablets so choose wisely. The app is well reputed and does a really good job. I think its lighter than Avast. But you can set it to monitor every move of your apps and that might make it more heavy.
Note : Only install 1 anti-virus in a device!
Email Clients :
There are many other mail clients built for Android like Yahoo Mail and the default Mail application shipped with some devices. But no one offer the great features given by Gmail. The app is simple, easy to use and have most of the features we have in the normal web-based version. It also supports multiple accounts. But one problem… Can be used only for Gmail accounts! After you install it, you better check how to sync contacts from android to gmail.
Web Browsers :
Yes… Its our old favourite Chrome. Have almost the same look as the desktop version and offers a very stable and a secure browser. If you sign in with your Google account from the Android browser and the Desktop browser, you can easily move tabs, bookmarks, saved passwords, etc between those devices very easily! But I saw one drawback… The tabs are a little hard to close.
Chrome is famous on the desktop but Dolphin is growing fast in Android. It have been the best Android browser for a long time. It have many features like Add-on support, Gestures, Webzine (Fast Web page loading, with no ads) and Speed Dial. As I said earlier, they ruled the market for a long period and the browser is really stable and reliable.
Note : Even-though Opera is the most famous mobile browser, in Android I don’t think it performs well. It doesn’t even have a good Flash support.
Performance Optimizers :
A free utility which can automatically free up memory of your device by killing running processes. You can set it to ignore the useful ones and kill the others. The best thing about this app is, it can perform this cleanup automatically in a pre-set time interval. Works really well.
This tool have more features than the Task Killer. But it doesn’t support auto task killing. Power Tune-Up have many features like Battery Saver, Battery Management, Device Clean-up and Data Monitoring. Be-careful when using the Battery Saver because it have some issues.
Other Android Apps :
This is one of my most favourite apps. Before I found this, I had to go through a lot of websites to read news and find whats happening. Pulse is a news reader which will help you to read latest posts from your favourite sites from one place. It constantly keep the feeds updated so you’ll get the latest stuff. Will save you a lot of time!
There are many to-do apps in Google Play but this is the most simplest and the easy to use app I found. Not too much not too less… It have everything I need… Set tasks easily, prioritize them… Sort them… Set reminders… It really helped me to increase my productivity. You can even access it from your PC’s browser by adding the browser extension!
Simply, Read it Later! If you find a good article while browsing the web, if you don’t have the time to read it, you’ll ignore it. But now, Pocket can help you. In your desktop or in a mobile device, if you find a good article, you can add it to pocket. Then, when you are free, you can open Pocket and start reading all of them in a distraction free environment!
This is only a small list. I’ll write reviews on more individual android apps and more specific lists in the near future. If you have any suggestions, please let me know! Stay tuned!
