It’s the first week of January 2019 and continuing with our monthly tradition into the new year, we are back with some more new and free Android apps. This month’s list has everything from a light browser to a fresh new gallery app (QuickPic users, take note) to boost your Android experience.
1. Mint Browser — Lite, Fast, Safe, AdFree
When it comes to browsers, Android users have numerous choices. We have popular browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge rubbing shoulders with lesser-known but functional browsers such as Cake Web Browser and APUS Browser. A new contender to join this league is Mint Browser. Made by Xiaomi, this is a lightweight browser designed for high-speed browsing. It’s a frills-free app and isn’t as feature-rich as its counterparts. You’d find the usual features like Javascript blocker, search engine, and tab switching among others. You can choose between Bing, Google, and Yahoo as your search engine. What I loved is the built-in option to block popups and ads. If you browse a lot, you must already know the importance of this setting. Another feature baked into this browser is the Night mode. Though it’s not perfect, you can enable this setting during the evening hours to comfort your eyes. Overall, it’s a good browser to have onboard. It weighs 10MB. So, if you have any issues with internal storage, you can give this app a try. Download Mint Browser
2. Memoria Photo Gallery
If you are looking for a clutter-free gallery app, your search ends with the Memoria Photo Gallery. It is based on Google’s Material Design and is easy on the eyes. The app’s main interface is divided into three parts — Photos, Albums, and Favorites. The terms are pretty much self-explanatory. You can pin albums for an easier access. Furthermore, there is an option to lock the app. Memoria Photo gallery has many customization options. While some are free, others can be unlocked for less than a dollar. Using a third-party gallery app means that you’d have to switch from the built-in editing suite to the one in the app. In Memoria, the editing options are limited to crop and rotate. Download Memoria Photo Gallery
3. Go to Sleep
Smartphone addiction has certainly hindered our sleep cycle. Do you remember the times you spent endlessly browsing your Instagram timeline or diving deep into the rabbit hole called YouTube videos while you should have been sleeping? Well, I suppose we all have been victims of this habit. Go to Sleep attempts to solve this issue through its sleep notification app. It’s a simple app that notifies about your bedtime. For that you must specify the time in the app first. It has a straightforward interface. To add to it, you can also customize the notification alerts by entering custom lines and notification intervals. Download Go to Sleep
4. Stickers Pop for WhatsApp
Most WhatsApp sticker apps focus on a central theme like holiday, love, meme, etc. So, if you want to express a variety of emotions, you have to install at least four different apps. Bummer, right? That may not be much of an issue on phones with 128GB of internal storage, but sadly, the scene is a tad different for phones with lower storage. Stickers Pop for WhatsApp attempts to bridge this gap by bringing a horde of stickers under a single roof. You’ll find everything from adorable plant stickers to charming little animals. All you need to do is add them to WhatsApp. The app has ads and they’re not intrusive. Besides, you won’t be opening the app much after adding the stickers to WhatsApp. Download Stickers Pop for WhatsApp
5. Apex Weather
Weather apps are a dime a dozen on the Play Store and Apex Weather is one the newer apps to join the club. Made by developers of Apex Launcher, this weather app gives you detailed weather updates and reports. This app lets you add other cities to monitor the weather conditions, which you can access by swiping horizontally. It has a single built-in weather widget. However, you can try out other paid widgets as well. Download Apex Weather
6. Bottom Quick Settings
If you have one of those phones with tall displays (yes Galaxy Note 9, I am looking at you), you must know that reaching the top can be a difficult task. Bottom Quick Settings, as suggestive of its name, brings an additional Quick Settings menu to the phone at the bottom of the screen. This makes it incredibly easy for you to access controls like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, torch and more. The app’s interface is clean and neatly lays out the customization options. If you want, you can even replace the brightness slider with volume controls. It is free to download from the Play Store. However, some of the options like themes and customization options are limited to premium users. To use this app, you’d have to revert to the standard button layout. If that is a deal you are willing to make, then this is a great app to try. Download Bottom Quick Settings
7. MNML Screen Recorder
It’s odd that the built-in screen recording is still not a part of Android phones. If you are looking for one, you can give the MNML Screen Recorder a shot. This app comes with a couple of additional settings like adjusting the FPS and bitrate among others. If you record with the default FPS and bitrate setting, the recordings can turn out to be a bit pixelated. We recommend that you adjust the settings as per your phone’s hardware specifications. Download MNML Screen Recorder
8. NoSurf for Reddit
Do you spend time mindlessly browsing through Reddit? If yes, try NoSurf for Reddit. This app claims to be the first non-addictive client for Reddit, for it only lets you browse through the top 10 posts. It holds true even for your subscribed subreddits as well. It doesn’t end there. The posts that you’ve already read will appear struck out so that you are not tempted to reread them. Download NoSurf for Reddit
Which One Will You Get?
I love trying out new and quirky Android apps. Each app offers something different, and that’s what makes them interesting. The one thing which I love about these apps is that if you use them long enough, they seamlessly become part of your usage. I loved Bottom Quick Settings for its unique approach. Although the style is inspired a lot from iOS, I liked the fact that they have kept the interface simple. If only I didn’t have to sacrifice my preferred navigation controls. Which app will you install first? Do let us know in the comments below. The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.
