android underground

ROM Toolbox doubles as a fully functional free autostart manager

2012-03-07T23:28:00.000+01:00

There are plenty of custom ROMs for Android phones out there, and plenty of apps to manage all these ROMs. ROM Toolbox is one of them. Its latest update kills some bugs and adds some features. Obviously ROM Toolbox manages ROMs, but is does much more than that. So much more that it's a useful app even if your phone runs a stock ROM. Its ROM manager installs ROMs and other zips, and lets you

LBE Privacy Guard update gives you even more control over your apps

2012-03-02T18:20:00.007+01:00

Android permissions suck The way Android handles app permissions is totally wrong. When you install an app, it asks for permissions like internet access, ability to snoop in your address book, get your location, send SMSs without warning you, and other scary stuff. You may want to grant some permissions, but Android won't let you. You either have to allow all requested permissions, or don't

Avira Android Security locks and finds lost phones for free

2012-03-01T20:09:00.003+01:00

Avira stays in touch with your lost phone Avira is known for its desktop virus scanner, but now they're on Android too. Not with a virus scanner, but with an app that lets you limit the damage if your phone is lost or stolen. Avira Android Security doesn't do anything on its own, but works with an account on android.avira.com. When you log into the Avira web console you can locate and lock

Dolphin Browser HD listens, makes Webzine an optional plugin, and makes it easier to open links in a new tab

2012-02-29T22:10:00.049+01:00

Dolphin Browser HD is probably the best web browser for Android. Its gesture control options are way better than what the competition has to offer, the bookmark sidebar works really well, and its extendability with plugins is pretty good too. And the latest update makes it better. The controversial Webzine feature has been pulled out of the main app, but if you really want to keep it you

Grooveshark for free: Dood's Music Streamer died and resurrected, TinyShark is alive and kicking

2012-02-28T21:06:00.008+01:00

Dood's Music Streamer and TinyShark are two apps that let you stream and download music from Grooveshark for free. You don't even need a Grooveshark account! Dood's Music Streamer used to be the better app, but a new layout and badly placed ads were not an improvement at all. Not that it matters, because Dood's Music Streamer stopped working. Since a week or so it refuses to connect with

Clean up your image with Easy Photo Editor and Camera MX

2012-02-27T20:06:00.011+01:00

Need a new image editor Flashing CyanogenMod to get rid of Motoblur was a great move, except for a few things. I had to sign up with Swype to get their beta test app, because the built-in Swype version wouldn't restore in a working state to my custom ROM. And the built-in picture editing tools were gone, including Kodak Perfect Touch. Cell phone cameras still can't replace the real thing, and

Sometimes Android task killers make sense

2012-02-22T23:45:00.005+01:00

Android doesn't need task killers to free up your RAM. Just mention "task killer" on any Android forum and a million people will shout that task killers are bad. Always and everywhere. Task killers are bad if you use them the wrong way. Many task killers automatically kill apps at random, and then Android puts them back into RAM, and the task killer takes 'em out again, and then Android reloads

MRKAlarm wakes you up smarter

2012-02-18T16:34:00.006+01:00

There are many good reasons to ditch your stock alarm clock and wake up with an alternative alarm clock app on your Android phone instead. Timers4Me comes with an alarm clock (in addition to a stopwatch and countdown timer), but not a very good one. My favorite alarm clock app for now is Alarms Solo. But that may change, because MRKAlarm looks very promising. If the app matures and the bugs

Bug squashed in offline dictionary QuickDic

2012-02-17T20:20:00.000+01:00

QuickDic is one of the better free offline dictionary apps for Android if you want to translate words into english, or from english into other languages. QuickDic pulls its dictionaries from Wiktionary. Its dictionaries for Western European languages are very good (the dictionaries for other languages not so), and once you've downloaded your dictionaries into QuickDic you can look up words

Music identification shootout: TrackID, Shazam, SoundHound

2012-02-16T22:52:00.127+01:00

You're in a bar, there's some obscure song on that you like, and you want to know which one it is. So you dig out your phone, fire up an app, record a few seconds, and get the artist and title in return. There are a couple of apps for this, which all share the same idea: record a few seconds of music, create a digital fingerprint from the recording, and compare it with the fingerprints in an

Widgetsoid got better (and it was already very good)

2012-02-15T23:32:00.002+01:00

If you want to display all sorts of phone info, toggle things on and off from a widget, and more, Widgetsoid is the most versatile widget app out there. It is also rather complex. Widgetsoid has a steep learning curve and it's user interface is a mess. But once you get over that, you can make widgets to toggle just about everything. WiFi, bluetooth, GPS, data by switching it off, and data by

Multi network instant messenger imo adds voice calls, eats less, goes grey

2012-02-14T20:08:00.013+01:00

With all those chat networks out there, you can either install a homescreen full of apps for each network, or use a multi network app like imo. With imo you can chat on MSN, Google Talk, Skype, Yahoo IM, ICQ, AIM, Facebook Chat, all Jabber networks, and more. You could also use an XMPP client for that, but then you'll have to find a server that will let you talk to all your networks. With imo

Free last.fm radio for everybody everywhere: Cobolt FM fixed, KLastFM updated

2012-01-29T17:49:00.025+01:00

The music mafia industry is a strange beast. You'd say they'd be happy with last.fm as free advertising for their artists and music, but they want money in addition to publicity. Problem: last.fm has to get the money from subscription fees or advertising, and they only manage to get enough income from advertising in Germany, the USA, and the UK. I don't know why they don't team up with Google's

AirCalc floats a calculator on top of other apps

2012-01-26T23:26:00.032+01:00

If you need to calculate something and use the result in another app, you can switch back and forth between your calculator and other apps by long-pressing the home button. But AirCalc gives you another option. AirCalc is a calculator that floats on top of other apps. Your office suite, your web browser, your email app, whatever you like. The basic functions (+, -, *, /) are on its main screen

Offline maps and some offline navigation: Locus, OsmAnd, and Route 66

2012-01-24T18:51:00.032+01:00

Google Maps can store maps on your phone for offline viewing, but only in blocks of 15x15 miles, which may not be enough for you. It doesn't have true offline navigation either, because you need to connect to Google to calculate your route. Enter the alternatives: Locus, OsmAnd, and Route 66. Locus Locus can show maps from many different sources with the Map Tweak addon. Google Maps, Nokia

Comodo joins the Android antivirus club

2012-01-18T21:21:00.008+01:00

Whether antivirus apps for Android phones are useful or not is still topic of debate. If you're of the "better safe than sorry" type, if you shop outside the Android Market, or if you want to use the extra features that most Android security suites throw in it makes sense to pick the right weapon. Comodo makes the best free firewall and HIPS program for Windows, but not the best antivirus app.

Offline maps and navigation: get OsmAnd+ for free

2012-01-02T23:35:00.032+01:00

The offline map and navigation capabilities of Google Maps are so limited that they're of little use yet. You could pay for apps like Route 66 or Navigon, or you could wait until someone ports Nokia Maps to Android if that's ever gonna happen. Enter OsmAnd. It can use the online maps of Google, Microsoft, and others, but its unique selling point is the combination of locally stored maps from

Google's new year's resolutions for 2012

2012-01-01T22:41:00.078+01:00

If only... We at Google know that we're far from perfect. But we've seen the error of our ways, so in 2012 we will: Split the read phone state and identity permissions, and do the same for other permissions that shouldn't be grouped together. Make sure that contacts synced to Gmail and back reappear on your phone exactly as they were. "Al's Pizza (open 'till midnight)" will no longer return

seNotes blew up its text but won't save your notes as text files

2011-12-29T22:11:00.002+01:00

My favorite app to put yellow sticky notes all over my homescreens is seNotes. It comes in sizes as small as a 1x1 widget, it's free, it has no ads, and it never goes online. It briefly lost its 1x1 widget in an update though, but fortunately not for long. It came back in another update the day after. A pleasant surprise: you can restore lost notes by long-tapping an empty note, and then

K-9 Mail cleaned up in the background

2011-12-27T21:14:00.021+01:00

K-9 Mail is the best free email client for Android. It has a million ways to tweak, customise, alter, change, modify... It does POP3, IMAP, MS Exchange, push email, and it gives you full control over which mail folders to sync and which folders to leave alone. The canine has been updated twice in December to kill a bunch of fleas bugs. One of the changes sits in the background. The old K-9 used