I use fre:ac. It is open source but I’m not savvy enough to see what the license is.
I don’t use MP3, I use AAC. Never liked Opus. I get it’s a free/open codec, but I’ve never liked the format. So I’m not sure what the licensing is for AAC. But I’m sure fre:ac can do Opus as well.
Nothing.
My daily driver is an iPhone. We’ve always had the problem of limiting sideloading (to be nonexistent for most people) and it’s never been a problem for me.
I also have a Galaxy S10, but all my apps on that come from the Play Store.
This won’t affect 99% of users, just like it doesn’t on iPhone.
I just hope now that they’re taking sideloading, and they’ve already taken memory card slots, headphone jacks… and they’re still taking a cut off the back end by selling your personal information… maybe the cost will come down. But I doubt it. Android makes sense when it’s cheaper than iPhone. I mean, iPhone makes sense to be expensive. It’s a pocket Mac, it’s made by a computer company. Sure, they have telemetry but it’s not an ad company like Google. So for a phone that’s less powerful and still has the same restrictions, and I’m paying with my personal data? I expect the phones to be cheaper. They really should be cheaper.
But I’m gonna let you in on a secret. Smartphone performance plateaued a long time ago. All these new phones are kind of a scam. Okay, so the Pixel 10 has the benchmark performance of an iPhone 11. The Galaxy S25 is like 40% faster than the iPhone 16 Pro until it hits load (like the top 1% of games, maybe) then the iPhone is like 10% faster… Who Cares? My 2019 Galaxy S10 is still a viable daily driver in 2025. So, I think I’m done chasing the latest model for a while. If Apple Health comes to iPad (I’m not sure if it’s there or not), I’d even consider replacing my Android phone with a newer phone next, like a gently used Galaxy S24 or S25 (I mean in a few years). These new phones talk about performance numbers, but for most people, they don’t really mean shit. Phones don’t slow down like they used to. They got a lot better and it wasn’t even that recently.
Firefox. My daily driver is an iPhone and I just use Safari there, but we have uBlock Origin Lite now. But on Android it’s Firefox with full fat uBlock Origin. As it happens, I’m on the Android device now! I love its keyboard so much. Apple couldn’t make a keyboard to save their arse if it came to it.