A wide selection of apps is one benefit the Android smartphone users have enjoyed. With over 2 million applications and games available on the Google Play store all waiting for you to explore.
While some popular apps like YouTube, Facebook, and WhatsApp are dominating the Google Play store in terms of download count, there is still a great number of useful apps that you won’t find in the Google Play store for one reason or another, and for that, the existence of these apps are barely known.
Now you may be wondering. “Why are these apps not in the official app store?”
As you may already know, Google is very strict with its app compliance policies. Due to the nature and basic functions of these apps, they can’t make it past all Google compliance tests for Android apps.
These apps can be downloaded from the net and easily installed, as long as you set your Android device to allow the installation of apps from unknown sources.
You may get an ‘App not installed’ error message the first time you try to install some of these apps, be sure to retry the installation.
Warning: The wrong usage of some of these apps can be very harmful to your device; make sure you have a good knowledge of how to use them before installing. You may install these apps at your own risk.
Table of Contents
Useful apps not in the Play Store
1. Lucky Patcher
If you’re a gamer and love to enjoy premium things for free, Lucky Patcher is there for you. There are many things you can do with this app.
Things like; App and game ads removal, removal of license verification, Game patching, modifying APKs, backup/restore, and so on.
One little problem here is that the app requires root access so your device has to be rooted before you can use it.
2. Popcorn Time
As the name might suggest to you, this app is a movie streaming app that allows you to download your favorite TV series and movies on the go.
There are other video streaming apps on the internet like Showbox, but Popcorn Time appears to be more bug-free and most complete with its features.
With this app, you can watch the trailer of the movie or TV series that you want to download before downloading. It also provides awesome video quality and subtitle selection.
3. WiFi Kill
Wifi Kill app is convenient for those who surf on public WiFi, having so many users on one WiFi network can make the network so sluggish and irritating.
WiFi Kill can temporarily disable or cut internet connection for other devices that are connected to the same WiFi network with you and hereby allocate full network bandwidth to you.
4. Torrent Search
Torrent Search saves you the stress of searching for downloadable from different Torrent sites one after the other. You can now search in all major Torrent sites quickly from one app.
You have to type in what you wish to download and then click the search button. The Torrent Search app will search in all the top sites after which it will display the results with the number of seeders and leechers, Torrent size, and Torrent age.
You can now click on the Torrent you want to download, and the download will start in your default Torrent.
This app also allows you to search for top Torrents of the day month or year and even all-time top Torrents.
5. F-Droid
The F-Droid app is basically for open-source apps, where you will find open-source applications that are mostly not available on the Google Play store.
Some of the apps listed in this article can be found in F-Droid.
Unlike the “Black Market” app, the F-Droid doesn’t contain cracked or pirated software.
F-Droid is just an excellent app for discovering both old and latest open-source applications that are not available on the Google Play store.
6. Xposed Framework
Xposed Framework is a customization app that lets you style and customize your Android phone’s user interface the way you prefer. Just like the Lucky Patcher, it requires root access. Xposed Frame is now also compatible with Android 7.0 Nougat.
The app works with sub-applications which are known as ‘Modules,’ there are tons of Modules available for the Xposed Framework. Each Module is specifically used for different customization needs.
If you’re not comfortable with the Xposed app, Substratum is another good customization app that is available on the Google Play store. It also requires root access to function.
7. MiXplorer
Also known as Mix of Explorer, MiXplorer is among the best Android file manager apps you will find there. One attractive thing about this app is its neat UI (user interface).
It has a straightforward and ad-free user interface; it also comes with a theme customization option where you can select any theme color of your choice.
Unlike many other file manager apps, you can cut and paste multiple different files at the same time instead of a one-at-a-time basis.
There are also plenty of appealing features such as a powerful text editor. Nineteen free cloud storage platforms include; Google Drive, Mega, Onedrive, Dropbox, and more.
8. Netease
NetEase is a Cloud Music app for music lovers; it lets you stream and download your favorite songs straight to your Android phone’s memory with ease.
The app may be likened to a free Chinese Spotify that grants its users unlimited access to millions of music.
Aside from the free music streaming and downloading feature, the app has some cool features that are missing in most music applications in the Google Play store.
It offers a lyrics function within the app. The best part of it all is that the app is free with no ads nor subscription ish.
9. AdAway
Advertisements (or ads) are generally not bad; that’s how most site owners and app publishers make a living.
It only becomes very annoying when the ads are showing excessively or placed in a crafty way that lures you into clicking them accidentally all the time.
AdAway is a friendly app that will help you block annoying ads on any app. However, the application requires root access to function.
AdAway can regularly check for new ad networks so it can also block them from showing ads.
10. TubeMate
Tubemate is a lovely online video-downloading app. You can easily download YouTube videos onto your phone in different formats.
Downloading YouTube videos is against their terms and conditions, so that is why you won’t find TubeMate on the Play Store.
Not just YouTube, you can also download videos from Facebook, DailyMotion, Vimeo, and so on with this application.
The Tubemate app also gives you the option to download videos as an MP3 file instead of MP4, which is a very nice feature.
It is important to know that this app has a lot of infected and malicious versions of its APK on the net. Make sure you’re downloading it from the official site or other verified websites.
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