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Android ricing
Android ricing refers to changing up the UI of a device running an Android OS to better suit one's taste. This could be done for many reasons, such as to make using the device more practical, or to make it suit the user's tastes.
Rooting/Custom ROMs
Many features and applications used in ricing will require the phone to be running a custom ROM and to be rooted. It is still possible to rice your phone without these custom roms and without root, however you are more limited in what you can achieve. Read more about Android ROMs here
Launchers
A launcher is the application that opens up whenever you hit the home button. This area consists of your home screen, and many things can be put on here for convenience, such as icons for apps and widgets such as clocks. You do not have to root or install a custom ROM to install these.
Nova Launcher
- The most popular launcher
- Featureful
- Close to AOSP, but with a lot of customization opinions added, making it the ricer's first choice
- Sadly proprietary (and has a paid version)
OpenLauncher
- Open source Launcher (as name would suggest)
- A healthy medium between customization and simplicity
- "Aims to be a powerful and community driven project"
- Implements most features of other launchers, but isn't currently as polished.
KISS Launcher
- Fast launcher following the KISS principle
- Comparable to Hayai (KISS actually came earlier than Hayai..) but:
- Has searching of contacts and settings
- Has web-searching
- Cleaner-looking - it has a vertical app drawer you can open at will
- Supports icon packs
- Slightly bigger filesize than Hayai, but still pretty small - latest version is almost 300 KB.
- Open Source
T-UI
- Emulates a UNIX-like shell and terminal interface, and by this nature it is very light
- Launch apps by typing their name
- All GNU Core Utilities shell terminal commands
- Can navigate through the file system, play music, make a call from the command line, and more
- Very customizable
- Open Source
HayaiKeikai Launcher
- Fast
- Your home screen is basically your app drawer, and you can search apps to find them
- Open Source
- Smaller than 100 KB
- Requires no permissions at all
- Based of Hayai Launcher
Null Launcher
- The most minimal launcher there is
- 12KiB
- not on any repositories (bloat)
Icon Packs
Icon packs are a group of icons that come packed together and are designed with the same same style. Icons should complement the background that you have. Some commonly used icon packs are:
Apps & Games
See also: List of recommended Android software
There are many apps available for Android. Several apps that focus on ricing are UCCW and dash clock. There are also many apps that vary from news apps to office suites.
As for games, emulation is the best choice. for more on emulators on Android refer to the /emug/ wiki android section.
Instant messaging/Texting replacement
If you don't want to be sleeping with Mark Suckerberg, then don't install any of the shit like Whatsapp, Viber, etc.
TextSecure isn't the most freedom respecting messaging app as it has "dropped support for SMS encryption in favor of using a data channel reliant on GAPPS".Avoid it.
"Looks like SMSSecure has been released as a Google-free alternative, even on Fdroid which was always neglected by that faggot Marlinspike"
source https://archive.today/rS36l
Signal however is an Edward Snowden approved SMS client that allows users to seemlessly send encrypted messages using data (thus avoiding regular SMS fees). Both users must have the program installed, but it still also allows you to send normal unencrypted SMS to those who are too lazy to be arsed. Keep in mind though that WebSocket is not supported, therefore you must have either Google Play Services or microG installed.
The most secure way of texting so far is by using ChatSecure, which uses XMPP and OTR messaging.
Tethering
Since Android 4.4, Google made a change which allows network operators to know when users are tethering.
To fix this, enable developer mode and start an ADB bridge and shell, then run
settings put global tether_dun_required 0.
Or install an SQLite editor, and navigate to:
/data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
Then enter the database global and change the value of tether_dun_required to 0
Securing Android
See Android security
