The Offline-First Mobile Setup
Offline-First Emergency and Private Phone Setup
Most of the tracking by companies are done using online connections. So the fastest and easiest way to prevent that is to take your phone into airplane mode, assuming your phone manufacturer didn't put any backdoors in airplane mode function (they probably did, but it is still a valuable feature).
If you have root, you can use a feature of AFWall+ to prevent apps from accessing internet without having to give VPN slot to it or its alternatives. Alternatively you can use root to remove the internet permission from apps. Some ROMs like HyperOS (aka MIUI) and Graphene OS allows you to do this without having root. It also reduces mobile data usage and cost.
The second use case for going offline-first is being able to use your phone in an emergency when internet services are not available (examples include earthquakes and regular service disruptions an ISP/GSM can have).
Third use case is you are guaranteeing being able to access what is necessary for you in a censorship situation. What you already downloaded can not be deleted remotely in most cases (there was a case when Huawei phones deleted photos from peoples gallery to censor info related to protests).
What do you need from a phone?
Put your phone away and think what will you miss first if it didn't even existed. Here is a table of what I thought and solutions I found:
| What do I need? | Description and Solution | Download Link |
|---|---|---|
| Being able to research information | Internet is a valuable research tool. We will download the information before needing it to solve this issue. Download Kiwix in your phone. Then download sources which you think it will be useful. My recommendations are:
This should cover most needs. You can always download more resources afterwards. If you want to have a separate dictionary app, consider installing Aard2 or QuickDic. They are faster for day to day use. You may want to download Linux Command Library app to look up useful commands faster. There is a dedicated app called WTF for checking abbreviations meaning. |
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| Communication | Phones original reason to exist. Connecting people.
You can use Briar to send messages without needing internet but you will need to convince other people to install it too. Briar can send messages using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Tor (if you want internet as a fallback). If your city has many people using Briar, the coverage and range will be better. Alternatively you can use Meshtastic devices paired to your phone if there are volunteer-run MeshTastic antennas near you. If you are not sure about coverage of Briar/Meshtastic or just want a fallback, consider RCS or encrypted SMS. They are not the most secure or private methods. But as long as you have a signal they will work. DO NOT use SMS without encryption if you want contents of the message to be private. RCS sadly only works on proprietary messengers like Google Messages or Samsung Messages. Encrypted SMS can be used by installing one of these apps (you will need to convinve your contacts to install these apps too):
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| Navigation | Being able to navigate without doxxing yourself to GSM towers is important. This means your location will be known by one less entity. Also do not trust coverage of your GSM, it can just fail (only trust it as a fallback). Use CoMaps (fork of Organic Maps) or OSMAnd+ and download maps for your city and other places you can been to. CoMaps doesn't have bus routes support still afaik so I keep both apps installed just in case. If you need a nice UI and bus support, you can try using MapsMe but it is proprietary. | |
| Using LLMs (maybe) | If your phone has a powerful CPU and plenty of RAM you can try running LLMs on it. It can be sometimes faster to ask an LLM instead of searching inside archives. The con here being heavy battery usage and risk of hallucination by LLM software. Install Maid app. | |
| Translation | Translators are useful especially between English and your main tongue. You can use Offline Translator. It is not the best but it will do the job.
You can still use Google/Yandex Translates offline translation feature but they are proprietary. |
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| Entertainment | I use LibreTorrent to download movies into my phone for later viewing. If there are no torrents for them I use 1DM (proprietary) to scrape movie websites.
For games I have RetroArch with several game packs installed for several emulators. You can download other games like DroidFish (Chess Engine) and Luanti too. I try to choose sandbox or board games since they are replayable anytime. You may download news articles that interests you to read. I was using Hacki (HackerNews client) to download tech related news and read when I need to pass time outside. Most RSS readers (I recommend Feeder and Readrops) allow you to read articles offline and then sync read status with your computers. You can use your phone as a ebook reader too. I was using KOReader and ReadEra (proprietary) to read my ebooks. Download local music onto your phone. So you can listen anytime. YouTube Music (proprietary) has a feature called "Smart Downloads" that automatically downloads songs you may like. Kreate caches the songs you have listened to for offline listening. But the best method is just downloading songs using tools like Lucida or SquidWTF into your phone. You can use NewPipe or YTDLnis/Seal to download songs from YouTube. Then install a player like VLC to listen to them. Other proprietary apps like Spotify can remove songs from your device if you connect to their servers at any time for copyright and other purposes. Download podcasts that interests you. AntennaPod has a feature that can auto-download content when they are available. |
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| General Real Life Helpers | You can download the multi-purpose Trail Sense app. It has features you will need when outside. Compass, turning paper maps into digital ones with GPS, checking whatever a surface is really flat, convert between units, metal detector, mirror mode (so you do not take accidental selfies), save the path you walked, ruler, QR scanner, white noise and more. It has a built-in survival guide too for emergencies.
The other useful app is Survival Manual. The name explains all. Also there are many apps that extend the core features of a phone. Arity calculator has a 3D graph feature which might be useful for visualizing data. Some calculator apps offer currency conversion even when you are offline by caching up to date indexes automatically. |
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| Memory Helpers | A note taking app and a password manager is very helpful outside. For noting I use QuillPad. For passwords I use KeepassDX. You can prefer Bitwarden for easier sync. They should be able to run offline and sync only when you connect to a network. | |
| Wallet App | You can use OSS Card Wallet to remember your card details even if you don't have them outside. | |
| NFC/IR stuff | Niche stuff but sometimes helpful. You can create a copy of your public transport card if you ever lose it. Depends on your public transport solution.
About IR, I rarely use it to control air conditioners when nobody is able to find the remote for some reason. |
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| File transfer | Consider installing LocalSend to you and your friends phones. So you can transfer files easily if you are on same Wi-Fi network (you can always use your hotspot too). |