Photo Fun with Android: Fire and Not So Furry

*If you're friends with me on Facebook and Twitter, well there's a chance you're going to be picked on. Timothy J. Cox gets picked on a lot by me. He's an actor who has been in like everything, ahs might be embellishing.. just a bit, but he has been described as the hardest working actor in indie film. If he's in a film, you know at least his performance is going to be tops and he really adds something to a film as a whole. You can check out his Website for more information, his IMDb Page, and connect with him on Twitter and Facebook. I saw some pics of him and just had to have fun with them, and thank him for letting me use them for this article.

You have probably seen thematic FX apps on Google Play masquerading under different names, but they are the same app. These are basically private label apps which someone can buy and then redistribute with their ad code inserted to serve you ads. Well one such vendor of these apps has opted not to include ads in them, Quwads Inc., and I will be reviewing several of them in this and the next few articles. 

If you get an error page trying to download any of these apps, try again later; they are on various remote servers and sometimes that happens.

Super Power FX is a bit of an overstatement  as it is mostly flames and fireballs you can add to a photo. It has two parts; a frontend collection of stickers you can add to a photo which is the fireballs, flames and other effects and a backend photo editor with filters, adjustments and the ability to add text to the photo. One downside to this and all of these themed editors is it saves the finished photo according to the screen size of your phone and not the original image. The APK file is 11.6Mb and it will work with Android 3.2 and up.** Just for fun I added the speech balloon using PicSay Lite.

Make Me Bald is ideal for editing a photo of that person who keeps checking their head with two mirrors.. just in case. It comes with a variety of skincaps from partially bald to a full skin head, and different complexions too. Trying to get the skincap sized (pinch and zoom) and placed correctly is no easy task on a phone. The APK is 9.3Mb and it will work with Android 3.2 and up.**

Pirate Effects is the weakest of the bunch having the fewest stickers and thus the least variety of the three. But, who can resist at least giving a one-shot to dressing someone up as a pirate? The header photo for this article is the end result of this app. The APK is 10.5Mb and it will work with Android 3.2 and up.**

**Newer versions of Android can have bugs that cause crashes or prevent older apps from running.

Photo Fun with Android: Filters & Posters & Frames.. Oh My!

*I want to thank Ember Burns up front for generously lending me photos of her to use to illustrate this article. She is an actress and model I first became familiar with in the award winning horror short Beyond Repair. I hope to use more pics of her in the other articles in the series, but you don't have to wait for them to see more of her. You can visit her Website, Facebook page and find her on Instagram.

I have not kept it a secret that I do not accept crapware. The majority of Android apps are exactly that; loaded with ads they shove down your throat and many times restricted to the point of being useless. But look around for ad free and fully functional photo apps and the crap gets pretty deep. I'd be willing to say that 99% or better of photo apps for Android are adware and duplicitous crapware, and it has taken some time to dig through that deep stench, literally a few thousand apps, to find a handful of functional apps without ads.

Movie Poster Maker is misnamed because it's actually a frames app. You can select your photo, or take one, and insert it into a photo included in the app. You can also apply effects to your photo, leaving the frame untouched, as well add text. Unfortunately you are limited to a single text field, using as much text as will fit in the frame if you wish. I was attempting to create a creepy movie poster with this in the first picture. Obviously creating a movie poster on a phone is a whole different challenge than when I do it on my laptop. The APK file is 6.4mb and it will work with Android 2.3.2 and up.**

PicSay (removed link because it does contain ads after so many uses) allows me to do on my phone what my friends on Twitter and Facebook likely hoped I would not be able to do; add captions with speech balloons to their photos. There are some limitations to this app, but what this lite version is capable of is a lot, and a lot of fun. You can choose various colors of text balloons as well crop and resize your photos with it too. It includes some editing features and filters including a distort filter. PicSay does also integrate with Android default sharing, so if you are using another app and you need to resize your photo or you don't have an option to save it, you can share it with this app and then do that. The APK file is 1.8mb and it will work with Android 4.0 and up.**

Photo Filters is accurately named. It is simply a collection of 27 filters you can apply to your photos. Even though most are simple filters some do have customizations you can play around with. Choose or take a photo and the app will show a screen with thumbnails of all the filters. Click on a thumbnail to see the effect on your photo. The APK file is 533kb and it will work with Android 2.1 and up.**

Poster Frame Movies is a collection of pre-made thematic parody posters into which you can insert your photo as part of the poster. These are nice looking, full fledged movie posters, but there is no customization outside of moving your photo around and resizing it with pinch and zoom. It is something that can be fun and something you can share on social media. Both the sample below and the header photo for this article were made with it. The APK file is 17mb and it will work with Android 2.3.2 and up.**

**Newer versions of Android can have bugs that cause crashes or prevent older apps from running.

I will follow this up with more articles on ad free photo fun apps and an ad free full fledged photo editor.

App Review: Butterfly Browser (Android)

A no-frills Android browser with a navigation drawer and adblocker and not much more? Well there must be some special reason why I am reviewing this... err... right?

Not really. I came across this in a search and downloaded it to actually see what it looks like because the only screenshots available on the app download page are of its settings menu.

Butterfly Browser is a light and fast browser with a good adblocker and no ads. Beyond that not much can be said other than editing the bookmarks menu is intuitive.

A glaring missing feature is a home button. Navigation pretty much is through the navigation drawer. It would be nice to be able to click on a home button and go to either a search engine or a speedlinks page but no such option exists.

It is plain and near every other basic Android browser you've seen all over again. If the developer ever updates this with features like a home button and individual tabs they would have a really nice browser with a clean operation.

You can get Butterfly Browser on APKPure (746kb). It is compatible with Android 4.0 and up.

My rating would be this is in my apps folder. Frankly I have enough browsers in there now. But if you're looking for an alternative browser, maybe for separate social media accounts so you don't have to keep signing in and out, then this will certainly fit the bill.

App Review: Pure Browser (Android)

I do have Pure Browser linked on the Download Movies page, but its small size, speed, and ability to download videos beg for an individual review.

I came across this browser in looking for an option to download the Movie Night movies directly rather than having to stream them. With my notoriously unreliable internet connection streaming for me is often times difficult. Downloads can be resumed in several download managers, and strangely enough by Android.

I had found several browsers that are larger downloads and use more system resources as a result, but a compact and fast browser that does its own downloads rather than using the system downloader (apparently not mp4 friendly) seemed like something I wouldn't find. Interestingly I was looking for something else when I quite accidentally came across this browser; go figure.

Pure Browser is only a 2.6mb download compared to the other browsers I found to download videos weighing in at 23mb and up. It's two downsides, for me, are not having a tabbed interface like a regular browser, instead using the popup window to show tabs instead, and it requires Android 4.2 and up, and I prefer an app that will work down to Android 4.0 instead.

What it does have though is quite exceptional for its small size. A clear homepage screen displaying icons for your favorite sites, and it comes with many sites already included to save you time in searching them out. Plus adding sites to the homepage is a breeze and more intuitive than many other browsers I've seen using a similar homepage.

It also includes a built-in adblocker which appears to work. I have not done major surfing with this but have tested it out on Accuweather which is notorious, as are weather sites in general, for advertising, and the page was free of ads.

And of course the video sniffer, which you can turn off in settings if you need to, which automatically detects a video file and gives you a momentary popup dialogue asking if you want to download it; the dialogue will disappear in a few seconds to keep from interfering with the page. You can set the download directory in settings, and even after the video has downloaded you can also watch it in the browser without having to open a separate app.

You can get Pure Browser from APKPure. It is free and ad free.

Pure Browser has found a place on my phone's home page due to its features and smooth operation. It certainly competes with my goto browser and may eventually replace it. Having been updated just this past month is promising being it is current and I'm anxious to see what's to come.

Multitasking with Android: App Docks

I have several times made comparisons of Android as an OS to Windows 3.1, but for the record I feel I should apologize...

...for any insult to Windows 3.1 by comparing it to Android.

Android's biggest weakness, in my opinion, is the lack of multitasking. There are some apps that will resume where you left off. The easiest way to test this is to close out the app using the Home button and then if the next time you start it via the screen icon, if it starts back where you left off it is resumable. 

There is also a Recent Apps list you can access via the Recent Apps button, a double rectangle, or if your device doesn't have one then by holding down on your Home button. Recent Apps are those that remain resident in memory and some will resume where you left off, but you'll have to test each app for yourself.

But to truly have some multitasking capability it would be useful to start an app while using another without having to shut down that app. A handy way to do this is by being able to dock shortcuts to start an app while you are using another.

Notification Taskbar takes advantage of an already present feature; your notification area in Android. You can slide the notifications area down from the top, or up from the bottom on some tablets, while you are using an app without shutting it down. So why not dock some apps in that area by adding a taskbar with shortcuts to apps? You can add up to 20 shortcuts, customize colors and set it to start with Android. It is free and has no ads. You can get it from APKPure or Google Play. Notification Taskbar runs on Android 4.1 and up.

Sidebar Lite is a free version of the Sidebar app with limited features, but it will allow you to dock up to 8 apps on the left side of your screen and slide out the sidebar when you need to launch an app, and it does not have ads. You can set Sidebar Lite to start with Android. Sidebar Lite will also run on older Android devices from Android 2.1 and up. You can get it from APKPure or Google Play.

With floating apps that can stay open over running apps, which I'll discus in another article, you can dock them in the Notification Taskbar or Sidebar Lite (see pic above) and run them concurrently with other apps allowing you some multitasking capability such as taking notes, using a calculator or even launching a web browser while your main app stays running.

App Review: Document Viewer (PDF for Android)

One thing I have certainly learned about Android as an OS is that things we take for granted on a desktop or laptop computer just do not exist on Android. A basic notepad for instance is not a part of Android and may or may not be included by the manufacturer of your tablet or provider of your phone.

Through the years many of us have used Adobe's Acrobat Reader for PDF files on computers. Of course with anything from Adobe it eventually became unnecessarily bloated and other free options such as Sumatra popped up.

Although Android does not have its own PDF reader, many devices do come with a library reader app. Unfortunately what I have seen of those apps, they are bloated, crash prone, and are limited free versions and/or display advertising. Even free PDF readers you can find on Google Play Store are just as crappy and filled with ads. I mean seriously, the BS you have to go through just to open a document on an Android device.

After searching and trying various apps, and much disappointment along the way, I found an app that is completely free. There are no ads! It's not a resource hog. It will open PDF, EPUB, DjVu, XPS, CBZ (Comic Book) and FictionBook (FB2, FB2.zip) files, and display recent files in the traditional bookcase look common to such readers; this one even includes cobwebs on shelves on your bookcase you have not filled yet.

This app is simply called Document Viewer; which is probably why it is difficult to find when searching for a PDF reader. It will work on Android 2.2 and up making it also ideal for older devices. You can get it from APKPure here; you can get it from Google Play via the link at the bottom of the APKPure page.

Document Viewer is definitely on the home page of my tablet and to me makes the tablet more useful.

Android Apps for Older Phones

Not all of us need or want a full-fledged smartphone to carry in our pockets and giving everybody we see the impression we're happy to see them. There are many older phones in use and floating around on eBay that are perfectly functional, and the model (Huawei M650) I've used to test these apps cost me 10 dollars on eBay, shipping included.

Android 2.3 had a longer run than most Android builds and a lot of older smartphones have this build. There are still many apps that will run on it, and even older versions of apps that can be found. But the dang thing doesn't have a screenshot utility like the later 4+ versions of Android. For the purpose of screenshots I have opted to use a Trio Stealth Mini tablet with a 4.3 inch screen for my screenshots as its 480x272 screen resolution is the closet I could come to the screen resolution of the Huawei at 320x240. So the screenshots are in a wider format than the Huawei.

Web Browsers

The first function many want on a phone beyond basic calling features is internet. Via Browser, Rapid Browser and Mercury Browser* all have ad blocking. Rapid Browser is the only one that has actual tabs along the top like a desktop browser so you can easily switch between them. Mercury for 3.0+ does have such a tabs option, but this version for 2.3 does not. Mercury does have an advantage that it is its own browser and not just a shell using the built-in Android browser like the other two, meaning it's also more current. Mercury can be a bit of a bloat on lower end phones.

*To get the proper version of Mercury Browser for Android 2.3, scroll down the page where you will find older versions listed and download 3.1.2.

Notes and Reminders

In addition to a text editor like Ted that can be used for basic writing, Checklist is exactly what the name implies; you can add and delete simple reminder notes for things to do. Easy Notes is a simple note-taking app with a good look to it, giving you a lined notepad on which you can type in notes and keep  them in an easily accessible index.

RSS Reader

What sets this one apart from other readers is out-of-the-box it is setup for manual checking only. I don't like stuff that runs in the background and this doesn't. When you open it, it will then check its feeds automatically, and when you close it, it stops. It comes with a bunch of feeds already; half of those feeds, at least, are dead. Its one drawback to me is it does not have an option for choosing an external browser but rather uses its built-in browser if you opt to read the full story in a feed. RSS Reader

World Time

Sometimes it is hard to know what time it is in different time zones, and with the internet being a global community with people connecting with each other regardless of borders, knowing the time difference can be a handy thing. Both of these apps include widgets you can put on your phone's home screen. World Clock & Widget does have a small banner ad in the admin panel but displays nothing beyond that, and if you set your time zones once and never again, you'll never see it. World Clock & Weather gives you the option of displaying world time with or without weather; though with the weather you may have to swipe it to switch time zones. With just the time zone they look the same on the home screen and you can change the background colors or use a transparent background.

Feel free to add your own suggestions if you know of Android apps that will run on 2.3 or earlier. Other than Mercury Browser these are small downloads, especially important for older phones that have a small internal memory.

App Review: Ted Text Editor (Android)

The name of this text editor is confusing. I originally assumed this was based on, or a port of, TED Notepad. Apparently it only uses the similar name but has no relation to the aforementioned Windows freeware.

Ted Text Editor for Android has several advantages. The first thing is simply it is small. The download is only 251.8Kb. Pictures you'll find online are bigger than that. Being small it also starts quickly and runs smoothly.

Up front, Ted is a simple and plain text editor. And by that I mean it only edits plain text files. This doesn't do RTF or DOC files. This is not for code editing, big files and advanced search and replace or other text editor features. What it does do is offer a way to write and takes notes.

Where Ted excels for me is making writing fun by having several themes you can use for your writing environment. Dracula, Matrix, Negative, Sky and a standard editor theme keep it from looking like the same old text editor. 

Ted can also use any True Type Font on your Android device*. Unlike other Android editors I have used that show just the font name or the fonts in a folder, Ted shows the fonts exactly as they'll appear in the editor like a font viewer does; so you can select your font by appearance.

*You can just paste fonts into your phone or tablet using the same fonts you have on your desktop or laptop. If you don't have that ability, such as you don't know how to do it or you only use a phone, you can download fonts from free fonts sites online (do a search for free fonts). For a future post I'll put together a collection of fonts you can just download and unzip to put fonts on your phone.

I find Ted to be a fun way to write and it has found a place on my home page.

Ted is for Android 2.2+. Get it on APKPure

3 Photo Customizable Android Web Browsers

Try enough web browsers on an Android device and you'll find yourself looking at a webpage, knowing what site you're on, but not what browser you're using. Of course for many this is not a problem so long as they can interact with a website then they're satisfied with it, well... because that's really all a browser is suppose to do. But there's always something more any app can offer that not only sets it apart from the crowd, but also makes it more personalized for the user.

Years ago, web browsers were pretty much generally gray. You could customize your desktop theme which would also apply to your browser. Then came along a few innovations in the form of customizable features such as being able to use a picture as a background in the toolbar of Internet Explorer 3, and shells for Internet Explorer which allowed you to customize and download all kinds of themes for your browser; of course those browsers came with a price.

Mozilla Firefox may not have invented the browser theme but they certainly popularized it. A free web browser for which you could find hundreds of free themes for it online meant not everybody was using the same browser. Yes, like cars they all had the same engine under the hood, but like a car computer users could now choose their color and accessories.

Android as a system and available apps as programs have quite a head start in design building on what has come before. Having a choice of colors for your browser is one thing, but the three browsers in this article take customization to the next level by allowing you to add a photo as a background to your browser start page.

Smart Search & Web Browser - Comes with a screen full of social sites as well news, shopping and other links on its start page.  Swipe the start page left or right to get a recent queries or add-ons page which includes trending news topics and inspirational quotes. You can select from a variety of colors for your top search bar and use a photo as a background for the start page. Be aware that the browser will install itself only as 'Search' in your apps folder and application manager; which kind of makes it a little confusing to find at first. It also stays running in the background after you exit the program. You can go into the application manager to do a forced stop to shut it down. Get it at APKPure

Via Browser - Tiny, weighing in at barely 450kb. It's small size means it's quick too. You'll have to add your own bookmarks. The browser changes colors to match webpages. You can add a photo to the start page and the browser will select its own theme color for that as well. I have selected the bookmarks option for the start page and the text color will either be white or dark gray, so your photos need to be on the light or dark side for the bookmarks to be legible. Get it at APKPure

X Browser - One of my favorites. Weighs in at only 1Mb. It's very fast and icons look good on the start page. You can also set a photo as a background and control the transparency of the icons and search box. I suggest in settings, under customization, to deselect the 'search bar in middle' option as it looks better and operates more smoothly with the search bar at the top. Does come with several links already on the start page (Yahoo and ZDnet would not be among my own choices). Get it at APKPure

All three browsers offer adblocking with X Browser having the most customizable adblocker into which you can write your own rules and exclusions. All three are also free and ad-free; you might get an occasional request to rate the app on Google Play. All three also offer a definitive 'exit button' in the settings menu; something lacking in too many Android apps requiring you to use the back button to exit an app.

Out of the three, X Browser is my favorite for its speed. Via Browser is very useful for online galleries and image searches as both can freeze a browser and Via handles them better than the other two. X Browser and Via Browser are both on my home page. Smart Search & Web Browser is interesting and good looking but I prefer the speed of the other two so it's in my apps folder instead.

App Review: AIO Browser (Android)

Old MacDonald had a phone

A-I... AIO

And on that phone he had a browser

A-I... AIO

With a website here and a website there

Here a site, there a site

Everywhere a website

A-I... AIO

Okay, maybe I could have resisted, but what's the fun in that?

Years ago, split screen web browsers allowing you to browse more than one website simultaneously had a purpose. Keep in mind the operative expression here is 'years ago'... that was before a wonderful little feature called tabbed browsing came along.

Split screen browsers on an Android device are not really much of a mixed bag as most of them are pretty lacking in features. It's amazing when a simple thing like having bookmarks is something to brag about. Alas, of the split screen browsers I have tested, only two have bookmarks available, and only one has an adblock feature. That one is AIO Browser.

Split screen browsing can be resource intensive on a device. Windows can handle it better than Android. One of the things that becomes a problem with a split screen browser is they open in split screen mode, thus they're trying to load two websites at once to start. As a result they can take a while to initially load any pages, and on an older Android device there is the potential for it freezing.

AIO Browser opens but a single screen to start. Unlike the others, you can use it for browsing a single site at a time. You can open two additional screens, browsing up to three sites simultaneously, but three sites is the maximum you can have open, unlike tabbed browsing.

Another issue with split screen browsers on Android is they don't handle screen rotation very well. From reloading the screens to outright freezing. AIO Browser does handle screen rotation well.

That adblock feature becomes even more important with a split screen browser. Even with tabbed browsing you've got only one screen hogging video resources at a time, even if you have other dynamic websites open in other tabs. When screens are open simultaneously your video resources are being taxed even more. Without an adblocker, depending on the sites you're browsing, you could be setting yourself up for a crash.

Of course it all boils down to "what's the point?"

Tabbed browsing uses fewer resources and allows you to have many screens open in the background. Split screen browsing is also pointless on a phone, hence why my screenshots are from a tablet. There have been times I wished I had two screens open at once rather than switching back and forth between tabs; and in those instances AIO Browser would be my choice out of the ones I've tested.

AIO Browser may not go on my home page as a primary browser but I'll happily put it in my apps folder.

AIO Browser is for Android 4.0+ (3.6Mb). Get it on APKPure