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15 free and useful Android applications

1. Advanced Task Killer Free

Advanced Task Killer Free is just what the name states, its a task manager for Android. It gives you the power to easily kill applications with one click, that run in the background, stealing bandwidth or battery time. It has the following features besides the application settings menu:

• Click to select or unselect the app
• Long press to activate pop-up menu
• Menu>Settings>Notification bar icon, AutoStart, Ignore

2. ASTRO File Manager

ASTRO File Manager is a very powerful file manager for Android. It really is a must on your Android device when it comes to managing files on your sdcard. It's packed with features, and here's some of them:

• Download any file with browser
• Browse / create / extract zip files
• Back up and restore public applications to the SD card
• Create shortcuts
• Send files as attachments
• Thumbnails
• Multiselect
• Search
• Image, Text, HTML Viewers

3. aTrackDog (SD)

aTrackDog keeps track on what applications you have installed and/or backed-up on your SD-card and notifies you in case a newer version is available. Manually checking the applications you have installed for a new version would be a pain, and here's a easy solution. If you go to their website you can also see a overview over the 100 most popular programs installed by its users, which is a really cool feature. The program also has some exciting features such as:

• Track new version for backed-up apps
• Install, delete backed-up apps
• Export app list for sharing
• Browse top 100 popular apps (already mentioned)

4. Facebook

Facebook for Android™ makes it easy to stay connected and share information with friends. You can share status updates from your home screen, check out your news feed, look at your friends’ walls and user info. Share photos from your phone and can even look up up to 125 friends’ phone numbers from the home screen.

• Share Photos
• Status Widget on home screen
• Easily post messages on your friends walls

5. Barcode Scanner

This is a really fun and nice to have application, many android applications around the web are publish with a barcode image, I'm guessing most of you have seen these floating around. And in case you didn't understand what exactly it was, here's the answer. Scan barcodes on CDs, books, and other products, then look up prices and reviews, or search for a word in a book and find where it occurs. You can also scan QR Codes containing URLs, contact info, calendar events, and more.

• Easily scan barcodes
• Look prices and reviews for the scanned items
• Lots of future potential
• User friendly

6. BeamReader

I've tried many different PDF readers, and none suited my needs or was easy enough to use. Then a friend tipped me about this application and it was exactly what I was looking for. View PDF files and e-mail attachments in their desktop quality. Documents are rendered locally on device.

• Fast full fidelity rendering
• Intuitive granular zoom and navigation
• Text wrap view
• Encrypted and password protected PDFs
• Text search
• Bookmarks
• Embedded links

7. Dolphin Browser

Now here's a nice and feature rich browser. In my eyes it's the best browser out there for Android. It sure beats the standard browser that's for sure, and it really improves the mobile surfing experience. It's fast, lightweight, supports tabs and lots more. Here are some of the features:

• Gesture
• Sync G.bookmark
• DL YouTube video
• Multi touch 4 Droid & Hero& cyanogen
• Save cache 2 SD
• Tabs view
• Theme pack support
• More features and screenshots

8. eBuddy IM

Many want to stay connected on MSN or Facebook chat while they are on the move, well now they can. With this eBuddy Android client one can stay online on MSN, Facebook, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, GTalk & MySpace accounts while on the move. The chat function is very organized and easy to keep track of.  Personally i like this IM much more than Meebo because I haven't had any problems with it (yet). And with Meebo i had connectivity problems all the time. Anyway, its features:

• Fast and reliable messenger
• Chat with multiple MSN, Facebook, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, GTalk & MySpace accounts
• All IM friends in one buddy list
• Run in background
• Messages sent as data, not SMS/Text

9. NetCounter

Most of us don't have a unlimited mobile data plan, and we need to keep track of how much traffic we've used so far this month. Netcounter does exactly this. It keeps track of the data traffic used today, past 7 days, this month etc (you can choose this yourself)

• Keeps track of 3G/Edge and WIFI data traffic
• Keeps an daily,weekly,monthly and total overview.
• The ability to set alarms

10. NewsRob

NewsRob is a RSS/Atom reader that syncs with Google Reader. If you're like me and make use of public transportation to get to school or work and would like to keep updated with news from your favourite sites, this is the perfect thing. Like I mentioned it syncs with Google Reader and we all know how we love Google services. Some cool features are:

• Two-way background sync
• Download full & partial feeds including the web pages and images
• Offline capable (You can download your feeds via WiFi then read them when not connected to the web
• Share link by email/twitter/delicious
• Share article in Reader
• Star articles
• Locale Integration
• Hide and Auto-delete read articles
• Supports your Google Reader categories and labels
• Save fetched feeds and web pages on your SD card

11. Places Directory

Yet another Google Labs product for Android. As the name implies, Places Directory allows you to browse nearby places in categories like Restaurants, Movie Theaters, Hotels and Banks. You'll see distance and directions to the destination, and if you tap on the listing, it'll show ratings and photos. You can also call the business or view its location on Google Maps.

• Mini-Map
• Location Picker
• My Favorites
• Photo Gallery
• Compass Direction
• Keyword Search

12. Ringdroid

This application is actually really cool. It lets you manipulate song tracks, so that you can use songs from your music library as ring-tones. Whats great about that? Well say you want the ring-tone to start 1min 30secs into the song, and last for 20 seconds (chorus maybe?), this application makes life easy for you.

• Supports MP3, WAV, AAC, MP4, 3GPP and AMR files.
• Song editing
• Creating ring-tones (duh..)

13. Spotify

You guessed it, its the official Spotify client which enables you to listen to your Spotify playlists wherever you go. You need to be a Premium subscriber to use this application, but I'd say its definitely worth it. You don't know what Spotify is? Then it's time you came out of your cave and check out their website. The client has all the features the computer client does (i think), and as long as you've either downloaded playlists to be available offline, or have a 3G connection you should be ready to go.

• Stream your favourite music
• Store your offline playlists
• Share your favourite tracks with friends
• A pretty decent Home widget

14. Solitaire

If you need a game that's both fun and hard (at least I think it is), then this is the game for you. Based on the opensource "solitaire for android" project by Ken Magic.  Its a very simple looking application, and doesn't try to be anything different than what it is, a card game.

• Besides Solitaire it has Spider, Freecell and Forty Thieves
• Can keep statistics on your win percentage, fastest time and attempts.

15. SyncMyPix

As of today the Facebook application integration isn't working on Motorola Milestone (who knows why). I was looking for an application which could fetch the profile pictures from Facebook and associate them with the correct contacts. This does just that. This way you will always have your contacts freshest picture directly from their Facebook profile. It also has an option to only fetch friends on Facebook which has registered their phone number.

• Remembers manually synced pics
• Can associate Facebook profile picture with contacts (again duh..)
• Ability to fetch maximum quality picture
• Smart name matching

About Torstein Skulbru

22 year old, Bachelor ICT(Information and Communication Technology) student at University of Bergen (NO)