6 useful apps for your Pixel that you can’t get from the Play Store

Google’s Play Store has millions of apps available to download, from developers big and small. It doesn’t represent the breadth of Android apps that are out there, though. One of the biggest things that makes Android different from iOS is that it still allows you to sideload apps from wherever you want. There’s a whole world of free and open-source apps and app stores that never become officially available for a variety of different reasons. On Android you can add them to your device fairly easily.

There’s inherent risk involved, of course. A key service the Play Store offers is security, removing apps that carry malware, that are obviously scams, or that are outright illegal or dangerous. You don’t get any of that from an app you download off of GitHub or an open-source app store. That shouldn’t discourage you from trying to sideload apps, but it does mean you should do your due diligence to make sure an app is safe. If you are willing to accept those risks, the picks featured below represent the variety of useful apps you can download for your Pixel or other Android device that you can’t get on the Play Store.

1 F- Droid

An app store for open-source apps

F-Droid

F-Droid is an alternative Android app store that offers a wide selection of free and open-source software applications to download.

F-Droid is essentially a free and open-source version of the Play Store. It collects free and open-source apps from a variety of different repositories and offers them all in one place. The app covers all the same basic categories you’ll find in the Play Store, just without ads or unnecessary subscriptions. Everything from games to alternative web browsers.

You don’t have to exclusively use F- Droid to sideload apps, but it does come with an advantage: like the Play Store, F-Droid can keep your free and open-source apps up-to-date. That could potentially save you a lot of time if you don’t want to go hunting for the repository for each app.

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2 Bromite

Ultra-simple Chrome alternative with ad-blocking

Bromite

Bromite is a privacy-focused Chromium web browser with ad-blocking built-in.

Chrome is undeniably feature-packed, but using it does require accepting icky parts of Google’s business, like tracking and ads. If you’d prefer not to deal with any of that while still getting the speedy and capable performance of Chrome, you might want to try Bromite. The open-source uses a fork of Chromium, the engine that powers Chrome, and features none of the distractions or extraneous features of Chrome. It’s basically just websites and bookmarks, with some ad-blocking built-in.

Bromite is a much simpler and lightweight app than Chrome, and you can use it with the confidence of knowing that your web browsing behavior isn’t informing ad placement somewhere else. The app only works on Android devices running Android Marshmallow (6.0) and above, so as long as you have that, you should be able to download it.

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3 New Pipe

A YouTube alternative without all the fluff

NewPipe

NewPipe is a YouTube alternative that streamlines the app its replacing to focus on watching videos and downloading videos to watch later.

Much like Chrome, YouTube has collected a lot of features most people don’t use every day. In a word, it’s bloated. If you don’t want to deal with YouTube Shorts or Community Posts, NewPipe might be the app for you. It’s a YouTube alternative that claims to block Google’s tracking and doesn’t include any of the video platform’s newer social features. It’s just a straightforward tool for playing videos.

Even if NewPipe skips those features, you’ll still get the ability to download videos to watch when you’re offline, and a pop-up player so that your videos keep playing even if you’re looking at another app.

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4 Fortnite

The alpha and omega of mobile battle royale games

Fortnite

Fortnite is a massively popular game that has several modes, the most famous of which is the online battle royale mode. In this mode, players collect items, build structures, and battle it out to be the ultimate victor.

It might seem strange to include Fortnite on a list of great apps you can sideload, but the game is as good as it ever was, and still not available directly through the Play Store because of Epic and Google’s legal battle (which is still technically ongoing after Google appealed a judge’s ruling in October 2024). You can still play Fortnite by streaming it to a mobile phone through Xbox Cloud Gaming or Nvidia GeForce Now, but the best experience is by actually running the battle royale app directly on your phone.

In order to sideload Fortnite onto your Pixel or other Android phone, you need to first install the Epic Games Store app. From there, you can download Fortnite and run it like normal. The game is exactly like you remember: endless amounts of quests to complete and skins to purchase.

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5 Seal

A video and audio downloader

Seal

Seal is an audio and video downloader that lets you save media you find around the web to your Android phone.

Downloading media from the web on your phone is much more complicated than it is on a desktop computer, and Seal aims to streamline things. The app uses “yt-dlp,” a command line program for downloading media, to let you grab any video you find around the web just by pasting in a link. It’s perfect if you want to save a YouTube or TikTok video for later, and it can even include subtitles and captions if they’re already included with the video. Seal also works just as well with audio if you want to save a clip of something, too.

Downloading whatever audio or video you want around the web is undeniably questionable, so make sure you’re comfortable with the implications of Seal before you start using it. The app is undeniably useful if you keep it in your arsenal, though.

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6 Breezy Weather

An alternative weather app with great widget

Breezy Weather

Breezy Weather is a bright, colorful weather app with lots of data to view and excellent widgets to choose from.

Google went for years without releasing a Pixel-focused weather app, leaving most third-party Android phone makers to provide their own. There’s now a redesigned Pixel Weather app, but if you’re interested in exploring other options, Breezy Weather is worth a look. It shares a similar aesthetic to Google’s weather app, but offers many more options in terms of widgets.

Breezy Weather has a colorful look, with large infographics explaining various weather stats. It collects all the basic information you need, from daily, weekly, and hourly forecasts to things like temperature, air quality, humidity, and precipitation. Better yet, you can display that information in a variety of different ways on your phone: through the previously mentioned widgets, or even a live wallpaper.

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Sideloading is an Android strength that should be leveraged

There are risks to doing it, but you should be able to add whatever you want to your phone, whenever you want. It’s your pocket computer, you should put the apps you want on it. Hopefully, this list is a glimpse into the kind of free and open-source apps that are available and aren’t on the Play Store, but are still worth downloading.

If you’re looking for options that are more above board, Pocket-lint has collected multiplelists of great Android apps you can download on your phone right now.