November 22nd, 2019 | Updated on April 13th, 2021
Smartphones are used for a number of things. Be it for talking purpose, playing games, listening to music and a lot more.
Even for talking on social media smartphones are widely used. In other words, smartphones are used in our lives to make our daily job much easier.
Thankfully there are a number of mobile applications which also does the same. These applications are known as the utility apps. They are known to make our daily life much more easier and helpful.
Thus, let’s have a look at some of the most important and best android tools which can also be used as utility apps on everyday basis.
1. Google Find My Device
Find My Device helps you locate your lost Android and lock it until you get it back. See your phone, tablet or watch on a map.
If the current location isn’t available, you’ll see the last known location.Use indoor maps to help you to find your device in airports, shopping centres or other large buildings.
Review: Android Authority
Find My Device is probably one of the most valuable Android tools and it’s completely free. This app lets you ping the location of your device in the event that it becomes lost or stolen.
It’s compatible with phones, tablets, and even Wear OS smartwatches. You can also lock your device, erase it, and show a message on your device to plead to the finder to return it.
It’s a free service by Google and that makes it so nice. Those who want something a little more powerful should check out Cerberus. It does a lot of the same stuff, but also has more features if you don’t mind paying for them.
2. GasBuddy: Find Cheap Fuel
You call it fuel. Luckily, we all understand what it means to save money. At the end of the day, we’re the world’s leading fuel pricing app that wants to help you keep your money in the bank—and not in the tank.
GasBuddy is the world’s largest community-based fuel app, with over 60 million downloads worldwide. We outsmart the pump together, using information provided by our users. Join drivers in your areas and start saving!
Review: Influenster
When you live in BC and gas prices are ridiculously high, you need GasBuddy. I always check this app to look for the cheapest prices. Easy to use and super helpful.
You can contribute by providing current gas prices at a certain gas station. It is constantly updating for the most accurate prices.
3. GlassWire Data Usage Monitor
GlassWire makes it easy to monitor your mobile data usage, data limits, and WiFi Internet activity in real-time.
Instantly see what apps are slowing your phone’s Internet connection or wasting your mobile data. Give GlassWire a try and see what’s using your WiFi and mobile data right this moment.
Review: Software Advice
GlassWire is a network monitoring and security solution with a built-in firewall. It provides features such as internet security, bandwidth usage monitoring, remote server monitoring and internet privacy protection.
The network monitoring module allows administrators to monitor current and past network activity by traffic type, application and user’s geographic, all of which are displayed in graphs.
Administrators can click the graph to see application details or network events, such as spikes in network activity.
4. Google
The Google app keeps you in the know about the things that you care about. Find quick answers, explore your interests and get a feed of updates on what matters to you. The more you use the Google app, the better it gets.
Review: Android Authority
The official Google app is one of the most powerful tools on mobile. It can do almost anything. You can ask Google Assistant for the weather or to control your smart lighting setup.
Google Feed provides a feed of relevant info just for your (although that does take time to customize). We all already know the benefits of Google Search.
Google was nice enough to incorporate all of that functionality in a single app and that really makes it difficult not to recommend it to basically everybody. This is an excellent app.
5. IFTTT
IFTTT is another excellent Android tool. This app allows you to make connections between other apps. For instance, you can have the app upload a photo to your Dropbox after you share it on Instagram.
That is just scratching the surface of all the things it can do. There are tons of apps that have IFTTT integration built-in and you can even use to do things like control your smart lights.
There are thousands of recipes out there and you can find them by Google searching if you want to see them.
Also, don’t forget about the upcoming Microsoft Flow and other, similar utility apps. Tasker is another great option in this space. It’s a little harder to use but it’s also more powerful.
Review: PCMag
Foremost, IFTTT and Zapier differ in their areas of focus. For example, IFTTT works with digital voice assistants (Alexa, Cortana, Google Assistant, and Siri), as well as smart home devices (such as lighting, appliances, and security systems). Zapier does not offer this functionality.
Instead, it offers more functionality for the enterprise crowd, including hooks to services such as Amazon S3, GoToWebinar, SQL Server, Wrike, and Zendesk.
The two do overlap in the cloud, mobile, productivity, and social spaces, however. Both IFTTT and Zapier support AsanaFree at Asana, Dropbox, Facebook, Google Drive, Instagram, Slack, SMS messaging, Trello, and Twitter.
6. LastPass Password Manager
LastPass is a password manager and password generator that locks your passwords and personal information in a secure vault.
From your LastPass vault, you can store passwords and logins, create online shopping profiles, generate strong passwords, track personal information in notes, and more.
All you have to do is remember your LastPass master password, and LastPass will autofill web browser and app logins for you.
Review: Android Authority
LastPass is one of the better password management apps. It lets you store your passwords. The app fills in the passwords for you.
You can sync the passwords across platforms for use on PC, mobile, tablets, and other devices. The app works with Google Chrome and Opera browsers.
In addition, it’s relatively inexpensive to get the pro features. LastPass Authenticator adds another layer of security for the super security conscious. They’re both excellent Android tools.
7. MiXplorer Silver
MiX Silver is a bundle of MiXplorer file manager and Archiver, SMB2, Image, Tagger, Metadata and PDF addons.
Review: AndroidGuys
MiXplorer is a beautiful, material-inspired with a hamburger menu and a single toolbar found at the bottom.
All your parent folder locations are easily accessible through said hamburger menu and this makes it very easy to switch from viewing your system files to viewing those on your SD card.
If that isn’t enough, you can pin these to the status bar. However, navigating the settings, namely the themes and add-ons, is a little confusing.
To download a new theme, you have to navigate to settings->theme->customize (not add)->add->Web/new/clipboard. This makes theming a bit of a hassle, and not very “on-the-fly.”
With add-ons, you can see the whole list; but to download, it takes you to Google Drive, from which you have to find first the add-on, then the correct APK for your architecture (MIPS, x86, arm, arm64).
8. ProtonVPN
ProtonVPN is a community-supported VPN app brought to you by the same team that created ProtonMail, the world’s largest encrypted email service.
Our mission is to make advanced online privacy and security available to everyone.Install our VPN app now for free and use it to keep your IP address private, protect your Internet connection on public Wi-Fi, and access geo-restricted content.
Review: PCMag
ProtonVPN is from the same team that brought you ProtonMail, the encrypted email service famously housed in an underground bunker.
Instead of safeguarding your email, however, ProtonVPN is a virtual private network, or VPN, meant to defend your web traffic.
Even if you suspect that kind of extreme physical security is just a marketing ploy, this small company has brought a remarkable focus on privacy and security to ProtonVPN, as well as a truly free VPN offering.
ProtonVPN earns an Editors’ Choice for its free version, which has few limitations. But ProtonVPN is still a comparably small operation, so we continue to recommend our Editors’ Choice winners for paid subscriptions: NordVPN, Private Internet Access, and TunnelBear.
9. Solid Explorer
This is Solid Explorer File and Cloud Manager. If you own the Solid Explorer Unlocker you can use the premium version for free! Now you can protect your files and folders with a password.
If your device has a fingerprint sensor you can use it to open encrypted files without a need to provide the password.
The same applies for cloud storages, which can now be accessed with the fingerprint as well.Please note that this is a 14 day trial version
Review: Android Authority
Solid Explorer is probably the best file manager on Android right now. It supports the basic stuff, including archiving and un-archiving files, checking your storage folders, moving stuff around, and more.
It also has more advanced features like cloud storage support, support for various types of web servers (think FTP and others), and support for root users.
There are other file managers out there, but Solid Explorer looks and works great. It hits that sweet spot between functional and good looking.
10. Wifi Analyzer
Turns your android phone into a Wi-Fi analyzer! Shows the Wi-Fi channels around you. Helps you to find a less crowded channel for your wireless router.
Review: PlayStore
Once running it is great and told me what I needed to know – which was the best channel to set my router to.
But getting it set up was very frustrating and reading other reviews was required to identify why it couldnt detect a signal although it declared it was connected to my router.
App permissions need to be set to allowing location and I had to repeat this a couple of times before it would play ball.
