Who Needs Google? Samsung's Stock Apps Are Pretty Great

11.04.2024 - 13:55 / howtogeek.com / Bertel King

If you're like me, you may have avoided Samsung devices in the past because of the amount of bloat they added to Android. Well, the story has changed—Samsung One UI is now remarkably attractive, and Samsung apps are actually worth using. I would choose many of them over Google's own apps.

Samsung Internet is a Legit Browser

In the early days of Android, every manufacturer shipped their own thinly skinned version of Android's default web browser. These days, users have come to expect, and Google has started to require, that every phone with the Play Store also comes with Chrome. It's easy to assume that Samsung Internet is a hold over from those early days. Turns out, it's a remarkably good browser.

As a Chromium-based browser, Samsung Internet loads web pages just fine. But what makes it special? The browser comes with privacy enhancements and ad blockers built-in, which you won't find in a browser that comes from Google. On a book-style foldable phone, tablet, or Samsung DeX, Samsung Internet turns into a desktop-style browser with tabs. I have yet to feel the need to swap it out for anything else on my Galaxy Z Fold 5.

A Stock Gallery App Worth Using

Our phones now come with enough storage to store years and years of photos, but at the same time, there has been a push to store our images in the cloud. Google Photos is technically good at doing both, but it is much better at the latter (or at least it constantly nags you to let it).

I store all of my photos locally, and I don't want to feel like I'm using the offline version of a web service I don't use. Samsung Gallery does what I need. It provides helpful ways to organize my photos and can exclude the folders I don't need to scan. It's also a good photo editor.

Plus, it's still easy to share photos using Samsung Gallery. Like most Samsung apps, it scales well from my phone to my lapdock. Finding a good gallery app in the Play Store can feel like searching through muck and adware, so I appreciate not having to bother.

Samsung Notes Is Excellent With a Stylus

Many Samsung devices come with an S Pen, and Samsung Notes is one of the best ways to make use of that stylus. You can write or draw and then easily organize what you've scribbled.

Notes is also a decent tool for typing. While it's missing just a few key features that make it stop short of replacing Microsoft Word for people looking to write a paper for school, it's great for putting together your thoughts and simple tasks like keeping minutes during a meeting.

On Samsung phones and tablets with S Pen support, you can quickly launch Notes whenever you pull out your stylus. You can even begin writing a note with an S Pen while the screen is still off,