Google is somehow the only company that is able to completely ruin a calculator app. Even before installing, Google outs themselves with how much data they collect:
- App info and performance: Crash logs and Diagnostics
- Personal info: Email address
- Device or other IDs
- App activity: App interactions
And of course the encouraging message:
Data can’t be deleted
The developer doesn’t provide a way for you to request that your data be deleted
As soon as you try to install it, the app requests network access. I’m glad to be using GrapheneOS where this can be restricted.
The app doesn’t crash on launch, which is a new concept for Google, since most of their apps won’t even start without Google Play Services installed. Maybe that means the calculator app can calculate 1+1 without requiring installing the most invasive software known to man, right?
Of course it can’t. It crashes the moment you press the plus sign. Thank you, Google, for requiring Google Play Services for your calculator app to do basic addition. You know what calculator doesn’t require Google Play services to do math?
In all seriousness, OpenCalc is a near 1:1 match to Google Calculator, so I suggest anyone use that instead.
The cherry on top is Google’s calculator app is bundled with a privacy policy, which on its own is a treat to read through: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Congratulations, Google, you can spy on math now.
They need to spy on math. To see if the User is stupid enough to fall for scam ads, or is a math student which cant fall for numbers.
On the cli my favorite calculator of all time is Qalc. It’s fucking amazing.
You can be like “1 km to mi” and it will give it to you.
For some reason the screenshots show the gui but imo the cli is where it’s at
2 plus 2 is 4 minus 1. That’s 3. Quick maths.
How many lights do you see?
Why does a calculator need my fucking email address? We’re not pen pals, just do this arithmetic.
Data can’t be deleted
The developer doesn’t provide a way for you to request that your data be deleted
Not big fans of the GDRP I assume 😂
Thanks I’ve uninstalled Google’s calculator and installed OpenCalc
Also nice GeoGebra, OpenSource from Austria (EU), online, Android, iPhone
Not FOSS but great, OmniCalculator from Poland (EU), online, free, a collection of 3718 calculators for every task.
GeoGebra! Our school used it for demonstration on the lessons and had us do homework in there! Have good memories of it.
Welcome to 2025 where we discuss FOSS Calculators that don’t collect your data… how did we get here again?
The last time I wanted to do something for privacy, someone laughed at me saying “They don’t want to make a google mail because google spies on us”. Eh I wish you could read all this shit but you’re old and you don’t care about privacy ig
fossify calculator ☞ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fossify.math
Nowadays even calculators have terms of service and a privacy policy that is longer than many novels. Some probably have forced arbitration also.
Congratulations, Google, you can spy on math now.
5318008
Clear.
5318008
Clear.
5318008
etc
rofi-calc
is awesome. It’s so convenient to just press a keyboard shortcut you have defined and instantly being able to type or paste your equation, no having to wait for a complicated GUI to load, no clicking required. You can just pop it in whenever you need. Also it does unit conversions, instead of a math equation you can just type10 inches to cm
or10 eur to usd
or100 celsius to fahrenheit
or100 to binary
which is a huge time saver.https://github.com/svenstaro/rofi-calc
Besides, it’s rofi and rofi rules 😎
Rofi is cool but don’t forget about qalculate (the backend)
Yeah I should have mentioned it, the day I stumbled on rofi-calc and learned that it could deal with natural language thanks to qalculate I was floored ! I don’t know who came up with the idea by hat off to them
wow, great program! I’ve been using bc for some simple calculations before, but this just replaced it!
I didn’t know about this! I already use rofi for a few different things, so I’m going to get rofi-calc working too, it’ll fit perfectly into my workflow. Thanks!
There’s so many cool rofi plugins 🤩
I use this one. It isn’t FOSS, but it’s a one-time purchase to remove ads. It has a lot of added features, like algebra and unit conversions, and requires no permissions.
I’ve been looking for a calculator app for years now that fits what I need I need it for and have yet to find a good one. There was a good one a few years ago called function-something which allowed you to create your own mathematic expressions and it was super awesome, but it’s been discontinued… :(
EDIT: To those asking, I’ve essentially tried the first 50 that show up under “calculator” in Google Play. If you posted it, I’ve very likely tried it and found it lacking.
RealCalc is nice - it emulates a scientific calculator, and doesn’t ask for any permissions.
That’s the one I use. I even paid for mine since I like it so much.
yetCalc?
I don’t know if it’s on the play store.
I’ll give it a go.
did you try calculator++? on fdroid. it has a lots of operations, a function plotter and a floating window mode
There’s also Arity. It isn’t the best interface, but it has functions, variables, and graphs.
I was also using Unitto for unit conversions, but apparently the creator doesn’t want forks or for f-droid to host it, so I’m looking for another one.
If you have ever used an HP RPN calculator (which are clearly the best calculators), there is Droid48, which emulates the HP 48GX.