Category: Android Apps

The advent of Oculus VR , & Samsung Galaxy gear has further boosted the VR craze started by Google Cardboard and other VR devices. The popular formats used for watching videos are either SBS (Side By Side 3D) and 360-Degrees. As of now popular media players for Android like MX Player & VLC do not support VR Media Playbacks. So here are the Top 5 Free VR Media Players for Android phones to watch VR Videos. These VR Video Players can not only be used to watch 360 or 3D Videos but you can even watch your 2 D Movies video clips on your VR Glasses by using these VR Players.

Top 5 Free VR Video Players for Android –

App # 1 – VR Gesture Player

When it comes to Virtual Reality its best viewed when it becomes more realistic as possible. VR Gesture Player is one such VR Media player which makes watching videos a great experience.

The most Striking feature of VR Gesture Player is that on open VR Glasses, you can use your hand to control the Videos as shown in the below image –

Not only does it track your hand gestures but you can even type on it using your hand, and control videos.

Besides, allowing Videos to be controlled by hand gestures, it can even play 2D Videos in Side by Side playback so that you can watch even 2D videos in your VR Glasses.

Besides, being a VR player it can smoothly play 3D Videos & 360 Videos as well.

Click here to Download VR Gesture Player from Google Play

 

App # 2 – VR Player Free

VR Player Free is a free an easy to use VR Player which can play various VR Video formats. You can use it to Play 2D , 3D SBS , 3D Top/Bottom Videos on your Android phone.

Besides being able to play 2D SBS Videos, it can even play 360 degree videos.

Also the various projections methods present in VR Player free such as Sphere , Dome , Cube will give a realistic 360 Degree Imax theater experience right on your Android Phone!

Click here to Download VR Player Free from Google Play.

 

App # 3 – AAA VR Cinema app for Android (Cardboard Compatible)

AA VR Cinema is another free alternative VR Cinema player for Android and gives a variety of playback options to play normal as well as 360 3D VR Videos.

The most striking thing about AAA Cinema which we liked the most is its head-tracking technology which works by tracking your head movement drift.

Thus, you can watch VR videos even without Gyroscope sensor if you have AAA VR Cinema app which is simply great.

Not to forget the host of features it provides to watch VR videos on your Android like 180-degree panorama, 360-degree playback which not many apps provide.

All these features for free make AAA VR Cinema for Android a great app –
Click here to Download AAA VR Cinema for Android from Google Play.

 

App # 4 – VRTV Player Free

VR TV Player free is a similar app to VR Player free but the UI is a bit modest, but the clean and minimalist UI works wonders when it comes to Smoothness in Playback.

Not to mix the minimal User Interface but it provides almost all the important features required to Play VR Videos like projection type : Flat , Dome, Cube , Cylinder.

As well as it supports 2 D Video playback alongwith the 3D VBS, and 360 formats.

The Best feature we found out in our tests was the “Fish eye” mode under the “projection” tab of video we are playing. The Fish eye mode splits any video in such a way that it gives the least concussion or strain to the eyes if the distance between pupillary lens is properly adjusted on VR headset.

The “fish eye” mode really made it great on our small-screen sized android device.

Click here to Download VRTV Free from Google Play.

 

App # 5 – Homido 360 VR Player

Homido Video Player comes from an VR Headset maker itself and consists of various multiple features.

Not only it can play VR , 2D Videos alongside 360 Side By Side formats, but it even tries to project normal 2D Videos as 360 videos if the option is selected. The result widely depends upon the video type, but we managed to get a real decent 360 degree experience on lesser-resolution 2D Videos.

Besides, this Homido VR Player also contains an inbuilt web browser thus, you can even browse Internet in your VR Glasses or Cardboard.

The method to give inputs to Homido is dependent on Head tracking and thus requires Gyroscope enabled.

Click here to Download Homido 360 VR Player from Google Play.

Miscellanous :  You can now shoot Live Photos as in iPhone 6S Right on your Android Phones. Click here to Download Graphica App to shoot live Photos on Android

Thus, these are the best 5 Free VR Video Players for Google Cardboard & others (Homido VR, Agnus VR, Procus VR, Freefly VR, Galaxy Gear, Oculus VR) on Android which we came across, we will keep updating this list as new apps are launched because VR apps are constantly coming . If you know of any other such good VR Video Player for Cardboard feel free to comment.

The Size & Quality of Videos are increasing at a rapid rate as compared to the Phone Storage. Thus, Videos now take up a good size of disk space on our Android phones . This imbalance in increase of Video quality doesn’t match the speed of increase of Storage on Android which leads to lesser phone memory available for apps, and internal phone memory becoming full. So, In this tutorial we will cover How you can Compress Videos without losing quality on your Android Phones to free-up more storage.

Tutorial to Compress Videos on Android without losing Quality –

• 

  First of all download & install the Video Compressor App from the link below –
  Click here to Download Video Compressor App from Google Play.

• Launch the Video Compressor App from Menu, Not to be confused by its User Interface, the light user-interface elements of the app actually make it function faster as compared to other Video compressing Android apps.
• Once you launch the app, In the label named as “Input Video” tap on “Select” as shown in the alongside image.
• After you Tap on Select you will be asked to enter the source of the video from where you want to select the video file (We will be using “Gallery” as shown below –

  

   

• Browse through the gallery and select the video you want to compress, Once you select a video a “Play” icon will appear on the video as shown below –

  

  Now, click on the Play icon to select the Video.

•  Once you have selected the Video, you will be redirected to the App with the File location as shown below –

  

  Now simply tap the “Compress” button.

• That’s it! your video will start Compressing to the size you specified 🙂 , depending upon your phone hardware this step may take some time.
• Now, Once your compression is finished, Please delete the original Video to free-up more space.
• You can easily compress Videos from 10mb to 2mb & thus gain extra 8mb each time you delete the original video file!
• Click here to Download Video Compressor App from Google Play.
• For More such tips to increase and free-up Phone Storage – Click here for 7 Best tips to free up internal Phone Storage.

 

Cellular operators nowadays, have started providing app-specific data packs, or as as add-on to existing Internet packs. Many times, we exhaust our normal Internet data and are left with only add-on app data, for example WhatsApp , Facebook or YouTube data. Thus, whenever we try to use the app data benefits other background apps automatically connect in background and their ping & notifications result in deduction of our main balance. Here’s a simple tutorial to allow internet access only to specific selected apps on Android while restricting internet data to other apps using Android firewall .

Method to Allow internet access to specific apps & restrict internet to other apps on Android –

• First Step would be to install a Firewall app to intercept our network traffic, though most apps require root the NoRoot Firewall app below works even on non-rooted Phones –

Click here to Download NoRoot Firewall app for Android from Google Play Store.

• Now, once you have installed the firewall app tap on “Start”.
• The firewall app will now ask you for one time permission to start a VPN connection, don’t worry this is just a dummy VPN connection with your own IP address , created just to intercept and block unwanted traffic. The VPN service dialog box would look as shown below –

  

  Here “tick or checkmark – I trust this application” option and tap on “OK”.

• Now, Simply connect to your internet connection, the data access will be blocked to all apps by default. To allow Internet access to a particular app, Open the app for example WhatsApp and then return to the NoRoot Firewall App.
• Navigate to the “Pending Access” tab as shown below , This section will list out all the apps trying to access the internet –

  

  Tap on  “Allow” to enable internet to that particular app, and keep other blocking access to internet for other apps.

• You can also Stop your Firewall anytime to restore access to internet like before.

This method thus, is highly efficient and useful to prevent access to internet to other apps, thus saving money as well as data.

Recently, One of my Android Phone’s hard key buttons stopped working – The hardware keys of Menu, Home & Back below the screen were not operating . This left me looking for some alternatives and I found this easy method to Get back or Enable Home, Menu & Back soft keys on Android phone’s screen. Thus, saving me the costs required to replace the damaged hardware key’s , Here’s how you too can do the same on your Android Phone –

Method to bring Soft Menu & Back Soft keys using Back buttton App for Android (No – Root Required)

• 

  First of all you need to download the Back Button App for Android from the below link (Its a Free App) –
  Click here to Download Back Button App for Android from Google Play.

• Once you have Installed the back button app, when you launch the app it will display you a dialog box asking you to enable Back Button from Settings – > Accessibility – > Back button . Enabling the back button option in Accessibility is compulsory to activate the app, Here’s how you can do it –
  Go to Settings – > scroll down and tap on Accessibility , there you will see an option for Back Button as shown below –

  

  Now , tap on the Back Button Option and turn it “On” as shown below by sliding the off switch to right side to make it display On –

  

   

• Once you have enabled the back button in accessibility , return to the Back Button app . Now here activate the buttons by sliding the Active toggle to right hand side as shown below –

  

  Now, once you have Activated the App, The Soft Key buttons will instantaneously appear on your screen as shown below –

  

  Now, you can customize these buttons as much as you want, you can drag & move them around, or you can lock them upto a particular location.

• You can even change their size, their icons, their transparency and play around. Thus, no longer requiring to change the hardware keys. If the app doesn’t work or if you face any issues feel free to comment.

The default download manager for Android isn’t upto the mark as it lacks some basic functionalities such as resume support, multi-threaded downloads and other features. Considering, the limited connectivity of Cellular data and their fluctuating speeds we really should use Download managers on our devices so that we can utilize the resume support on downloads incase of lower speeds and in places where the speeds are higher multiple-download threads by download managers can help us to complete our downloads more quickly and efficiently. So, here are the Top 5 Download Managers & Download Accelerators for Android phones which we can use along with our existing/installed browsers (e.g Google Chrome) to increase downloading speed on Android-

Top 5 Download Manager & Accelerator Apps for Android Phones –

Note – Back in Old Symbian days we used to use UC Browser for downloading, but considering the fact that Android devices are much more complex and vulnerable & amidst reports saying UC Browser was leaking user data to Chinese servers, we skipped it and focussed only on “Pure” Download Managers and work easily with any other browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox for Android etc. To download using these Download Managers simply use Web browsers for surfing and open the Download links in any one of the following as shown in the image alongside –

 

No. 1. DMA (Download Manager Accelerator for Android) –

Not to be mislead by its common name, DMA by Keerby is one of the best Download Manager for Android which we came across, It has the best User Interface (UI) amongst all the download managers, supports resume supported downloads & 3rd Party browsers too.

Besides, the above option, it has features such as-

• Auto-retry after download failure
• Supports manual specifying of number of threads to be downloaded for each download as well as auto-determine option based upon your speed.
• Feature to download only on WiFi connection so that your cellular data isn’t wasted.

Click here to download DMA Download Manager Accelerator for Android from Google Play Store

 

No.2 ADM (Advanced Download Manager for Android) –

If you’re looking for a no-fuss light-weight download manager for Android, that will get your Job done look no further than ADM by DimonVideo . ADM provides features such as –

• Multi-threading of downloads.
• Auto-resume after download failures, Supports various themes so that you can customize ADM.
• It also supports download scheduling and also you can import list of links to be downloaded from a txt file on SD card (you can use unlimited night-pack most effectively by using the Download schedule option)

Click here to download ADM (Advanced Download Manager) for Android from Google Play Store.

 

No.3 Turbo Download Manager – TDM for Android

Though TDM works only for direct download links, but its 3rd Party browser integration is probably the best amongst all the Download accelerators .

TDM directly provides the “wedge” and “i” icons which you can use to tweak the download settings such as number of threads, etc and ability to change the download location so that handling downloads is much more easier.
Save button simply starts the file download –

Click here to download Turbo Download Manager (TDM) for Android.

 

No.4 Download Accelerator Plus by rubycell

Download Accelerator Plus is a compact download manager which is a meagre 1.3 MB in size! , Not to be mistaken by its lesser size it provides all major functions such as

• Multi-threaded parallel Downloading of Files.
• Supports background downloading even when the screen is locked.
• Provides category and time-line sorting of downloaded files so that you can easily locate your downloaded files.
• Has a small in-built web browser which helps to download from non-resume supported websites.

Click here to get Download Accelerator Plus for Android from Google Play.

 

No.5 IDM Download Manager for Android

Not to be confused with original IDM for Windows, this download manager is highly inspired from the real IDM, and copies most of the features from it . Although, the User Interface is really shabby and needs to be worked upon, the Download Speeds obtained are good  and it doesn’t leak user data to servers which makes it enter our list.

Besides this the Download Manager also supports non-resumable link downloads and whose filesize aren’t shown, and allows some features such as ability to set downloaded music files as ringtone etc.

Click  here to Download IDM Download Manager for Android from Google Play

So, these were the 5 Best Download Managers for Android, If you know of some other feel free to comment and let us know about it too 🙂

Instagram is a hub of  outstanding photos and video content, sometimes you might want to download and save a particular photo or video of Instagram so that you can view them later offline on your device. So, here are the 3 Best Ways to Download / save Instagram Photos  on Android or Computer. These methods can be used to Batch Downloads Instagram pics as well, particularly the app method hence we will be discussing the App method first, and then the PC Methods.

Method – 1 Using InstaSave app for Android

Tutorial to download Instagram pics InstaSave App on Android –

• First of all, Install the InstaSave app for Android from below link –
  Click here to download Insta Save app for Android from Google Play Store.
• After, you have downloaded InstaSave app, log-in to your Instagram account from InstaSave app.
• Once, you log-on to InstaSave app, it will show you a feed of your photos which you want to save , just tap on all the photos you want to save as shown in the alongside image. (It allows you to Batch download as well).
• Now, once you’ve selected the images or photos which you want to download/save on your device , Click on the “Save” icon as highlighted by green color in the below figure – , It will prompt you with the location where the images are to be saved as shown –

  

  Click on “Yes” and, you have now successfully downloaded Instagram Images on your Android device.

Method 2 – Download Instagram Photos on PC (Computer) Windows and Android by Instagrabbr.com

• 

  This method works on PC as well as on Android devices, and it doesn’t requires Instagram login too, provided you know the Username of whose photo you want to download.

• To download Using Instagrabbr, First of all Visit the Instagrabbr.com Website.
• Now, In the text field enter the Instagram username of whose photos you need to download and click on “Search” as shown in alongside figure.
• Once you click on search it will display all the public photos associated with the typed in Username as below –

  

  Now, here in Click on any photo to Open it in full-sized window.

  

• Here Scroll-down below to the bottom of Image, and Click on the “Save Image” button as shown alongside!. That’s it you have successfully downloaded the Instagram Photos on PC (Windows – Google Chrome in screenshots) or Android.

 

Method – 3 Copying Instagram Share URL and downloading via Dinsta.com

• 

  This method requires you to have the Share URL of the Instagram pic you intend to download , you can get The Share URL of an image by simply –

• Open the photo whose Share URL you want to copy inside the Instagram app, and now tap the 3 dots highlighted by green color in the alongside image, and then by touching the “Copy Share URL” highlighted by blue color in the same image.
• That’s it Your share URL is now copied, If you’re using Instagram on PC or Computer, simply copy the Image URL from the Google Chrome/Mozilla Firefox address bar, once you open an Instagram.com photo by clicking it –

  

   

• Now, once you have obtained the Sharing URL , Visit Dinsta.com  on your Android device / Windows PC.
• On Dinsta, Enter Instagram URL eg. https://instagram.com/p/m7SaJFIhyB/ & Press Go..
• You’ll see a download button below the Image, click on it and start downloading!!

 

That’s it these are the 3 Best Methods which you can use to Download Instagram photos on your Android Phone or PC .