Shelter
Shelter is a Free and Open-Source (FOSS) app that leverages the “Work Profile” feature of Android to provide an isolated space that you can install or clone apps into.
Cost / License
- Free
- Open Source
Platforms
- Android
- Android Tablet
- F-Droid
Features
Properties
- Privacy focused
Features
- Ad-free
- Multi Account Switching
- Multiple Account support
- Sandbox
- Virtualization
- Application Virtualization
Tags
- Containers
- isolate-programs
- Security & Privacy
- app-isolation
- Isolation
Shelter News & Activities
Recent News
Recent activities
- alternativeto-dingo898 liked Shelter
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What is Shelter?
Shelter is a Free and Open-Source (FOSS) app that leverages the “Work Profile” feature of Android to provide an isolated space that you can install or clone apps into.
Shelter comes with absolutely no advertisement / statistics / tracking SDKs bundled with it. All source code is available in at https://git.angry.im/PeterCxy/Shelter or mirror https://github.com/PeterCxy/Shelter and the sources are licensed under WTFPL.
This app depends on your Android system’s implementation of Work Profile. Some vendor / custom ROMs may have a broken implementation that may cause crashes and even bricking of your device. One such example is MIUI from Xiaomi. I currently provide no support for such ROMs because I personally do not own any of these devices. If you are running Shelter on these ROMs, you are on your own. If any developer out there own these devices and could make Shelter run on these ROMs, please send pull requests and I’ll be happy to merge them.
Features / Use Cases
- Run apps inside the isolated profile so they cannot access your data outside the profile
- “Freeze” (disable) background-heavy or seldom-used apps when you don’t need them. This is especially true if you use apps from "some company".
- Clone apps to use two accounts on one device
Caveats
Shelter is not a full sandbox implementation. It cannot protect you from:
- Security bugs of the Android system or Linux kernel
- Backdoors installed in your Android system (so please use an open-source ROM if you are concerned about this)
- Backdoors installed into the firmwares (no way to work around this)
- Any other bugs or limitations imposed by the Android system.
Also, Shelter cannot create more than 1 work profile on one Android device, and cannot co-exist with any other apps that manages a Work Profile. This is due to the limitations of the Android system, and I can do nothing about this.
Shelter information
Developed by
Peter Cai Licensing
Open Source (GPL-3.0) and Free product.Written in
Rating
Average rating of 4.5Alternatives
13 alternatives listedSupported Languages
- English
AlternativeTo Category
Network & AdminGitHub repository
- 3,128 Stars
- 221 Forks
- 163 Open Issues
- Updated
Comments and Reviews
Open source, easily create work profile and tabs for cloned apps, separated by main system
It doesn't work at all, it is not cloning apps at all.
Very good. it is open, easy and easy to hear. minimalist, and also (the cake stew) helps you to be much more productive by hearing the same android functions! 5/5 stars and highly recommended.
Simple but efficient
Simple, often updated and does the job well.
Free and open source. The setup was easy and straightforward. Finally, I was able to replace Parallel Space and it's annoying ads. The cherry on top was that it seems it let me clone every app on my phone :)