StayFree

StayFree is cool, it has clients for almost every platforms, which is a huge deal for me. What’s more, it doesn’t require any account or registration, when you have multiple devices, just simply pair the new one with a temporary PIN code. And it automatically merges multiple websites and its clients like YouTube.

If you’re using Windows desktop and Android phone like I do few years ago, you may have enjoyed this app. But that’s the end of the good story, I am about to roast it hard.

Stay free has an excellent Android client, but not the case of its iOS counterpart. It doesn’t look and feels the same, tons of key features are missing. Only websites usage data collected from Safari is working. App usage data from other devices like Windows, Mac or Androids are not available. Meanwhile iOS apps usage is also not available in any clients outside iOS, it seems like iOS apps are counted separately. The client feels so alpha and broken.

StayFree does have a Linux client, available in both deb and AppImage. I’ve tested them on an Ubuntu desktop and confirmed they work. But I am daily driving Fedora, the AppImage can launch, but it doesn’t collects any data. Also I have a raspberry pi for home theater, which runs Ubuntu on an ARM chip, yikes, no arm client for Linux.

Remember when I said that it automatically merges websites and their apps? Sounds promising, until someday you find some distracting mistakes. An app can be shown in a totally unrelated icon and title. Bilibili is merged, but there’s two different entries. To their credit, there is some way to report such mistakes, but its implementation is very unintuitive and hard to use. And there’s nothing we can do other than just wait until someday someone capable fixed the issue. I would like to make my own groups instead of just following those rules from server.

The app itself is one of the best for time tracking. It syncs across all platforms. And it is free! But wait... If you don't pay for the product, you are the product. I strongly suggest you read SensorTowers privacy policy. I didn't, and now I regret that decision.