this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
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Privacy
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Use softwares that are open sourced and be happy. There's plenty of period tracking apps on F-Droid.
Open sourced softwares can't hide trackers from users since the source code must be up-to-date. If not, people will be suspicious. And if a open sourced software do use trackers, the community will complain... a lot!
Just checked out both drip and Bluemoon, both FOSS from F-Droid with local only data
Bluemoon lets you import data from Flo, but to export data from Flo, you need to make an account with Flo, it seems. (It also let's you import data from Clue, but I don't use Clue.)
drip lets you import data just from a CSV file, nothing that seems specific to any app format. So far I like drip a lot better, TBH; the UI is more intuitive to me, and it seems more featureful. Its prediction also lines up with Flo after putting in data since January.
However, I have just downloaded both apps. My plan is to keep Flo around for one more cycle while I compare it to the others, then kick Flo to the curb for becoming enshittified spyware, with sad nostalgia for the life-changing product it originally was to me.
Right now, I am not seeing luteal vs. follicular phase estimated with just period data on either, though, which is annoying. I want a rough sense for the purposes of some tailored nutritional stuff, but I'm not looking to get pregnant or anything and really do not wish to bother with the trouble of taking daily temperatures. Flo currently gives me that. I know it's basically just adding 15 days but I still like having the at a glance feature.
EDIT: Adding Mensinator, another FOSS one on F-Droid, to the trial. Looks like this one offers an import feature, but I have no idea what format it's expecting, because it couldn't find my export from Bluemoon. Mensinator does provide the option to just mark a day as ovulation, which neither Bluemoon nor drip offer. It does at least seem like drip tells you if you're in the first or second half of your cycle on the individual day profile for the day of, but I want something I can use for meal planning. Mensinator may be the best suited for me so far, but I will give them all time.
Also, bafflingly, when I attempted to export my data from drip, it provided me a "share file" option to share the .csv file without a simple option to just...download it.
Closed source doesn't necessarily hide trackers either. Tracker Control (on Android) will point out tracker libraries and tracker domains closed source apps use. A good DNS blocker will let you know too by the logs.
I agree but most open-source software will not add any trackers because even if they did someone will fork and remove them also lot of open-source apps like this won't even have internet access to sell your data
Ayup, hopefully. But there's a cultural aspect to that IMO. For that to work, we need enough people invested in doing that. Which can be hard and ongoing work! Say I fork an app. Unless I want to "hostile take over" the whole devel, now I've got to keep rolling in updates. Sometimes those can interact with the changes I made in my fork and automated merges don't handle it. It can be thankless work.
We're lucky at the mo, with OSS. It's a tech heavy crowd. That helps a LOT to keep the culture from enshittifying. There's a lot of good faith volunteering around. But that's a fragile thing.
This.
And there are options that store the data locally on your phone rather than on a company server. This is the safest option.