Brightest Flashlight Free is the best free, quick to load and simple to use flashlight app for Android. I recently reviewed a flashlight app for iPhone and wanted to find the best equivalent for Android.
Just as with the iPhone, many of the flashlight apps in the Android Market are not free so I have ruled them out because, let’s be honest, a flashlight app is likely not something you’ll use every day (unless you live in a cave) so why pay for it?
I have also ruled out apps which bombard you with more adverts than light and apps that add so many extra ‘features’ that they fall down on the basic function – an easy way to turn the phone’s lights on. So what’s the best free flashlight app for Android?
Brightest Flashlight Free
This app by Golden Shores has average ratings of 4.8 stars from nearly quarter of a million reviews. Cost – free. Adverts are minimal, you will receive the following: Search shortcut icon on your home screen and search homepage BUT you can delete the search shortcuts easily (Drag & Drop to the garbage) which will not affect the application in any way.
Designed for – Android 2.1 and up. Size – 1.7MB. Download – and more info at Android Market here, the app turns on all available lights on the device. Features include:
- Camera Flash LED at Maximum
- Screen at Bright Maximum
- Keyboard Backlight at Maximum
- Soft Keys Backlight at Maximum
- Notification LED at Maximum
- Automatic Timer Exits Application after 2 Minutes
- Audio Effects on Start and Stop
Conclusion
Flashlight is free, includes minimal adverts and is simple to use, without a host of questionable extra ‘features’ to slow it down – ideal if you’re looking for a lightweight free app that just ‘does the job’.
As an update the permissions for this app have now extended to allow it (not you) to use your phone’s camera to take photos or videos if it wants to, to use GPS to pinpoint your location, full internet access and to know who you are making phone calls to.
Shame. I would have installed it if it had not been so goddam nosey and controlling.
Interesting what you said about Iphone app permissions Roy. This phone of mine is an Android and has so few apps installed because I refuse to all most app permissions, which basically means the developer wont allow you to install their sofware.
Very irking. Maybe an iPhone is the way forward for me.
But seriously, why should I trust a torch that can find out where I am and then take videos of my location, while keeping tabs on who I call and which sites I browse?
@TB – re the permissions, many of them are due to adverts e.g. Read Phone ID – used for devices that don’t have unique IDs which is a problem for ad networks. Pics and Videos is needed to start the camera flashlight on some devices.
It’s a matter of trust that developers only use the permissions for the minimum required by the app else they would be classified as malicious. However, worth noting that even listing these permissions is far in excess of what is required for a PC program.
E.g. a program requires internet access ‘for updates’ – you trust it not to pillage your personal data and send it across the internet but unless you use deep packet inspection you’d never know… Same for webcam software from 3rd parties – you trust laptop manufacturers not to buy in software that could take videos of you without consent – but there are no ‘permissions’ required to do so. You can only go on reputation, brand and popularity – who you trust the most.
its nice software.
Why does Developer of that app need permission to “modify/delete SD card contents” in order to download? The rest of the permissions I can understand.
What’s your feeling on app developer permissions, in general?
It’s a murky grey area on Android to be honest! Apple subject apps to rigorous inspection before approval for their marketplace – although not 100% effective, it is certainly a safer place than Google’s ‘free for all’ Android market where malicious apps are becoming a more common issue.
However, malicious Android apps tend to get found out fairly quickly – there are plenty of eggheads in the tech community who love nothing better than ripping an app apart to see what it’s doing behind the scenes… So a long standing app like Brightest Flashlight is almost certainly safer than a new one – and it has 10m – 50m installs too which is a good sign of a legitimate app as obviously no-one has found a security problem with it.
Re the SD card permission, any app that stores information on the SD card will need it e.g. for temporary caching of data or to store your custom settings. You have to use your own judgment and be cautious as it is very powerful but is very often used by legitimate applications – some other flashlight apps need it too. Apps that typically need this permission include (but are not limited to) camera applications and video applications.
But it comes down to trust – if it was a new app with only a handful of downloads I would be a lot more cautious than a hugely popular 10 million+ app.
You can try this simple and really lightweight flashlight app that only requires camera access and works with legacy devices too.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.marcnuri.lwflashlight
Installed it today, does a good job and free too!