Recently, I had to set up a phone for my elderly parent, and some of the pre-installed apps were too difficult for them to use, especially on their old Android phone. Mainly I needed to find a lightweight browser, a basic keyboard that matched their typing style, and, of course, a messaging app that was easily accessible.
Android phones come with many pre-installed Google apps that can slow your phone down and make you feel unnecessarily frustrated, while others, like Google Maps, are surprisingly well-designed and cut above their competitors. After trial and error, I settled on three devices that made a noticeable difference in performance when used only for reading and messaging.
Firefox Focus
A passive browser designed for speed and privacy
The first thing I replaced was Chrome. Firefox Focus is Mozilla’s first lightweight, private browser for Android, and it’s a very different experience from the standard Firefox app. Where standard Firefox gives you tabs, extensions, and full browsing tools, Focus strips all of that away. You get one screen, one page at a time, and a trash icon that clears everything with one tap.
I’ve combined Safari with Firefox Focus, and it’s a perfect browser
Safari with a touch of Firefox is what you need
That simplicity is the only reason it exists. Focus enables Enhanced Security Protection by automatically blocking ad trackers, analytics trackers, and social media trackers without any setup. You can go as far as blocking web fonts and JavaScript entirely if you want less data usage. On an older phone with limited RAM, this makes a real difference. Pages load much faster because the browser doesn’t pull tracking scripts and heavy ad schemes around what you’re looking for.
The downside is that Focus doesn’t block YouTube ads or other in-page ads the way a full browser extension like uBlock Origin does. It also has no support for tabs, bookmarks, or an extension system. But for someone who just needs to look at something, read an article, or browse a website without Chrome eating up their phone’s resources, Focus does the job and does it quickly.
- OS
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iOS and Android
- Sample price
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Free
Firefox Focus gives you an advanced ad and tracker blocking feature, which you can integrate with the iPhone’s default Safari browser.
Simple keyboard
A no-frills keyboard for basic typing
Personally, I prefer SwiftKey over Gboard, which comes pre-installed on most Android devices. Both are very good keyboards, but they are also very heavy. Auto-correction, GIF search, AI suggestions, clipboard managers, voice typing – everything adds up. For my parent who types slowly one finger at a time, most of these features get in the way.
If you’re privacy-conscious and looking for a keyboard that doesn’t call home, the FUTO Keyboard offers plenty of features that balance usability. Its offline voice typing engine is fast, accurate, and doesn’t send your audio to any server. But the FUTO still carries enough weight for someone who only needs the basics.
A simple keyboard takes a different approach. It’s an open keyboard with no internet permission, no tracking, no ads, no customization. The entire application is small, uses almost no RAM, and starts instantly. You get a clean interface with adjustable height, long-click symbols, an optional number line, and a spacebar that doubles as a cursor control when you navigate across it. That last feature is incredibly useful for correcting typos without clicking between characters.
The obvious problem is everything it doesn’t have. No emojis, no GIFs, no swipe typing, no clipboard history. If you need any of them, you’ll have to switch to another keyboard for a while. But for a phone that’s mostly used for texting and basic research, the Simple Keyboard keeps things fast and free of distractions.
- OS
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Android
- Sample price
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Free
Simple Keyboard is a lightweight keyboard app for Android that focuses on minimalism, privacy and speed. It offers essential typing features without ads, unnecessary permissions, or advanced mode, ensuring a seamless experience.
Samsung Messages
It’s more convenient than giving Google Messages
When it comes to messaging apps, it’s hard to recommend anything over Google Messages. It’s the default RCS client on most Android phones, and RCS support is what makes messaging between Android users feel modern – read receipts, typing signals, high-quality media, and end-to-end encryption. Bringing it back means giving up the features most people expect from a messaging app in 2026.
That said, Google Messages still lacks the functionality that Samsung Messages has provided for years. Samsung lets you customize the background, sound clarity, and text contrast for each conversation separately. Google messages only give you the light of the world or the dark theme. If you’re someone who likes their messaging app to feel personal, Samsung’s individual chat customization is a clear win.
Samsung Messages also includes a trash bin that keeps deleted conversations for 30 days. Accidentally delete a conversation in Google Messages, and it’s gone instantly with no way to get it back. Samsung’s approach gives you a safety net. Search performance is better, too, with Samsung displaying the full message in the results so you can read the full context without opening and scrolling through multiple conversations.
The catch is that Samsung Messages doesn’t support RCS on most devices unless you’re on a Samsung phone. If RCS is important to you, and maybe it should work, this app works best on a Galaxy device where Samsung’s RCS is implemented. On some phones, you’ll be limited to SMS and MMS, which is a significant step back.
Lighter devices, faster phone
These tools may not be suitable for everyone, since they tend to choose the use and performance over features, but for the specific problem I was solving, which is to make an old Android phone usable for someone who looks at it from time to time, types slowly, and especially texts, these three tools did more than enough. The phone feels snappier, the interface is less cluttered, and there’s less going on in the background. Sometimes the best upgrade isn’t a new phone; is to get rid of old slow devices.
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