Why do I need an app to scan a QR code, why can’t I just turn on the camera and it scans a QR for say just the Wifi settings? I think it build in in Android and Mac or am I missing something, why not in e, is this a security consideration?
If so what is a recommended app?
Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/ the unGoogled mobile OS and online services
Why ask why. It is uncommon that standard camera apps include QR scanning. Went through a lot, didn’t find anything, including a couple OEM cams (OnePlus, Essential).
Granted, I barely use cameras anyway.
I can’t recommend anything due to not much testing. For a long time I had settled on one and just stuck with it.
QR & Barcode Scanner (QR and barcode scanner with all the features you need.) from F-Droid.
Now for the caveats. The last version, 1.10, is broken. Seems intents or something is jacked up. It won’t open apps and behaves oddly in other areas.
Here is one of a few issues concerning that…
Can’t open links from the app with browsers, because “No apps found for this action” · Issue #138 · wewewe718/QrAndBarcodeScanner · GitHub
Version 1.9 works fine.
Another caveat. There is an app at the Play Store with the exact same name, from developer AppSourceHub. That app can be considered malicious and should be avoided. Some details about a number of apps that collect and send out data.
The Curious Case of Coulus Coelib – The AppCensus Blog
Sadly, the dev of the legit app takes heat from users who didn’t know they were not the same. Such as…
hey you know what? · Issue #153 · wewewe718/QrAndBarcodeScanner · GitHub
OK I"ll give 1.9 a try.
What e/OS are you at and why is it not just built into e/OS? I guess the stock Android app is malicious?
Sorry, I was editing. See new first paragraph.
/e/OS uses Open Camera so the question should be directed to them.
And no, not malicious in any way. One of the most trusted and respected camera apps (assuming I understood your comment correctly. Apologies if not.).
One may also use some online services, like this one: https://scanqr.org/
Interesting is also this PWA: GitHub - Minishlink/pwa-qr-code-scanner: Lightweight progressive web app for scanning QR codes offline. It could be forked for /e/, changing the Google search to Murena’s Spot.
grapheneOS camera has it built-in, but without much “intents” to act on scanned codes (wifi, contact, geo-latlong, appstore link etc)
Lineages camera2 has a quickreader component that recognizes some url schemes from scanned qr-codes and act on it: Add QR code reader in Camera (#2873) · Issues · e / Backlog · GitLab
As does Aperture the new LineageOS camera app which replaces Camera2 and Snap in LineageOS 20.0. Looking forward to that making its way into /e/OS 
nice. Aperture will do the “act upon qrcode scan” via textclassifier - I like this. No need to maintain this in-app. The class can detect urls, but not sure how to register WIFI: or BEGIN:VCARD with this.
I was asking me the same question, then I discovered that I can scan QR code within Firefox.
I use this one: QR Scanner (PFA) | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
Seems to do pretty well, I haven’t really had any issues with it. You can also make your own QR codes with it although I don’t really know how many people need a feature like that but either way it’s nice to have
This is what I showed my teenager when he said “how do I scan QR codes on this phone you hacked”.
Thanks for the tip!
You can add also a quick setting so it is (sort of) easier to start the app.