My New Year's resolution for 2021 was to dive deep into the world of open source software. I now return from the depths, hauling up incredible jewels and treasures. You may have to look past poorly sized user interfaces, old-looking websites, and dull loading screens, but I promise you it's worth it.
It's a web browser. It isn't any "better" than Google's open source Chromium browser, but it isn't any worse. Personally, I think Google needs some friendly competition.
This eye-care extension enables night mode creating dark themes for websites on the fly. Dark Reader inverts bright colors making them high contrast and easy to read at night.
Element is like Discord, except open source. Sadly, the only feature they currently lack is custom emoji. Hopefully that feature comes soon!
LibreOffice is Microsoft Office, except it does not cost money. It might not look pretty, but it has most of the features of Microsoft Office, it doesn't try to hijack your Microsoft account to turn your PC into a school computer, and it comes with LibreOffice Draw, an incredible PDF editor. It only lacks real-time collaboration.
Open your computer's default calculator. It has this big number pad taking up most of the space. NoteCalc ditches the notepad and replaces it with a bunch of empty lines, kind of like a Writer document or... a notebook. Each line is its own math equation, so having NoteCalc open is like having 10, 20, even 50 calculators open all at once! Plus, you can edit any line, because it's just a notepad, to fix typos or change values. You can also reference the answers of lines, highlight text to get the sum of those lines, and write comments or notes wherever you want. NoteCalc is surprisingly powerful; it's carrying me through my physics 101 homework. Yes, LibreOffice Calc is technically far more powerful and runs offline, but NoteCalc deserves your attention because it is incredibly intuitive and quick.
VLC can play nearly any type of multimedia file. It is a master of both music and movies. It has an old, kind of awful file sorting methodology, but it is the only media player that has never tried to spontaneously delete my music playlists (guilty parties include Groove Music, Dopamine and YouTube), so it is the only one I allow onto my computer.
Is your computer running BOINC? My computers is currently searching datasets for gamma-ray pulses, calculating prime numbers, and searching decic fields (IDK, it's some complex math thing.) The PCs of today are the supercomputers of yesterday, capable of crunching incredible volumes of data. Join me. The best way to use BOINC is through Science United, which automatically assigns "tasks" for your PC to perform.
Matrix is the code that makes the Element chat software work. Technically, you do not have to use Element in order to access the Matrix. There are tons of compatible chat clients.
When you first visit https://www.openstreetmap.org/ you may be underwhelmed. The search function rarely finds what you're looking for, the map doesn't react when you click on it, and your house might not even be anywhere to be found. Honestly, the official openstreetmap website is a poor introduction to one of the most popular open source projects on, and about, the Earth. Visiting https://osmlab.github.io/show-me-the-way/ or https://indoorequal.org/ help sell the scope of the project, and you'll note that OpenStreetMap data is used by some pretty big companies, like Snapchat's Snap Map and Facebook's business addresses. By signing up for an account on https://www.openstreetmap.org/ and clicking the Edit button in the upper left corner, you'll be taken to the iD editor, where you can change any aspect of the map as you wish. This is where the REAL OpenStreetMap hides. The documentation is extremely well written, so you'll have no problem adding your house, the roads around you, and whatever else you feel needs mapping.
These programs are specialized tools for my interests. They might not be worthwhile for you.
This is a criminally underrated website. With it, you can watch YouTube videos with other people online in real time, where anyone can pause the video or reorder the playlist. It's a great companion for [Matrix] video calling... I wonder if it would be a worthy replacement for Discord's Rythm bot? (hint hint)
I have my computer screens arranged vertically, so I need my tabs arranged along the left side of the screen. Sideberry does this for me, but it also does more: double clicking to open a new tab, scrolling to switch between tabs, multiple pages of tabs within one window, and so much more. I can have up to 20 tabs open and instantly switch between them with a flick of my mouse.
Prusaslicer is the tool I run my 3D printer. It's kind of like the print dialog box you get when printing to a paper printer. You know how printing to a paper printer can be a pain because it has a whole bunch of cryptic settings that don't mean anything? And then the printer doesn't do anything? Well, Prusaslicer, despite having more settings than paper, is probably EASIER to understand because its settings pages are well laid out. Yes, I know I can tune my prints more finely in Cura, but I would need to spend 5 hours searching for that setting first. PrusaSlicer hits the sweet spot between adjustable settings and understandable interfaces for me, and my prints usually come out perfect, so I'm happy.
Stenography is a powerful tool for typing really, really fast. Stenographers are the people who provide closed captioning for live events - courtroom transcripts, political speeches, sporting and news events, etc. Stenography requires you to completely re-learn the English language based on the sound of word segments, unrelated to syllables. Traditionally, stenography machines were prohibitively expensive, but all that changed with Plover, which is completely free to use and can technically even work with a standard mechanical keyboard. I... cannot use Plover; I lack the skill. Still, I encourage you to give it a shot; if you master it, you will become a communication GOD, capable of writing at the speed of your own thoughts... or at least the speed of your voice.
Yes, I use IntelliJ to edit C++ code. No, I do not care. IntelliJ is my happy place; it makes the words and numbers the pretty colors I want and I don't do enough programming any more to justify setting up a different IDE.
This entry will confuse most of you, but either be hilarious or infuriating to a small percentage of you.
Inkscape is a weird one... I technically don't really like it; it crashes pretty often and it doesn't have the best UI... but it's powerful software for .svg editing and is heralded as one of the great open source projects for some reason. It has a very niche usage in my life for which there is no (open source) replacement, but honestly I need to find a simpler image editor.
An open-source multithreaded video transcoder, HandBrake compresses and converts digital media, supporting MP4, MKV formats, and offers hardware-accelerated conversion.
This is a tool that puts Linux on your computer. It's pretty foolproof, but my laptop is not compatible. One day, I'll have a PC that this can run on.
SolveSpace is working proof that wizard hackers still exist. It's CAD software, like FreeCAD, but it is a single executable file of just 7,125 KB. FreeCAD is 1.6 gigabytes. Tragically, SolveSpace lacks some of the advanced functionality of FreeCAD, such as lofts, but if you use CAD software often then you should totally check it out. You will have your mind blown. Make sure to follow the first tutorial on the SolveSpace website.
If you own a 3D printer and are using primitive tools like Tinkercad, or can't pay $4,000 per year for SolidWorks, then FreeCAD is for you. Here's how FreeCAD works: you draw a polygon in 2D using a bunch of lines and arcs and circles, then you tell the software exactly how long each line is, end then you "extrude" the shape out into 3D. So if you draw a circle and extrude it, you'd get a cylinder. That's it. That's how Computer-Aided Design (CAD) works. It's kind of like drawing the floor plan of a house, and then figuring out how tall the walls need to be. The "challenge" of CAD software, any CAD software, is figuring out what all the buttons do. Notes: FreeCAD is NOT like Blender. It is used exclusively for mechanical things, not for drawing characters for animation or video games. FreeCAD is still in beta and there are things you have to avoid doing in order to not break your model. Ask me to show you how FreeCAD works! I'll be happy to teach you.
Discover and install FOSS Android apps with ease. Privacy-focused, ad-free, and no registration required, F-Droid offers a lightweight alternative.
A free and open source pinball game, with simple vector graphics, a physics library for accurate simulation, two table layouts, and no ads. Runs best on fast devices, adjusts frame rate as needed on slower devices.
Geometric Weather is a light and powerful weather app that provides you with real-time temperature, air quality, 15-days weather forecast, and accurate time-sharing trends.
Help to improve the OpenStreetMap with StreetComplete by completing quests which consists of simple questions about the world around you.
Do you want to overlay text on your screenshots? Now you can overlay text on your screenshots. Remind me again why this isn't a built in feature of Google's screenshot tool?
Facilitates device communication, enabling notifications, SMS replies, file sharing, and remote control across multiple operating systems.
This app claims to be a real-time collaboration tool, and that feature costs money. I just use it to edit my LibreOffice files while on the go.
What's this? A closed source app in my open source apps list? And it costs money? Well, CalcNote is just that good. CalcNote is a lot like NoteCalc, except it is made for Android and it comes with a really good on-screen keyboard that you can customize to your particular needs. It is worth the price.
Navigation app with offline and online OSM maps, turn-by-turn voice guidance, cycling and driving modes, GPX tracking, POI search, and monthly updates.
Minimalist Android launcher enabling instant search through apps, contacts, and settings, learns usage patterns, works offline, preserves privacy, and saves resources.
I cannot use Linux. I need Windows 10 for a few school-related programs, and my laptop cannot dual-boot between operating systems. Over this past year I have discovered a variety of small tools that make Windows just a bit more bearable.
SidebarDiagnostics - A simple sidebar for Windows desktop that displays hardware diagnostic information.
Modern Windows file manager with tabbed browsing, dual-pane view, column navigation, integrated archive tools, file tagging, QuickLook support, and appearance customization.
Considering that most text editors are eather too heavy or look too old, the author came up with Notepads, designed to be a modern-looking UWP app.
Get easy access to thousands of special symbols through composing of characters on the keyboard in ways that are very easy to remember.
Set of open-source tools enhancing Windows with features like FancyZones, PowerRename, and Keyboard Manager. Lightweight and ad-free.
This app is still in beta, but it replaces the default Windows 10 volume bar and lets you drag it around the screen when you need it out of the way.
Auto Dark Mode helps you to be more productive. When it is light outside, we enable you to have a bright and clearly readable OS. After the sun starts to set, your operating system switches to a matching theme to take care of your eyes.
Twinkle Tray enables brightness control on external displays in Windows 10 & 11. Even th Windows is capable of adjusting the backlight on most monitors, it doesn't support external monitors natively.
Whether you are messaging friends or storing data, these server-based tools are among the best.
YaCy is the last remaining search index truly independent from Google or Bing... and YaCy is insane. YaCy's user interface is insane: if you want to look like a hacker from CSI:miami then this is the program for you. YaCy's functionality is insane: it's a compeletely peer-to-peer network, meaning the computers connect directly to each other; there's no central servers directing the data, so the first computer to give you a search result... that's the top search result. You HAVE to download the YaCy desktop app to access YaCy search results. And YaCy's crawler engine (that's the tool that looks through websites to find keywords) is so powerful that your internet provider will probably assume your PC is part of a DDoS attack and kick YaCy off the internet. The number of users running YaCy on their PCs is so low that the search results are either non-existent or complete gibberish, but we're in the Weird category now, and YaCy is worth it as an experience. I hope YaCy makes it big some day.
LBRY is another weird platform, and kind of clouded in controversy.
They aim to take down YouTube, offering a service immune to censorship and demonetization. On paper, LBRY is really cool! It combines a blogging tool, YouTube-style video uploads, Twitch-like live streams, and public file sharing all into one clean package. It can share content directly between PCs, kind of like YaCy shares search results, and it uses a cryptocurrency to handle payments to content creators. Unfortunately, the anti-censorship "direct PC to PC" feature has attracted an unbearable number of conspiracy theorists, who have practically overrun the trending pages and search results. The number of videos uploaded to the site far outpaced the number of users, so LBRY incorporated still has to store their videos on one big centralized server. LBRY's marketing department is really pretty bad, I won't go into details but they've promoted some pretty stupid stuff. And I'm not personally a big fan of Cryptocurrency. But, LBRY is a great way to back up content you post onto other websites. Whether you upload videos to YouTube, write posts on Reddit, or share images on Imgur, backing up your Content to the LBRY desktop app makes a great deal of sense.
OK, for some reason TThrottle keeps moving down into the "werid data services" category. Also someone changed its icon to be the picture of a monkey; clearly this is some "in" joke that I don't get. Actually, TThrottle is a companion app for BOINC. All it does is monitor your computer's processor temperature and turns off BOINC when it gets too hot. That's its whole purpose, but it's critical because some BOINC tasks take a ton of processing power (lookin' at you PrimeGrid) and would essentially melt your computer without TThrottle keeping an eye on things. If you use Boinc, make sure you also install TThrottle.
Nextcloud is an alternative to Google Drive. It is functional, but it has less free storage and some of its features aren't too great. Unless you've completely dedicated yourself to open source like I have... honestly just use Google Drive it's fine.
