This is some cool stuff that I've found useful or cool in my experience; the stuff mentioned here may or may not be useful to you as some stuff is clearly intended for a specific demographic. As always, do your own research before using the stuff here. (Also, stuff includes basically everything. Sorry, not sorry.)
dnGrep allows you to search across files with easy-to-read results. Search through text files, Word documents, PDFs, and archives using text, regular expression, XPath, and phonetic queries. dnGrep includes search-and-replace, whole-file preview, right-click search in File...
dnGrep, in it's simplest form, is
grep but for
Windows 10. And it also uses a GUI. There's also
grepWin and
Everything.
Modern Windows file manager with tabbed browsing, dual-pane view, column navigation, integrated archive tools, file tagging, QuickLook support, and appearance customization.
Files is an alternative to the Three Commanders, and it's UI resembles the UI of
File Explorer, also has some sort of support for it being the default file manager.
Free open-source media system alternative to proprietary options, supports Chromecast, 4K streaming, plugin extensions, with privacy focus.
Jellyfin is a person media server and client.
Unofficial alternative for ad-free YouTube with SponsorBlock, background playback, auto-repeat, dislike counts, and offline downloads using custom patches.
ReVanced is an unofficial continuation of
YouTube Vanced, has a built-in ad-blocker, sponsor blocker, and much more.
Free open-source suite with advanced photo retouching, composition, batch processing, plugin extensibility, custom scripting, and wide file format compatibility.
GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is an open-source image editor.
An open-source Windows scripting language enabling task automation through hotkeys, macros, and keystrokes, useful for creating custom forms and automating data entry.
AutoHotKey is the most powerful automation and macro scripting language in the world. Unfortunately, only available for
FreshRSS is a free, self-hosted RSS aggregator. It is quite lightweight, fast (it can manage +100k articles without complaining) and powerful (e.g. shortcuts, filters, responsive design, multi-views, multi-themes, multi-users, statistics, provides a Google Reader API, WebSub...
FreshRSS is the RSS reader of choice for many, though, it doesn't have a native client, and needs to be self-hosted, or used with Cloudron.
Open-source, self-hosted streaming platform supports Android, iOS, podcasts, uploads, sharing, no ads or tracking, federated across decentralized instances.
Funkwhale is a community-driven project to listen to and share media.
Advanced audio player supporting MP3, FLAC, and more. Features gapless playback, customizable UI, audio CD ripping, ReplayGain, and plugin support.
foobar2000 is an advanced media player for
macOS + a few others.
Swift dual-pane file manager for OS X. Manage files effortlessly with multi-tab browsing and advanced search. PRO Pack adds FTP client, cloud sync, and compression for ZIP, RAR, TBZ, TGZ, 7z files.
Part of the Three Commanders, see
Total Commander for
Double Commander for
Linux kernel.
Cross-platform file manager with dual-panel design based on Total Commander. Features include advanced searching, tabbed browsing, and plugin support.
Part of the Three Commanders, see
Commander One for
Comprehensive file manager with built-in FTP, file compare, archive navigation, multi-rename tool with regular expression support, and side-by-side windows.
Part of the Three Commanders, see
A free, powerful, multi-purpose tool that helps you monitor system resources, debug software and detect malware.
Process Hacker is basically
Task Manager but on steroids.
Manjaro is a user-friendly Linux distribution based on the independently developed Arch operating system. Within the Linux community, Arch itself is renowned for being an exceptionally fast, powerful, and lightweight distribution that provides access to the very latest cutting...
Manjaro is a distribution that isn't for everybody, but it's a bleeding-edge distribution based on
Arch Linux.
Efficient file archiver offering superior compression and encryption. Supports multiple formats such as TAR, ZIP, with a unique self-extracting feature.
7-Zip is the go-to file zipper (with a GUI) for
Open-source, ad-free torrent client offering a polished user interface, integrated multi-site search, RSS support, remote web control, and cross-platform availability.
qBittorrent is the most common BitTorrent client used within tech circles. If you use
BitTorrent or
µTorrent, use this as your alternative, as the other two clients are unreliable.
The I2P network provides strong privacy protections for communication over the Internet. Many activities that would risk your privacy on the public Internet can be conducted anonymously inside I2P.
IPFS is a global, versioned, peer-to-peer filesystem. It combines ideas from Git, BitTorrent, Kademlia, SFS, and the web. It is like a single bittorrent swarm, exchanging git objects. IPFS provides an interface as simple as the HTTP web, but with permanence built in.
IPFS (InterPlanetary FileSystem) is a global, versioned, peer-to-peer filesystem. It combines ideas from
Git, BitTorrent, Kademlia, SFS, and the web. It is like a single bittorrent swarm, exchanging git objects. IPFS provides an interface as simple as the HTTP web, but with permanence built in.
Command line program that's a 
youtube-dl fork that downloads videos from YouTube and over 1000 sites. The main focus of this project is adding new features and patches while also keeping up to date with the original project.
yt-dlp is a fork of
YouTube videos to your heart's content.
With the power of the Wayback Machine, you can go back in time to see how a website has changed and evolved through the history of the Web.
The Wayback Machine, which is operated by
Internet Archive, is a database that contains copies of more than 490 billion web pages. These web pages are mainly used by individuals to circumvent censorship. This is especially useful in archiving everything from journalistic papers hosted on self-hosted (thus unreliable) websites for use in
Wikipedia to circumventing revisionist history by major outlets (that have a lot to change/hide)
Kubernetes is an open-source
Docker container orchestration system. It can be used to leverage the weakness of low-end hardware such as
Raspberry Pi by properly distributing containers to maximize performance.
Set of open-source tools enhancing Windows with features like FancyZones, PowerRename, and Keyboard Manager. Lightweight and ad-free.
Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities for power-users that boosts the Windows experience.
Docker is an open-source engine that automates the deployment of any application as a lightweight, portable, self-sufficient container that will run virtually anywhere.
I would be remiss for not talking about Docker here. Docker provides enterprise-grade containerization for the end-user, and it's completely free. Docker also has a wide variety of tutorials and projects surrounding it, and it is commonly used for self-hosting projects.
A low-cost, capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like games, spreadsheets and word-processing. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by children and young people all over the world to learn programming.
The Raspberry Pi is a low-cost and low-end PC. It's intended to be used for academic purposes, but it is also a favourite among hobbyists and programmers not only because of it's price, but also because of it's versatility and simplicity.
Puppy Linux is a unique family of Linux distributions meant for the home-user computers. It was originally created by Barry Kauler in 2003.
Winaero Tweaker is a universal tweaker software which supports Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11.
Winearo Tweaker allows you to make changes to
O&O ShutUp10++ means you have full control over which comfort functions under Windows 10 and Windows 11 you wish to use, and you decide when the passing on of your data goes too far. Using a very simple interface, you decide how Windows 10 and Windows 11 should respect your...
ShutUp10 allows you to remove telemetry and advertising from Windows 10/11 easily, among other things, such as disabling
Cortana.
Lubuntu is a fast and lightweight operating system with a clean and easy-to-use user interface. It is a Linux system, that uses the minimal desktop LXDE/LXQT.
Lubuntu is a fast and lighteweight operating system based on
Ubuntu. It's widely used as an operating system for low-end hardware.
Privacy Guides is a socially motivated website that provides information for protecting your data security and privacy. Their mission is to inform the public about the value of digital privacy, and global government initiatives which aim to monitor your online activity.
Privacy Guides provides you dozens of tools for increasing your privacy.
You are being watched. Private and state-sponsored organizations are monitoring and recording your online activities. privacytools.io provides services, tools and knowledge to protect your privacy against global mass surveillance.
PrivacyTools can be used to find privacy tools, but some tools are outdated, so do your research.
Locate files and folders by filename on Windows instantly, displaying all items on NTFS volumes and mapped network drives. Supports 19 languages.
Windows Search can't find every file or directory; this can. Everything search searches everything, and I mean, everything, to try and find what you're looking for.
A versatile client for SFTP, FTP, and other protocols for file transfer. It offers GUI choice, and supports automation and key authentication.
WinSCP is a popular free SFTP and FTP client for
Wine, allowing it to be used on
cURL is a computer software project providing a library and command-line tool for transferring data using various protocols with URL syntax: supporting FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, TFTP, TELNET, DICT, LDAP, LDAPS and FILE.
cURL is a computer software project providing a library and command-line tool for transferring data using various protocols with URL syntax: supporting FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, TFTP, TELNET, DICT, LDAP, LDAPS and FILE.
On-premises file sync, universal access, integrated collaboration, real-time communication with privacy and data control focus.
Nextcloud is a private cloud storage service (and calendar, notebook, etc. etc.) that has support for it to be self-hosted.
GNU Wget is a free software package for retrieving files using HTTP(S) and FTP, the most widely-used Internet protocols. It is a non-interactive command line tool, so it may easily be called from scripts, cron jobs, terminals without X-Windows support, etc.
Wget is a tool for retrieving files via HTTP(S) or FTP.
Tails is a Debian based live CD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user.
Tails is a privacy-focused and incredibly lightweight OS, it's so lightweight, in fact, that it can be installed entirely on a USB drive, allowing it to be a portable security OS. Tails can effortlessly be used to hide activity from people snooping about, as Tails is completely amnesic, meaning that nothing you do on Tails is saved, ever.
HexChat is an IRC client based on 
XChat for Linux , but unlike XChat it’s completely free for both Windows and Unix-like systems.
HexChat is a fork of
Open-source browser with Gecko engine, supporting HTML add-ons and providing privacy features like Enhanced Tracking Protection and third-party cookie blocking.
Firefox is the best browser for privacy and security outside of
Tor Browser, having no speed issues like
Ideal for creating bootable USBs and SD cards, ensuring safe, cross-platform use. Open-source, lightweight, and portable with a user-friendly interface.
If the UI of
Rufus intimidates you, balenaEtcher is an amazing alternative that only spares you a few options that are seldom used by beginners.
Z library is a free online library containing over 100 million books. Anyone can download e-books from our website without registration and in many formats.
Z-Library is an e-library that contains over 100 million books. No registration is required to download books.
Formats USB drives to various file systems and creates bootable USBs from ISOs. Supports MS-DOS/FreeDOS bootable sticks and offers BIOS or UEFI options.
Rufus allows you to format and create bootable USB drives, and is the tool recommended for flashing a
Cross-platform multimedia framework performing decoding, encoding, transcoding, muxing, demuxing, streaming, filtering, and playback for nearly all media formats.
FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. It supports the most obscure ancient formats up to the cutting edge.
Cross-platform, free media player supports multimedia files, DVDs, streaming, offers hardware acceleration, 4K, lossless audio, and more.
VLC Media Player is the Swiss Army Knife of video players. It can do anything, from seamlessly playing subtitles to being compatible with every (common) video file type under the sun.
Obsidian is a note-taking app that lets you create a personal knowledge graph with ease. It is designed for non-linear thinking and allows you to easily link your notes together wiki-style.
Obsidian is a powerful note-taking application, which defines itself as a "second brain", something I can't really argue with.
Qubes is an open source operating system designed to provide strong security for desktop computing.
QubesOS defines itself as "reasonably secure", but it is anything but. QubesOS is the most secure operating system on the planet, thanks to several tweaks, and seamless integration with
Whonix via Qubes-Whonix. Qubes is especially useful for anti-government journalists or whistleblowers.
Whonix is a desktop operating system designed for advanced security and privacy. Whonix mitigates the threat of common attack vectors while maintaining usability. Online anonymity is realized via fail-safe, automatic, and desktop-wide use of the Tor network.
Whonix is an OS that runs inside your own via a virtual machine. If you're on Windows, you can use Whonix for added security, if, for whatever reason, you can't switch to Linux. It can also be used with
Qubes OS with Qubes-Whonix for added security.
Fedora creates an innovative, free, and open source platform for hardware, clouds, and containers that enables software developers and community members to build tailored solutions for their users.
Fedora Linux is a Linux distribution based on
Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Fedora is the universally-recommended distribution for beginners, as it is shipped with
Wayland and
PipeWire, both of which increase user-friendliness.
edit: hey internet, future val here. please please please don't use rhel or rhel based distros after what happened with red hat paywalling its code
Windows Terminal is a new, modern, feature-rich, productive terminal application for command-line users. It includes many of the features most frequently requested by the Windows command-line community including support for tabs, rich text, globalization, configurability...
Windows Terminal is the default terminal application baked in to Windows. It allows for an incredible amount of customization, and also works with
Windows Subsystem for Linux.
Secure and encrypt entire partitions or devices, including system drives, with automated, real-time protection and enhanced security measures.
VeraCrypt is a tool for on-the-fly disk encryption, and has various options for disk creation. VeraCrypt allows for the use of AES, which is the global encryption standard. To this day, AES hasn't been cracked.
The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a new Windows 10 feature that enables you to run native Linux command-line tools directly on Windows.
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) allows you to run a Linux command line that integrates into Windows incredibly well.
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