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My Hunt for Useful Open-Source Software
Lately, I've been on a bit of a mission to explore more free and open-source software (FOSS) alternatives for everyday tasks. It's not always about saving money, but also about supporting community-driven projects and sometimes finding tools that are less bloated or more privacy-respecting. For example, I've been using LibreOffice for documents and spreadsheets for a while now, and it handles most of what I need perfectly. I also recently switched to VLC Media Player on a new machine, and it just plays everything without fuss.
I'm curious about what gems others have found. Are there any particular open-source applications – whether for productivity, creativity, or utilities – that you swear by and would recommend to a general user? What makes them stand out for you? It's always great to discover well-made FOSS tools.
Comments
I use Visual Studio Code and Filezilla most.
I am not sure if I want to use Visual Studio Code anymore since they are attaching AI to it.
It might be easier, but I am not sure if it's safe. It's not like they are forcing us to AI, yet...
Have you tried zed ? I think it's a lot faster than vs code and I like their UI as well.
Zed is really resources consuming, My M1 Pro go to 7x Celcius degree whenever I open Zed
I use Notepad ++
Most NOT(E)ably for me was switching my Notes app/software to Joplin. I was using Turtl for a long time, but it has really ceased to be maintained anymore.
yt-dlp, ffmpeg, xtls/xray-core and rclone
I really like Greenshot for taking screenshots and annotating them, (on Windows): https://github.com/greenshot/greenshot
I also host a StirlingPDF instance, which is really useful for editing/annotating PDFs:: https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF
A few I like:
GIMP – solid Photoshop alternative for image editing.
OBS Studio – fantastic for screen recording and streaming.
Bitwarden – open-source password manager, privacy-focused, and syncs well.
For me:
VSCodium is like an fully open source alternative to VS Code. They strip binary blobs put there by MS.
I use share instead of greenshot but both are great
Off top of mind
https://github.com/shshemi/tabiew - to browse CSV and a few other formats
https://github.com/jqlang/jq - to query JSON, extremely useful
https://grayjay.app - to watch videos without ads on Android