What pieces of software can you recommend that's free, efficient and does not bullshit around?
What pieces of software can you recommend that's free, efficient and does not bullshit around?
Notepad++ - This piece of software is a very advanced form of Notepad. Fuck that basic Notepad shit that Windows or any other OS gives you. This one is all you'll ever need for basic note-taking needs. But it does a hell of a lot more. One thing I love about it is that, if for any reason I put my PC to sleep, it crashes, power outage, I can run this again and everything I've ever written and no matter how many tabs - it's all retained.
AIMP - The definitive media player that you'll ever need for just playing stuff (music only, sorry if I mislead those thinking it can do video). Winamp and all the other software are just around for nostalgia (though Winamp has it's uses where you need it to play specific formats like video game music such as SNES with .SPC). One feature that attracted me to it was, it used to infuriate me when I am playing something and something crashes in any other media player. And you boot up that media player and you have to play your playlist all over again or that song from the beginning.
Not AIMP, if I accidentally close it, crash or whatever, I can bring it back up and it'll have the song or whatever on Pause so I can resume. Why isn't shit like this more implemented in software?
KiCad - electrical engieneering
FreeCAD - mechanical engieneering
Blender - 3d modeling, rendering, animation
Krita - raster painting
Kdenlive - video editing
LMMS - music creation
Ardour - sound processing
Nheko - Matrix client
Xonotic - FPS game
KDE - K Desktop Enviroment
Hotspot - GUI for perf sampling profiler
KCachegrind - GUI for valgrind cache simulator
QT Creator - C(++)/QML(and prob JS) IDE
Graphvis - graph visualizer
Adding on:
Inkscape - vector graphics program
Meshrom - photogrammetry
Handbrake - video transcoding
MakeMKV - rips DVDs and Blu Ray into video files
7zip - file compression and decompression
Droid48 - Truly excellent HP48 emulator for android
LibreOffice - free word processor & office suite (not without some recent drama though, I guess)
I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty, but hey, more for additional commenters to name.
Edit: Removed Audacity, apparently I'd missed privatization drama around that one too
Handbrake - video transcoding
FFmpeg.
Edit: Removed Audacity, apparently I'd missed privatization drama around that one too
Still GPL.
Synfig Studio - 2d animation software
"Everything" - find any file on your machine instantly. No need to update an index, it uses the NTFS master file table directly.
It is my pet peeve that instead of using the MFT, they gave us the bloody abomination they call windows search.
I mean, make it a hidden tool like regedit, for all I care. It's really not that hard.
Microsoft made NTFS, but not even Windows uses it properly. For example, the
:character is perfectly valid in NTFS file names, but not in Windows. If you mount an NTFS volume in Linux without specifying thewindows_namesoption, you can very easily make it unusable in Windows. It's a sick joke, but nobody's laughing.Is that because it indexes the contents of files? (or pretends to.)
This my top-used non-windows-component bestest utility for finding info on my pc. It’s da bomb!
I find it almost criminal the amount of people who do not know about this. Absolute life saver for work.
Wizfile as an alternative to this which I prefer
Also Wiztree from the same devs as a WinDirStat alternative
Love them. Though, WizFile occasionally starts eating up a lot of CPU on my machine until I force close it.
If you want something efficient and free of bullshit you probably first need to change your OS to a GNU/Linux distro
"Free, efficient, no bullshit" is kind of the default for Linux software.
Note that there's a severe vulnerability that was only patched very recently in 7zip. I've seen recommendations to fully uninstall it and then reinstall the latest version.
Report: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-11612
7-zip doesn’t have an integrated installer so yes you have to uninstall the old version and install the new one.
Paint.NET has filled a “I need an image editor with some packed in features that isn’t as complicated as Photoshop for some quick work” niche for me for years. From simple crops and edits to some layer-and-effects work.
I did not know Aseprite was free if you compile it but they deserve the money anyway.
Paint dot net has layers, rotation, magic wand, and layers. The Editable Text plugin completes my amateur photo editing requirements. And no bloatware! No spyware!
Oh, I forgot one. If you actually need something a bit more like Photoshop, I can recommend Photopea as well. It's online but it runs locally and it has some ads on the side, but it beats getting an Adobe Cloud license.
Pixelorama is completely free and is a pretty good alternative to Aseprite
LocalSend - like AirDrop, but cross platform
2nded
Been using this for a few weeks now, and it is really fucking convenient
Nice suggestion!
LocalSend is just so effortless and good! I love it.
KeePassXC, or any kind of KeePass-compatible client. It uses strong encryption to store passwords, passkeys, and arbitrary data. Also does TOTP. Not using a password manager in current year is stupid.
QOwnNotes - a note-taking app that uses plain markdown files. None of that stupid metadata-inside-markdown-inside-database bullshit.
I can confirm both these. Although Qownnotes is a bit of mess in UI, it does its job well. I wanted something simple that will just load bunch of locally saved md files and this is the best I could find so far.
I love Keypass XC for it's better User interface but the Kee Broswer addon for Keepass 2.0 is just astronomically better. You can search and edit entries and it doesn't close on you when the page reloads.
EMACS:- No I'm not kidding, Yes it has a learning curve but the real fun is AFTER you figure it out & find out that it can do more than just edit texts
- You can play music
- You can turn it into an Email client
- Browse the internet
- A fully-fledged IDE
- There's Tetris in it
- A File-Manager
- Even a Chat Client
- Remote-Server interaction
- Even have it function like Obsidian
- Have Vim-keybindings (For VIM-users)
- A Git interface
- Even use it as a Linux Distro
Emacs is a part time job!
As a vim user, I'm always super envious of emac's orgmode.
As a vim user who recently started with Emacs, if you ever want to try it, use evil-mode to get vim motions.
Maybe better to recommend Doom Emacs, if no BS is a requirement. It takes time to make friends with vanilla Emacs.
Why would you want any of that in a text editor...?
Because it all connects together, and you can program them jointly to help solve tasks.
Having email and version control inside emacs makes it easy to set up an email based patch system.
Of course this system will then benefit from the existing code highlighting, introspection, and an integrated debugger.
Integrating it with your time planner means you can automatically add commits to your journal as a way of tracking what you've been working on.
The old joke always was emacs is a great operating system, it just needs a good text editor.
The real downside for me is everything is just a little bit janky. It all almost works perfectly and the code is right there to fix it, if you can be bothered. Generally I can't.
Well it's not really a text-editor, it's a productivity environment (That is poor advertisement on GNU's part)
& these are all extensions, the real question is Why WOULDN'T you want it in a text-editor ?
All that is not in a text editor. A text editor is in all that. A few text editors actually.
No one mentioned SolveSpace, so... SolveSpace. Solvespace is a fully functional 3D parametric CAD solver in a free, cross-platform, open-source, portable, single self-contained executable 10 MB file.
I do a fair amount of hobby 3d printing and SolveSpace makes design and CAD stupid easy. The interface is perfectly laid out, the hotkeys are intuitive, and the capabilities make small-scale projects a breeze.
Now, the program has its limitations, but if I just want something quick and simple, there is nothing better.
SolveSpace... I remember that. Interesting thing, but I ended up using FreeCAD.
I've been using FreeCAD, it's extremely powerful, and just hit 1.0. Might be a bit harder to learn, but worth it.
Yeah, FreeCAD is great, but I can only think of one project that I've done where SolveSpace absolutely could not work for the geometry I needed and I had to rebuild it in FreeCAD. But that's just a product of what I am building: simple things like brackets, knobs, and replacement lids mostly. I don't need chamfers, drafts, lofts, etc. and I get what I need with minimum of time and effort using SolveSpace.
When I do need those features, complex geometries, or modification of pre-built step files, FreeCAD has never failed me.
VLC. If it can't play it, nothing can.
Perhaps MPV can, if VLC can’t. I much prefer MPV over VLC.
Is a part of me that wants to go back to Linux just for Mplayer. That blows VLC and mpv out of the water. You could watch movies on a potato with that
Wireguard, I find it both simpler and easier to use than OpenVPN.
dd. No other iso writing utility has worked as consistently, even if my usb devices would gain weird glitches after using it.
Believe it or not I am a person who goes out of their way to avoid using the terminal, so this is very much vouching for the software itself rather than the ux it's based on.
I logged in just to answer this:
Stellarium
When it comes to stargazing and learning more about the night sky, there is hands-down no better program. It's available on PC (windows/Mac/Linux) as well as mobile platforms. I used it for months for free before I paid for the premium sub, and the premium sub actually feels additive rather than just gatekeeping essential features. Plus, it's pretty cheap and you can choose to just buy a lifetime pass for $20 and skip the sub. It's the only app I've ever been happy to subscribe to.
This is amazing. I've tried half-assed a few times to find an app better than Sky Map and this is in a different league. Immediately uninstalled Sky Map. Finally.
Bitwarden
It's a FOSS password manager that you can self host, or use their cloud infrastructure. Their free plan is more than enough for basic users, and their paid personal plan is less than $1 a month and is packed with features.
Runs in your browser, Android, iOS, Chrome and Firefox extensions, and has native desktop apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Super easy to set up and use, no BS, works damn near perfectly. I've been using it for years and I love it, it's the only password manager I recommend to folks now days.
Bitwarden's recent licence "oopsie" has shaken folks trust in them a bit. Not that it's not a good software currently, but now we know what may happen at a moment's notice.
FLOSS games that are solid:
Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Luanti (aka Minetest)
sgt-puzzles
Glaring omission: OpenTTD, still in contention for the greatest train (and other transport) game ever made.
Looks so good. I haven't tried city-sims in 30yrs.
I just watched this drokkin excellent overview of what is possible in OpenTTD. Very polished.
I am sure it can be played as a serious endeavor too.
SuperTuxKart is a cool one
Sure is! It's had so much work done since the early days.
The single player campaign is huge and hilarious. Very satisfying to complete.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon
This has been the only version of the game I've ever gotten close to beating. For that reason alone it's worth mentioning.
yt-dlp can download videos from most sites. Comes with a lot of advanced features if you need them.
qBittorrent
Terminal based text editors are garbage in the eyes of most people
Notepad++ is the simplicity of notepad with a few extra features to make it exactly what most people neef
Micro-team checking in!
Lots of great software already posted, but with some complaints about windows inefficiencies I can't believe no one has posted:
Microsoft PowerToys https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
Basically, it's a suite of tools that windows devs have made to make their lives easier while working in windows. Some features have made it into actual windows releases over the years, but most not.
It has an always on top, batch rename, customisable window snapping, better search, keyboard key remapper, mouse across multiple devices, colour eyedropper, and many many more.
Absolute must have for anyone that uses windows regularly.
keyboard key remapper
Specific example: the caps lock key is useless and only ever activated on accident when I fat-fingered the A key. Remapped it to F-13 which exists as a kind of place holder with no function since keyboards stop at F-12; then set F-13 as my push-to-talk key in Discord, so now I've got a super conveniently located PTT that won't disrupt anything (like switching to aLL CAPS WHEN I INEVITABLY MISS THE A KEY).
Small change, absolutely love it. 10/10
Gnome tweaks:
I use Libre Office as a word and excel replacement. Might not be a replacement for everyone if perfect compatibility/formatting is needed for work, but for personal use it's been great.
It works great but I was heartbroken when I saw it ruined my beautifully formatted resume that was a .docx :(
Use markdown instead.
Well [email protected] and [email protected] for more, but off the top of my head:
Linux, VLC, FFMPEG, HandBrake, KDE (everything KDE), qBittorrent, Momentum (Flipper0 firmware), CHIRP, Vim, and more!
Had to scroll THIS far to see FFMPEG? Shame, shame.
You're so right about KDE, I didn't realize just how much great stuff KDE makes until I was looking for a markdown editor this week at work, and KDE ghostwriter nails everything I ever wanted. Cross platform too so I can use it on my personal Linux machine too
Ah yes, gotta download "Linux" for myself.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
TestDisk and PhotoRec. TestDisk can recover broken drive partitions, PhotoRec can recover deleted files even if the partition table is borked.
Np ++ is the GOAT. Stupidly fast to open, always restores everything you've ever typed no matter what, and the only program I've ever seen that actually lets you rename tabs where you haven't saved the file first.
Sublime Text also lets you rename tabs without saving them, though the action is labeled "rename file"... But it's also proprietary and paid, so that's a downside for sure.
Greenshot
Irfanview
Audacity
OBS
Lab Chirp: simple but powerful sound effects generator
Stickies (zhorn software): Networkable sticky notes
Agent Ransack: File content search
Audacity
You may want to switch to Tenacity. Audacity was purchased by a company in 2021 that super promises not to try to sneak telemetry into the program. Again. For the third time.
Tenacity is a fork of Audacity without any of that nonsense.
I'm pretty sure I haven't updated my Audacity version since 2012 😅 but I'll remember this thank you
Davinci Resolve - Video Editing
Blender - 3D Modelling
Darktable - Photo Editing
Keira - Digital Art
Are some I use frequently.
Not only is Resolve's free version amazing, the paid version is even better. And it has a reasonable, one time, upfront cost that gives you lifetime access.
Did you mean Krita instead of 'Keira'?
Actual - Accounting/budgeting/etc
Wrote up a python script or three to handle parsing my bank CSV export files into an actually usable form, with automatic categorization, and so now I just do a periodic export and sync, and have all my financial records all in one place with some nice visualization, categorization, and budgeting features from Actual. It saves everything to a local sqlite db, so I can always jump ship to a different system if needed, and also itself provides a CSV export option.
10/10 software, would recommend
Notepad++ is also great for searching text strings in many documents and collating the results in a single window.
kate is similar to npp.
Just found qalculate and it's amazing
You're description of Notepad++ reminds me of Kate (KDE)
You're description
You are description !?
It’s our description now.
Sadly Lemmy has gotten so much Reddit toxicity so I don't get why you got downvotes. As a non native speaker I won't mind if I got some downvotes too if I could get advice improving my english on my shitty comments instead
UniGetUI basically a package manager for windows, can auto update libre office.
PosteRazor - cuts up images to print on multiple sheets.
Krita - image editing
Inkscape - vector graphics
PosteRazor is excellent, make huge wall posters.
Since you're saying "pieces of software" and not specifically apps I will mention Node.js, the programming framework for javascript apps that run outside of a browser. You can develop websites and services or standalone apps that just run locally. There's a whole universe of free packages people have created for it.
Since you're saying "pieces of software" and not specifically apps I will mention liburing.
I love Node for small apps and scripts. It's become my go-to for quick tasks. I've even used it to write some small CLI utilities as standalone executables.
Please be careful with dependencies and malware
Desmos.
Free online really good quality graphing, scientific, etc calculators with no ads or other bullshit.
It's a niche thing, but if you play electric guitar and need a virtual amplifier and effects, you'll like Guitarix very much. Just thinking that is a community project blows me away every time
I've recently discovered and made heavy use of xournal++; for stylus-based note taking.
I got heavy use out of that one as a teaching assistant in grad school during the pandemic. I used a cheap wacom drawing pad.
VeraCrypt -- creating encrypted partitions/disks with easy manager. I am surprised I did not see anybody to mention it.
LUKS or fscrypt
EarTrumpet, Borderless Gaming, ClickMonitorDDC, Lenovo Legion Toolkit, FanControl, PEACE + Equalizer APO, Everything, TreeSize
I see EarTrumpet, I upvote.
Also, QuickLook.
WinDirStat, Notepad++, Greenshot and Filelocator pro lite (aka agent ransack) are my default programs to install on windows machines.
Check out WizTree, it does the same thing as WinDirStat but is leagues faster. Like not just "this is faster", like "holy shit that was fast"
Also WizTree sounds like you are whizzing on a tree. Or maybe your some kind of tree wizard. Either way it's great.
I second WizTree, it takes <10s to scan an entire drive and the visualization is neat
Not going to tell us what it is or why you like it?
The word is a link.
My Linux box seems to have audio issues, weird things that sound like since kind of gated compression that I can't quite figure out. Will this help?
Fan Control.
Free as in beer but definitely not free as in speech.
OnShape for designing 3d objects. I've been using it for 3 or 4 years, after outgrowing TinkerCad (which is also good and beginner-friendly, but limited). It's an online app, nothing to download or install. The free version is fast and full-featured. The only difference between it and the paid version is that in the free version your designs are all public. So if I were doing 3d design for business I probably would use software that resides on my computer. But as a hobbyist IDGAF.
Ddrescue
Hard to beat for working with dying drives, although it's a bit tricky to get it to just do used data areas instead of the whole drive.
GIMP
Blender
Notepad ++ is invaluable for writing code, I’ve used it for a long while now.
Also great is paint dot net which is a super advanced paint application that is borderline as good as photo shop, particularly when you add on all the community-created functionality.
Revo uninstaller is the first thing I put on a new machine before I delete all the bloatware that comes with a fresh install of windows. You would be surprised what is left over when you only use the built in ‘remove a program’ process.
Lastly, browser based but free and excellent, is sketch up, which is an architectural rendering application great for designing restaurants and retail spaces. A little bit of a learning curve but very smooth and functional once you get the hang of it.
Edit - VLC goes without saying right?
I've been using MPV instead of VLC for a few years now. I find it has more consistent support for a wider variety of files, though controlling it is a little harder and often requires you to look up keybinds (which to be fair I did all the time for VLC too).
Notepad ++ is invaluable for writing code, I’ve used it for a long while now.
Not to pick an argument, but as a dev VSCodium has been a significantly better experience. It's a good text editor, it's got good search functionality, can be used as an IDE, and has good support through extensions.
And more of a shallow reason, it's got much better dark mode support.
GNU parallel
GNU screen
Speedcrunch!! Speedcrunch is a text based calculator that I just recently found, and already cannot live without. The syntax is very intuitive. If you're a programmer, you will feel right at home. Now, I do all my bit twiddling in speedcrunch before it gets to code.
It also works on Windows. At work, I have a Windows and Linux machine, and it is pinned to the taskbar on both.
- VLC media player is the gold standard
- Open broadcasting software / stream labs for broadcasting and studio management
- Ffmpeg for video editing
- Yt-dlp for downloading video
- audacity MP3 editing
- Plex / jellyfin / Stashapp for media server
- Pixlr for cloud photo editing
- Yarn / chocolatey / Asdf / node / poetry - package management
- Flaresolver, pihole, home automation, nginx
- Qbit-*arr for file sharing
- Massgrave for windows activation
- Filezilla for ftp (upgrade hosting)
- Depending on bullshit level: discord, Google workspace offers custom domain Google accounts
- Anything past that I write for myself or find a project with a dockerfile
Krita
Geany,qbtorrent,Vlc Media Player,LocalSend,obs,KdenLive (Atleast in Linux),Cinnamon (Forked from gnome 3 With a traditional Ui)
I got sick of fucking around with windows administrator tasks so I just wrote my own. It's crude. It's not pretty but I'm sick of having my job undermined by windows settings being forced on me.
For keeping track of investments I recommend: Portfolio Performance
https://www.portfolio-performance.info/en/
Takes maybe 10min to learn the basics in the beginning, but it's worth it. Nice robust open source software which does its job flawless.
Just learned this in another thread so I'm stealing it and dropping it here.
https://christitus.com/windows-utility-improved/
To install/run it pop open Powershell as admin and run:
irm christitus.com/win | iex
It's like Ninite on steroids. Install apps, OS tweaks, debloat, and more from one little app. This is going to me by go-to any time I reinstall Windows.
Just a heads-up:
This command will download a powershell script from christitus.com and run it on your PC with Admin rights.
I'd research what exactly it does first.
https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil/releases/tag/24.11.25
MPD and whatever front end you like for what's the best music player going, imo. You can tweak your player to your liking, MPD will play any format supported by ffmpeg, has some forks for further functionality, handles big libraries like a champ (I'm sitting at 54,758 files in mine without issue), can serve music streams online and be remotely controlled, and even has ridiculous features like the ability to handle gopher urls for media/streaming.
It's also as lightweight as you want it to be. MPD+ncmpcpp for playback use a whopping 66MB of ram for me.
"agent ransack" for file searching in windows
"Everything" for searching
ZoomIt - Sysinternals at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/zoomit
That small free application will notably allow you to press a key combination to "zoom in and out" on your screen and "draw" on your screen with your mouse. When presenting something using an external monitor, you can use that tool to draw attention to specific things or zoom in on tiny details when people are having issues seeing something. The link also show a small preview of what the application does.
Most of the systernals apps are BS-free.
X-Inkscape for vector graphics. It has a ton of functionality out of the box and it can be enhanced by coding your own plugins. I love it
Do you have recommendations for tutorials on this?
For raster imagery (and probably vector) I recommend imagemagick.
There's a great yt channel which has inkscape tutorials called Logos by Nick
If you're looking for a temporary email service for anonymous online registration, tempmail.so is a decent choice. https://www.tempmail.so/
Yeah but Notepad++ looks like camel shit.
Why camel?
Literally how? If you're talking about the toolbars, it looks like literally any text editor. If you're talking about the text, that's probably because you're not used to looking at monospace rendered text. It's much better when you're editing anything technical. If you don't need advanced features you don't need N++.