What (free and open-source) applications do you use on a daily basis?
What (free and open-source) applications do you use on a daily basis?
Try to avoid duplicates, keep it interesting.
- mpv (video player)
- Logseq (knowledge base/journal)
- KISS launcher (android launcher)
- OpenTracks (fitness tracking)
- BreezyWeather (weather)
- KDE connect (app to do shit between pc and phone)
- Tasks (todo)
- AntennaPod (podcasts)
- Hacki (hacker news)
- FlorisBoard (keyboard)
- Unexpected Keyboard (another keyboard)
Syncthing.
Somewhat self promoting for the first two of these items as I'm directly involved. Leaving out the more obvious ones (Linux distro etc.) as they will have been mentioned. I'll stick to some of the less known things I use.
- Pulsar - a community-led fork of the discontinued Atom text editor. Lemmy community
- Joplin - note taking app. Lemmy community
- Halloy - IRC client built in Rust and Iced
- Navi - Command line cheatsheet tool
- GitUI - Terminal UI git tool
- Skim - Fuzzy finder
- Dust - Disk usage tool (like
du)
-
Termux
Holy hell. So much it can do. Right now I am using it to transcode MPEG2 videos to AV1. With CRF 25, Preset 5, with a 480p30 video I get 5fps in Termux on my older Snapdragon 860. Meanwhile my laptop's Ryzen 3 3200U does 2fps.
You can run different server applications. Some are supported natively (e.g.: Tinyproxy, Privoxy, Squid HTTP proxy, apache2, nginx, navidrome, OpenSSH, TigerVNC, rsync, xorg-server, xwayland, xrdp,...) and some can run in proot (e.g.: Jellyfin, NextCloud). If you already have some web server and want it public, there's cloudflared too, so you can access it via Cloudflare tunnel. -
RTL-SDR driver
Allows connecting RTL-SDR on Android and starting RTL-TCP server. -
SDR++
The best general-purpose SDR app available on Android, GNU+Linux, Windows and MacOS. -
KDE Connect
Nicely connects phone with a computer. Data transfers, remote control, finding your phone, synchronizing notifications. -
LibreTorrent
Great client for Android.
There's more, but those I don't use daily, or have already been mentioned.
-
- Fluent Reader – to very quickly get a lot of news which I need for work
- Beeper – for the 100 chat apps I need to use to stay in contact with my friends who don't use Matrix
- Nheko – for the based friends who have [matrix] accounts and chats with industry professionals in my field
- FluffyChat – mobile device [matrix] client
- Logseq – as second brain, works better for me than Obsidian
- Jameica – for online banking and accounting
- K-9 Mail / Thunderbird – mail client
- DecSync CC – for synchronising contacts with multiple devices through Syncthing
- ActivityWatch – to track everything I do in case I forget to book time in my corporate time sheet, or if I want to know how long I played games in contrast to programming
- KDE Plasma – best desktop environment boosting my productivity to about 140% of what I could do with Windows 10
- Qalculate! – very fast and easy to use scientific calculator, can also do conversions like "1h50min → min" or "15€ → $"
- Aegis – TOTP generator for mobile
- VLC – plays everything you throw at it
- mpv – plays everything you throw at it, if you installed the right codecs, and also does fancy ML-based GPU upscaling in my case
- KeePassXC, KeePassDX – password managers integrated on Desktop, Laptop, Tablet and Phone
- Syncthing – to automatically and seamlessly sync all my devices (Laptop, Desktop, Tablet, Phone, second Laptop, Servers, …)
- Firefox Developer Edition, Librewolf – browsing the web without Chromium
- Chromium – for PWAs like Teams, Outlook, Discord
Permanently Deleted
Firefox
LibreWolf
Hey I use my own app every day. Let me tell you about it. :)
nephele-serve is the dedicated server version that I use to manage all my Jellyfin movies and TV shows. I also back up all my systems to it with DejaDup.
QuickDAV is the desktop app version that I use to transfer files around all of my way too many PCs, tablets, and phones (I develop mobile apps too, so I have a lot of devices). It’s easier (and usually faster) than using a USB stick, and it’s safer than leaving shares open all the time.
They’re both open source and use the same server software, Nephele, that I wrote for my email service, Port87.
Oh I’m also working on putting up a Docker image for nephele-serve and a Flatpak of QuickDAV.
No mention of Thunderbird yet??
That's a very very long list...
Debian + Cinnamon desktop which inck7des the countless tools that come with that stack.
- Termux on my phone
- Zsh as my debian shell
- OpenSSH
- OpenVpn
- tmux + tmuxinator
- neovim, and dozens of plugins/tools with that
- dart
- flutter
- large chunks of Node.js and the npm ecosystem
- dotnet framework and countless nuget packages
- lazygit
- stable diffusion
- llama.cpp, and many tools built on top of that
- k3OS running Rancher
- my entire selfhosted stack on the above which includes but is not limited to:
- Shinobi
- Bitwarden
- Gogs
I'd finish earlier telling you which of my software is not open source.
Daily:
- Signal
- GrapheneOS
- Bitwarden
- Firefox/Mull
- VPN
- Baserow
Not daily:
- Lemmy
- Mastodon
- Pixelfed
- Invidious
- Cryptomator
- Aegis
- Penpot
- Aurora
- LocalSend
- OSM
- Obtanium
- Voyager
- Open Video Editor
- OpenScan
- Cryptee
- Element
On my server:
OpenMediaVault (NAS OS based on Debian)
Syncthing
Home Assistant
Zigbee2MQTT
Docker
Portainer
Radicale
NavidromeOn my phone:
Syncthing
Tailscale
Feeder
DAVx⁵
OSS Document Scanner
RPNcalc
DSub
EDSYOn my PC:
Odyssey Material Helper
EDDiscovery
EDSY
ObservatoryCore
Paint.net and GIMP
OpenRGB
TailscalePermanently Deleted
I use Aniyomi, Fennec, Obtainium, Jerboa, BetterUntis, Bitwarden, DroidFS, Aegis, LibreTorrent, Shelter, Survival Manual, Termux, ConnectBot, LocalMonero, F-Droid, RethinkDNS, InnerTune, Mastodon, Kuroba-Ex, Signal, Element, QUIK and FlorisBoard
Nextcloud
- KDE Plasma
- Okular
- Dolphin
- Librewolf
- FreeTube
- Debian
- LyX
- Eternity for Lemmy
- Git
Jellyfin
- Linux
- GrapheneOS
- OpenWRT
- webservers / the internet (nginx, databases, storage, networking, ...)
- Mull / Librewolf
- Nextcloud (contacts / calendar sync ...)
- an email server and client
- Matrix chat
- LG WebOS on my TV
- Home Assistant
- lots of user applications
There isn't much important proprietary software in this apartment except maybe for the firmware of the dishwasher / microwave, washing machine and additionally whatever software runs in an old car.
On mobile:
- Feeder (RSS reader)
- K9-Mail / Thunderbird
- Mull (Deblobbed and privacy oriented Firefox Mobile fork)
- Catima (Loyalty card manager)
- Cofi (Coffee timer)
- Neo Launcher
On desktop:
- Spotify-qt and Librespot
I use a bunch of other stuff as well but these are the one I truly use daily that haven't been mentioned yet.
Some subset of modern Linux distro - Firefox, Emacs, Git, Tmux, OpenSSH, i3, sway... Android - F-Droid stuff
Goodtime (a pomodoro app)
Don't think I've seen fish shell yet
daily and both (desktop and mobile, cross-platform),
Godot
Vlc
I self host:
- Miniflux - RSS Reeader
- Alexandrite - Lemmy Client
- Invidious - Youtube frontend
I want to highlight a practical usecase for password management with open source tools. Keepass (gnome secrets on computers, and keepassdx on mobile) with syncthing syncing encrypted password files between the devices. Very effective so far. Passwords are synced seamlessly.
Syncthing (for obsidian notes, mostly. I know there are FOSS apps that do what obsidian does, but they just don't feel as good for my purposes).
LibreTorrent
OpenRadio is a good one if you like radio and music in general. It has radio stations from everywhere and from almost every music style.
SumatraPDF
NotePad++I started using Upscayl to upscale the AI images I make.
KDE Plasma
I use putty at work on a daily basis
Firefox, Neovim, Tmux, Various KDE applications, Nextcloud, Wine, Signal, OpenSSH
Probably many more
VLC, audacity, organic maps, freetube
ANDROID
Darktable, OBS, ffmpeg.
I'm having a harder time thinking of proprietary programs I use. I guess the biggest offender is mobile apps. As far my computer goes, discords flatpak is the only one coming to mind.
Shameless plug but I use Lemmy Keyboard Navigation (RES-like extension for keyboard navigation)
Emacs
VPN client in a thin Docker container for multiple VPN providers, written in Go, and using OpenVPN or Wireguard, DNS over TLS, with a few proxy servers built-in.
ripgrep
This one, as well as WordPress and technically Mastodon because I post on both platforms.
I used to use Mastodon for my drawings before I discovered Jetpack for Wordpress and began posting more of my artwork there regularly.
Firefox and ProtonMail too for web and email.
- Firefox
- Obsidian
- LMDE 6
- Godot
- Lutris
FileZilla
LibreOffice Irfanview
vim, perl, bash, just to name a few
Homebridge AltStore Voyager + Lemma (Lemmy clients)
Trillium notes!!! It's a really really beautiful note taking application for linux!
Terraform.... Oh wait, Nevermind. I need to start switching to OpenTofu now.
Greenshot
(I'll avoid posting what I've already seen mentioned)
Thunder (for Lemmy)
Metro (fork of Retro Music)
Quik (SMS)
Molly (Signal fork)
Obtainium (updates Github apps)
MuPDF viewer
Standard Notes (private notes app)Shoutout to !raccoonforlemmy@lemmy.world for saving us when Liftoff went under.
Inkscape
- LinkDing for bookmarks
- Memos for notes
- FreshRSS for rss
- homebridge to connect to IOT devices like Kasa Bulbs that aren’t on Apple’s Home service.
For android : Basically almost all app from SimpleMobileTools, a few version right before it was sold (to a company in a controversial city)
For desktop : some kde app that works both for windows and linux (I used windows for now) like Okular and FileLight (though this one isn't so much daily basis)
and for both I used LocalSend
Standard stuff, though very few from my phone so I will focus there. On it, atm just things like RetroArch, Firefox, Geometric Weather, Blokada, and Amaze File Manager.
I haven't done any research at all, but if anyone wants to share: does anyone know of a good FOSS grocery store list kind of app for Android? Something that might still work without internet, I don't care about synching anywhere else. Currently I use Listonic, mainly b/c I do not want to use Google Keep. There are some on F-droid so when I get time I'll look into those.
Gadgetbridge for my smartband
Vorta for automatic backups of my computer https://vorta.borgbase.com/
KiCAD. It's so good these days.
I still code most Python in IDLE. It's fine!
Various flavors of Linux and the many, many applications supporting that. Also OpenWRT. OpenOffice > Google Sheets.
I also grabbed an open-source script that would turn on a fan every time the humidity level rose high enough for a specific type of mold to grow, and move air until it dropped. That ran all day for a few years until the fan broke and I repurposed the other hardware.
Kakoune
Pc- Lutris Vlc
Phone- Obtainium Kvaesitso Libretube Material files Unchained Mull
- Firefox, nuff said.
- Organic Maps on my phone. I prioritize it for the privacy.
- Jerboa for Lemmy
- Ubuntu Linux, partially due to needing to run some kind of Linux for a class. Most people went with WSL, I chose to dual boot.
Librera (pdf reader and other formats), tuta mail (private mail), feeder (RSS reader), iceraven (Firefox fork), saver tuner (battery management), aurora store (replacement of play store), breezy-weather (for checking the weather), openBoard (Foss keyboard with spell correction)
Session
Programming, writing, notes, email… and basically a whole lot of what I use computers for is done with emacs.
Nmap, Wireshark, zenmap at work.
Qimgv, Rawtherapee
I don't have a clue if anyone has mentioned it, but I use the non-root version of NetGuard to make sure some apps on my phone don't have wifi or mobile data access.
I also don't know if this was mentioned by someone else, but for one of my college courses, we are using thonny for python programming.
tinybit
tor
droidfs
librera
octodroid
rosy crow
trebleshot
Trackercontrol#android
The others have been mentioned. Not quite daily but I'll occasionally get paid to do CFD simulations.
FreeCAD, salome, openFOAM, paraview.
Define use? Anyone using the Internet relies on a lot of FOSS, even if we just consider webservers kn the www.
Like others, the list of non foss is shorter for me.
FSNotes. Markdown notes utility.