Discover Hidden Gems: Open-Source Software You Should Know About
We all love open-source software, but there are so many amazing projects out there that often go unnoticed. Let's change that! Share your favorite open-source software that you think more people should know about. Here’s how you can contribute:
- Single Option Per Comment: Mention one open-source software per comment to be able to easily find the most popular software.
- No Duplicates: Avoid duplicating software that has already been mentioned to ensure a wide variety of options.
- Upvote What You Love: If you see a software that you also appreciate, upvote it to help others discover it more easily.
Check out last year's post for more inspiration: Last Year's Post
Let's create a comprehensive list of open-source software that everyone should know about!
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Syncthing: Continuous, private, and encrypted file synchronization across multiple devices without using the cloud.
Absolutely LOVE syncthing. I recently had to go on an emergency trip and was glad I set up syncthing on my phone but hated that I didn't set it up properly on my laptop.
I love syncthing, but never managed to get permissions to work right on any of my android phones. I chalk that up to phone vendor fuckery though.
I use Syncthing-Fork on my android phone, which seems to work fine.
I'll have to try it the next time I have time, but I'm also trying to switch to a real linux phone. Right now, I have to wait for a friend to travel to the EU to be there while Pine64 has what I'm looking for in stock.
Pine64 is 2× more expensive in the EU
And doesn't ship PinePhone Pro motherboards to the US at all.
I didn't get into details because it wasn't important, but they're always be someone going "wELL AKTsHUally". I already own a PinePhone, but it died. The easiest solution would be to get a new MB and swap it in.
You should know that there is no longer an official syncthing app and a clone has taken its place. It's buggy but it works.
Permissions are a bit tricky to set up but I believe the clone app does it correctly by asking for full file browsing permissions.
Just to be clear, there is no official app for Android (and, I assume iPhone). If you are using SyncThing on desktop or laptop computers, there are downloads at the official syncthing.net site. On Linux, it should be available from your distribution.
Does it backup photos on iOS yet?
I'd love to use this but I just mostly don't use multiple devices at the same time, so I don't see how the sync would ever happen.
I'm in the same boat, so I had set up Syncthing more like centralised service - installed one instance on my home server, and made every other device sync only with it. Files propagates without issues.
I have an instance on my phone running 24/7 which does the bridge. But i dont use much storage, i mainly work with text files, so the pc at work syncs with my phone, and when i get home my own pc gets the files from my phone immediatly. Its been working really well for years for me.
Yea my big problem is also that I need way more storage than what I have on my phone.
Syncthing has been a wonder to discover. Basically replaced any desire for me to rely on the cloud.
KDE Connect: An app for iOS, android, pretty much every flavor of linux, windows, etc. that lets you connect any devices together to share files, show notifications of other devices, use your phone as an input device(keyboard, mouse), control multimedia applications(start, play, stop, etc.), trigger commands, and everything else if you make a plugin for it.
The craziest thing I discovered when I started using it was when I noticed that because my desktop was now connected to my phone and my phone was connected to my watch, I could completely control the media on both from my watch and the integration felt natural - but also something I haven't seen work that well in the proprietary world.
For me it was, that the video i was watching paused when i got a call and repeated the moment i hung up. FUTURE (or apple ecosystem, i suppose.)
Yea! I forgot it did that as well, but when that happened I had that same reaction of "holy crap, anything proprietary isn't even close to being this good".
This might read as a stupid question but ; Do you have to use KDE Plasma as a DE for it to work ?
no! there is GSConnect which is a gnome extension that provides the protocol as well
Ty !
I use it on Fedora with GNOME. Its available as a GNOME extension
Nice !
No, it works on other setups too! I have used the regular kde connect app with enlightenment DE for example.
It even works on windows
I have it running on my i3wm
I wish I could send a whole folder of files at once with this, mine seems to only work one file at a time.
workaround: zip the folder?
i know it's a little annoying, but it does make it into "one file" ;)
You can also share access to your phones entire filesystem with kde connect, so you can browse you phones storage from dolphin as if ot was connected through usb and copy entire folders to/from you phone.
Unfortunately I think my phone's USB is only good for charging these days, but it's a pixel 6A so it's on the way out anyways. I'll have to take a look at that I didn't see it, thanks!
On the 3 dots menu, theres "configure plugins" (or smthing like that), then you have to enable something like "expose filesystem" (dont know the exact wording because mine is not in english).
Doesn't seem to work on my phone, even thouvgh I have given it the permissions it asked...
Did you enable the plugin called expose filesystem?
...Yes, I just said that.
Tbf you only mentioned the permissions, but ok
I recently found out that with Termux you can use rsync between Linux and Android devices.
The next level i kinda wish it had (because it already has about everything else) would be to have the phone screen shown in the desktop.
You should be able to achieve that with scrcpy (at least with Android). Never got around to test it myself, so I can't vouch for how well it works though. My usecase for it died with installing a mini-PC in my living room, and now it would only be a curiosity for me.
Works quite well. Scrcpy is some great "just works" piece of software. I use it for all kinds of stuff, from typing with my PCs screen and keyboard in android apps, to remotely connecting to phones hooked up in a lab (using adb over SSH port forwarding, plus reverse forwarding whatevet 27... port scrcpy uses)
For some reason, I just can't get my Kubuntu desktop and Android phone to talk to each other with this. It does weirdly connect just fine on Arch/EndeavourOS, though.
Maybe kubuntu has some weird firewall default settings. When i tried using opensuse some years ago, it took me quite some time to figure out that it was its firewall that wasnt letting me use my printer and some other stuff i cant remember
That could be it! I haven't tried messing with firewall settings in detail.
I also have problems with one machine, it just refuses to see the others. It might have something to do with the firewall or SElinux, but I'm not sure.
KeePassXC: A modern, secure, open-source password manager that stores and manages sensitive information offline.
Mixed with syncthing to sync your database file across your devices and its chef's kiss
but don't forget to exclude your key file from sync
My only complaint with KeePass is that if any corruption occurs, your passwords are borked. I use KeePass for non-critical accounts, like Lemmy, etc. I don't trust myself or the sync enough for storing my bank or other identity passwords.
I have used KeePass for many, many years and have never run into this. Besides, I usually have a copy of the database on some other device so I'm not too worried
Syncthing means it and its backup lives on two laptops, a desktop and my phone.
Beware that syncthing is a bad backup strategy as it will update to sync the broken file (or even file deletion). I advice to do some other sort of backup. Even a simple shell script that copies selected folders into selected location that you run from time to time is a better one.
Edit1: I've looked at my script, I use rsync for that.
Syncthing can easily be set to retain the last n copies. And you only need one or two to protect against corruption because you aren't editing a corrupted file. Likewise a lot of the KeepassX clients can snapshot periodically too. Been doing this for years with no issues over Linux/Win/iOS and Android.
As does syncthing under the hood. The issue is with backing up an open database and getting an inconsistent state, but KeepassXC keeps its database closed except on update. I also tick the backup old before save setting in KeepassXC (the aforementioned 'and it's backup') and use a versioning backup of the sync directory on the desktop with 3-2-1, so I am sanguine.
KeePassXC can automatically keep a backup when it makes changes.
You can toggle syncing only in one direction
I can also recommend Bitwarden which is a hosted password manager (enabling e.g. automatic sync). The commitment to FOSS is not as great (there have been some controversies AFAIK) but self-hosting is possible.
A little trick for people who are worried about putting business / work passwords in web-hosted managers such as Bitwarden: put just the username in Bitwarden, and put all the full information into KeepassXC.
Bitwarden will recognize the site and fill in the username - meaning you are at the correct site and are not being phished. Then, you can fill in the password from KeepassXC. This gives the benefits of browser-based managers while keeping more sensitive passwords (and recovery info) local-only.
If it is only about fishing, why not use the KeePass browser plugin? That can also autofill by domain.
Good question - does the browser plug in sync to the internet or is any part of it internet accessible? I've not used it. I just know a lot of people are put off by the idea of their passwords being "in the cloud" or otherwise accessible through the internet. Looking at the add-on for Firefox, it looks like it communicates with the local keepassxc instance, which should be fine for many people.
Thanks. I was not aware of this option.
LocalSend should be called God Send because it'll save your life. It's AirDrop, but for everything and open source. Works really well, no setup, no server.
I love LocalSend, the only downside is that both devices must be on the same network. So it won't work for sending a file to someone else at a bar.
What if they connect to your hotspot?
That works but requires that you hand over a key for the hot-spot which makes it significantly more cumbersome, especially compared to airdrop
Unfortunately, its not reliable. For large media files it gets stuck. Also, sometimes the local server is not discoverable on the other end. Even though I tried the troubleshooting step.
I had tested with windows and android so it could be different on Linux.
I've never personally had these issues. Sent large files without problem and never had discovery issues.
Looks awesome. Found it for Android on fdroid.
Local send has worked really poorly for me, and so has every program similar to it open source or not. The only network file sharing program that has always worked (mostly) floorlessly for me is AirDrop.
Been using it for a long time, it's great!
I like pairdrop more, because i can use it e. G. to send files to my university working pc
Forgejo: A self-hosted, lightweight software forge offering Git repository hosting with an easy-to-install, low-maintenance platform focused on collaboration, federation, and privacy.
I always read it as "Forge-Go," for some reason...
How are you supposed to pronounce it?
Or simply for-jay-oh
Like this: https://forgejo.org/faq/#where-does-the-name-come-from
Lichess: A popular free, open-source online chess platform offering play, puzzles, and tournaments.
IMO, this is the way to play Chess online.
Yea, when chess.com started limiting engine analyses to 1 per day I jumped ship to lichess and never looked back.
Lichess is a lot more liberal with what it considers a mistake. I guess chess.com needs to butter you up.
Newpipe, an YouTube client, which is:
ad free
lightweight
useful, it allows downloading videos, music, and playing them when screen is locked
usable without account
multi-platform, it can also serve as client for the PeerTube, Bandcamp, SoundCloud
LibRedirect is an open-source browser extension for Firefox and Microsoft Edge that automatically redirects popular online services like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, and others to privacy-friendly alternative websites, enhancing user privacy by avoiding trackers and data collection on the original platforms.
I have it setup for IMDB as well.
What is the alternative?
Libremdb. It shows the first page of the movie from IMDB.
IMDB is owned by Amazon so they are on my avoid list.
TIL. Thanks.
Sounds nice, for which services do you use it?
I've had mixed experiences with Invidious but haven't tried that for some time.
Not original comment but I use it to not directly go to Twitter, Reddit, and sometimes YouTube (ReVanced or FreeTube for me). They have a shit ton of services that can be redirected, although you have to worry about the proxies that are dead (Instagram, Tiktok). Even then, you can use it to avoid directly visiting the real site if you miss-clicked.
Yeah the Instagram/Tiktok proxies always seem to be down or rate limited. Self hosted redlib tho is nice most of the time.
Rustdesk.
It's TeamViewer / AnyDesk without the headaches.
A TeamViewer shooter coming out to downvote you lol
Like licensing issues?
Also MeshCentral.
Do you know if RustDesk is a fully open-source project? I don't get their pricing plan idea for Self-Hosted. It also doesn't seem to be packaged for Debian or Ubuntu. Is it really, fully, developed in the open as an open-source project?
Joplin: An open-source note-taking and to-do app with markdown support and end-to-end encryption.
btw this is powerful. i recently upgraded to Joplin from using colornotes. there's so much you can do and a ton of QoL things they've added that make organizing and searching notes much easier.
Joplin is awesome and I wish I'd known about it sooner.
How does it compare to Obsidian? Other than being FOSS which is a win.
obsidian seems to be some huge ambitious app that means to do a bunch of graphing and whatnot. seems to be more of a workboard app than a note taking one. (just going off their homepage. i was not familiar with the app before you mentioned it)
joplin is just for taking notes or journalling. its very good at giving you built in tools to organize your notes as well. but its quite a minimal and efficient style. it is a powerful app. but it's made for a different purpose.
I've used Obsidian and just today moved to Joplin. Obsidian has way more features for power users and wider array of community plugins.
BUT
Joplin is FOSS and it still has plenty of features. Think of Obsidian capabilities as Microsoft Excel, whereas Joplin is at the level of Google Sheets. And Joplin notes can be encrypted, meaning .md files won't be found lying around.
I've tried it for a long time, and it's the best note-taking program, especially if you run the sync server yourself.
Can't live without Joplin anymore. Just being in control of your own stuff and so useful on many devices. Next step for Joplin: make todo/tasks even better, for instance by making a connection with todo.txt possibly (another open source set of apps I came to love deeply).
Anki (and AnkiDroid):
The gods of learning and studying with flashcards. You will never want another flashcard program, especially if you were still using Quizlet (so enshittified now...) because Anki uses SRS (spaced repetition system) which makes you review things right before your brain forgets it to reinforce the subject material.
Add-ons: Bread and butter of Anki, I use several to make beautiful automatic flashcards of reading material/videos/games when I study Japanese. There's an add-on for literally anything.
Cross platform: Free on desktop, cost $25 on iOS, and free on Android, although Ankidroid is an unofficial app. Still great though!
Cloud: Syncs your anki database across devices. If you don't use anki for a while, will delete from the cloud, but as long as you have your own local database intact, you can reupload again later. (EDIT: Went through settings, you can self-host your own sync server!)
Sharing Decks: If you don't feel like making your own decks, download ones that others shared for free.
Anki is used by language learners, college students, med students, etc. If you need to memorize it, use Anki.
Pandoc: A universal document converter allowing conversion among numerous markup formats including Markdown, LaTeX, HTML, and Word.
I couldnt figure it out, probably because I am a CL noob. Do you use a gui for it?
I asked perplexity and just copy pasted the command in the terminal and it worked.
the official way is with no gui, maybe some third party gui exist
tmux: A terminal multiplexer that enables managing multiple terminal sessions within a single window, allowing detaching and reattaching sessions to keep programs running in the background.
On a similar note: zellij.
I never really dive into tmux, but I used zellij and it's really nice and working pretty well
I have it launch automatically on ssh sessions. If the connection drops, nothing happens, the next time I connect, it automatically reattaches 😎
OsmAnd, mobile app for navigation and maps. Offline, based on OSM, can do anything. I use it for checking out and bookmarking places, finding POIs and pubic transport stations, routing (especially for bike and foot), measuring distances, and so on. It can also show and record tracks, do car navigation, edit OSM points, and more stuff that I don't use. Pro/plus/full version free on FDroid
It also works really well for routing on water. One feature I really like is being able to specify the dimensions of your boat and then having it take that into account when calculating a route.
Zotero: a free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, such as PDF and ePUB files.
I really wish there was a minimal, command-line alternative to Zotero. Zotero, as it is, is great for most people, but it really slows down after a few hundred entries, and the GUI doesn’t seem necessary for all that it does.
This guy reference!
I use this for archiving news and magazine articles as well (with snapshots), sorted on topic so that I 1) might be able to remember where I read something and easily find an article again if I discuss it with someone and 2) have a good starting point for researching something I don't have time for or the will for now.
I have set up the file sync on a self-hosted WebDAV server as well as it quickly racks up storage space with all those snapshots and you fairly quickly reach the top tier storage plan they offer.
Zotero 7 brought some good UI improvements, but it is really resource heavy (at least on Linux). A CLI-interface as was mentioned under here would be interesting.
Wow interesting, I didn't know you could self-host storage on Zotero.
Immich is a photo/video hosting solution à la Google photos
Typst: A modern typesetting system designed for easy document creation with markup inspired by Markdown but more powerful and programmable.
And it compiles crazy fast to pdf!
Shattered pixel dungeon. Open source dungeob crawler roguelike. Extremely fun.
and it's fork https://github.com/TrashboxBobylev/Rat-King-Adventure
It is like a 10 year old game with many variants but the shattered version is still being developed
Edit, I checked it out the one you linked is an expansion fork. Thanks for linking. It has a lot of changes to the original in a good way.
You mean extremely tilting!
rnote Rnote is an open-source vector-based drawing app for sketching, handwritten notes and to annotate documents and pictures. It is targeted at students, teachers and those who own a drawing tablet and provides features like Pdf and picture import and export, an infinite canvas and an adaptive UI for big and small screens.
How does it compare to Xournalpp? I've always used that but it seems a bit antiquated.
This looks like exactly what I've been searching for. Will try it out when I'm home.
FairEmail, email app for Android that has every feature I can imagine. Available on FDroid
librewolf a privacy-focused fork of the latest stable firefox (win,linux,mac)
Lemmy ^[1]^
::: spoiler References
LibreOffice - simply the best office suite there is (IMHO). I was a MS-office user for years, but since I switched, I haven't looked back...
qBittorrent: only for your legal torrenting needs from e.g. archive.org :>
VLC (VideoLAN media player): play media files, DVDs, network streams and more. Just works,
Inkscape - the best vector graphics program out there. So easy to use, and so powerful.
Calibre: great e-book manager
This post is a gold mine!
Yes! I've already found several gems
Czkawka: A free, fast, and open-source tool for finding and removing duplicate files, cleaning empty folders, and optimizing storage by content-based file comparison across multiple platforms.
Ooh, that looks polished, I’ll have to look into i- why is hiccup from how to train your dragon there
'Czkawka' = 'Hiccup' in Polish. As to why he's there - iunno, ask the devs 😅
ooooh, well that makes a bit more sense, thank you!
Ooh, that sounds Polish, I'll have to look into it.
Ooh, that sounds handy, I'll have to look into it.
Looks awesome. Gonna try it out.
PieFed: a link aggregator and forum platform built for the Fediverse, focusing on individual control, safety, decentralized power, and healthy community interactions, with features like reputation indicators and keyword filters to enhance user experience.
Beware that client support is very lacking
It’s come a long way recently, I’m currently using piefed on voyager rn and it works great
I would love to too as Voyager is my favorite client
But there is no option to change a post's language, thus making the app unusable for people who speak multiple languages
I’ve seen a couple of other clients add support for piefed recently as well, although I don’t follow them closely cuz I’m happy with voyager. Maybe boost or mlem supports this with piefed already?
Mlem is IOS only and boost doesn't support piefed
Oof rip sorry lol, thought I’d seen a post about boost and piefed
screen
a gnu until that let's you run a persistent session, even if you log off. log back in and reattach your screen and whatever you were doing is still running.
I much prefer tmux over screen.
Curious as to why is that. Can you please elaborate?
Sure thing, the reasons that are most important for me personally are better multi-attach, easier splitting and resize, better plugin ecosystem and it being more modern and actively maintained in general.
I was recently introduced to this and I am very glad I found it. I was once recommended it, but then I thought they meant to attach a physical screen to my headless server....
Copyparty turns almost any device into a file server with resumable uploads/downloads using any web browser
Reading that readme was nuts. Others can start downloading your upload before you finish uploading as well, which probably makes for some novel real-time use cases.
There is an intro video to see the features, is really good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15_-hgsX2V0
Yea, I have to sit down and watch a few of their videos - I like that they went through the trouble to make a lot of video content for all of the features and uses as well, makes it really convenient to learn about passively.
Krita is a fantastic program for drawing. It's made for making beautiful paintings and animations.
Firefox - the original private webbrowser. Even though some people don't like the options in it (like those that let you stream Netflix and other DRM content). If people care about privacy, they use this browser, or one that is made from it...
Tenacity - a pre-enshitification fork of Audacity. An audio recorder and editor that does multi-track recording, effects and much more in a really simple UI.
GIMP - unlike Krita - which is made for drawing - this is made for photo-editing. It's like Photoshop. The learning curve is a bit steep, but it is really powerful.
Xournal++: A C++ handwriting note-taking software with PDF annotation support.
Flameshot: screenshotting tool with everything you would ever need for screenshots
Nicotine+: A lightweight, free, and open-source graphical client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer file-sharing network.
What is Soulseek primarily used for?
Music
Thunderbird - a brilliant e-mail program, which also handles contacts, newsfeeds, calender and more. It's available for multiple platforms, like Android, Windows, Linux and so forth...
Helix Editor: A fast, post-modern text editor that combines modal editing and syntax awareness built in Rust for programmers.
Helix is my favorite editor. It's like Vim, but less obtuse because you can see the text you're about to perform an action on before you take it.
Nuclear: A free, open-source music player that streams content from multiple free sources like YouTube, SoundCloud, and Bandcamp without ads or subscriptions.
Is YouTube free? Is it ignoring the usage agreements of those sources if it's stripping out adverts?
This looks great! I've been looking for a replacement for Spotube.
Mullvad vpn, probably the best vpn imo
Or Proton VPN if you can't/don't want to pay. (like me)
I love mullvad but im getting more and more captchas recently. Plus some streaming services only work without it. This is very sad, do any of the alternatives reduce this anti user behaviour or do i just have to live with it?
strudel. From the website:
It's really fun to make music in it, I recommend trying it out!
link to repo (codeberg)
emacs, the text editor. it's so powerful and customizable that I feel listing any feature would do so many others a disservice
And also (n)vim, if you want an app that does one job and does it well.
Yeah, Emacs is the best. Better than any windows Operating System can ever be.
Audiobookshelf. Not exactly a "hidden" gem at this point, but I'm putting it here for today's lucky 10,000. Simply the best way to store and stream audiobooks. Does podcasts too, and ebooks, although there are better tools for those.
Comaps, navigation from openstreetmap
Zathura: A highly customizable, minimalist, and keyboard-driven document viewer supporting PDF, PostScript, and DjVu via plugins.
Bookwyrm, a book tracker and review sharing plateform that is part of the fediverse allowing you to share your notes and review about books in the threadiverse as well as the twittoverse.
MusicBrainz Picard: superb mp3 tagger with online metadata lookup feature and audio track fingerprinting
Pass: a terminal based standard unix password manager.
I have used Pass for years. Saddy I stopped using it after the Android client became unmaintained https://github.com/android-password-store/Android-Password-Store/discussions/3260%F0%9F%98%A2
Same, have used it for years, both on terminal and with qtpass GUI, on Linux and Windows desktops, the lack of a maintained android client, has me looking into keepassxc and vaultwarden, still haven't made a switch.
Breakout71
I could not believe I didn't find this fun free gem sooner. I'll let the description from F-Droid explain the details:
This is a roguelike twist on the original Breakout formula: The goal is to catch as many coins as possible during 7 levels. Coins appear when you break bricks. They fly around, bounce and roll, and you need to catch them with your paddle. At the end of the level, you get to pick upgrades. There are 50+ different upgrades that impact the gameplay in various ways. Many upgrades will impact your combo, that's the number of coins spawned for each brick broken. Your "combo" is displayed on your paddle. Your score is displayed in the top right corner of the screen. Oh, and don't miss the ball, you don't have extra lives.
So addicting, lost several hours to it and i dont even like mobilegames...
THIS IS SO FUN!
and lastly, Tor Browser: anonymous web browser to evade state censorship and surveillance
Tox is easy-to-use software that connects you with friends and family without anyone else listening in. While other big-name services require you to pay for features, Tox is completely free and comes without advertising. Chat, P2P serverless, screen/file sharing, voice, video, groups, encrypted.
https://tox.chat/
https://github.com/TokTok/c-toxcore
binary eye, OR code and barcode scanner with no ads
Portmaster, nowadays mandatory, monitor the traffic of all installed apps and even from the OS itself, blocking with a simple click all unwanted traffic, Inbuild DNS crypt with dynamic filterlists (customizable) blocking ads, trackers and unwanted crap from big companies. Optional SPN service (paid). Windows and Linux.
https://safing.io/
https://github.com/safing/portmaster
alternativeto.net is great for finding these
Dino: a modern open-source chat client (XMPP) for the desktop.
Dino (for desktop) pairs nicely with Conversations for Android (mobile).
Logseq: note-taking and knowledge management application that supports Markdown and Org-mode syntax, featuring powerful linking, block-based organization, and full local data storage for privacy
zoxide: A smarter cd command. Supports all major shells.
This is such a handy tool, and the database can be queried for other tools too. Like project switchers or fzf for example.
Vassal - an open-source (LGPL-2.1) boardgame engine. basically, people build different modules for each game they want to play, then they can play that game over the internet or solo. Mostly focused on "chit-and-hex" style wargames.
agate and amfora, a server and client for the text-based "small web" protocol called Gemini. Allows to publish and read text, images and media in a really simple and accessible way.
(Works also great in a local file network to distribute media and docs).
NextCloud - Self hosted personal cloud solution that you can run on Docker or bare metal.
https://nextcloud.com/
simple-scan. Scans documents with zero fuss. Easy and intuitive which is important for software that is not used frequently.
FanControl: superb PC fan manager with custom temperature/fan speed curves and the options to combine sensors whatever way you like
MakeHuman is a 3D character creation software designed to simplify the creation of virtual humans through a graphical user interface. The software allows users to create realistic human characters by adjusting parameters like gender, age, height, weight, and ethnicity through slider controls. Characters can be customized with clothes, hair, poses, and materials from the built-in library and exported to 3D soft, like Blender.
https://static.makehumancommunity.org/makehuman.html
https://github.com/makehumancommunity/makehuman
FindMyDevice, a find my server with channels through sms, a self hostable server, notifications. This is one of my favorite android utilities.
A search came back with many different results. Link?
https://f-droid.org/packages/de.nulide.findmydevice
Didn't realize it was that powerful. I have been meaning to set this up as a viable alternative to the proprietary Find My device apps, because I've been concerned that not having an equivalent will be a disadvantage...
Check out zood location, as I said in another comment, also open source location tracker. Only on android though.
That seems to be for just sharing location, though. That isn't as useful for me because I rarely have my location on, and I don't share it with others. I'm looking more for something that allows remote control/locking of a device in case it is lost or stolen.
Sorry, I misunderstood you. If that is your use case then definitely try it out. I find myself losing my phone, grabbing a trusted contacts phone and texting myself fmd ring. It does have a webpage where you can lock, erase or take photos with the phone as well as location tracking.
Ah got it, thanks for explaining. I will give it a shot.
ShareX, one of the best Screensho/cast productivity tool, edt tools, OCR, QR codes, scrolling capture, color picker......, storing locally, uploading captures to hosts, sharelink in clipboard. Complement with right click extension for Firefox and Chromium
Sadly Windows only
https://getsharex.com/
https://github.com/ShareX/ShareX
Subsurface
I recently found out after creating Linux, Linus Torvalds wanted to make a good open source scuba dive log software. Today, it's probably one of the best, if not the best dive log programs out there and I recently used this myself on a recent dive and it's great.
PairDrop like Localsend or Airdrop but working on anything that has an internet connection and a resonably new web Browser! You can share files even when on different networks, by pairing devices. Works like a charm.
I think android HealthConnect doesn't get enough notice as it is a kind of silent background service.
It is local, opt-in, and privacy respecting connection API for sharing data between fitness apps with fine control over what gets shared where. You can have the shittiest privacy-violating fitness app and it can't just steal all of the data from your smartwatch or whatever because you connect the two apps via a stupid cloud integration.
Are you sure? Doom was GPL'ed in 1999.
I already made a list
zellij: A modern terminal workspace and multiplexer focused on usability and extensibility, featuring configurable layouts and plugin support.
fzf fuzzy finder. Great tool to quickly find those files you were looking for.
Learned about the mentos thing in 2006. Saw a list of things to flavor coke. This was #4 on the list and I decided to try it (yay mint coke) - at a dollar tree parking lot, in my car. Went off in my mouth and I maintained the pressure until I got the door open and my head out. Thankfully little mess on me or the car. Learned the internet can be full of sneaky assholes that day.
Markor is a handy fast Android note taking app with Markdown and todo.txt support.
Since everything it creates are text files, it pairs well with various file syncing apps recommend in this thread.
Librera (android pdf+ reader).
I spend a lot of time reading pdfs on my phone, this has done an excellent job. Well featured, responsive, and seems respectful of the battery.
Ads or payment if you buy from the playstore, but free on F-droid and source code is here.
Varia is a download manager written using GTK4. Simple, easy, and best of all speeds up downloads significantly on most sites. There also is a extension for Chromium and Firefox, but I haven't tried them.
GrayJay platform player. I use it for youtube only but it has many sources.
https://grayjay.app/
https://gitlab.futo.org/videostreaming/grayjay/
(Not to poop on NewPipe, but this app is better in my opinion, I swapped after their player was bugged for me and I got a bit annoyed on the devs response to not adding SponsorBlock (you can say no to a feature ofc, but he decided to add reasoning that was bad))
Kodi multimedia center.
aria2. From the website:
wezterm: A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer written by @wez and implemented in Rust
This is my favorite terminal emulator and very configurable with lua.
tomb: Tomb is a minimalistic CLI based hidden file encryption tool based on Linux dm-crypt and LUKS.
In addition to its cool ass name, it also has a GUI that's called Mausoleum.
krename is another excellent, but not as well known as it should be, KDE app.
krename can rename files and directories, and directories recursively, to almost anything. You can rename:
or with a mix of everything.
krename has a simple mode and an advanced mode for renaming, so you don't have to jump into the deep end with the features.
You do have to be careful with some of the file info functions - it will happily try to rename a movie or a pdf with (non-existent) image EXIF info, for example. That would result in a file with a name you did not intend.
GEDKeeper: genealogy software with many functions
(disclaimer: I contributed to this project :) )
Open Hardware Monitor: track and visualise CPU/GPU/HDD/etc. performance over time
(I've been using the original repo that I see hasn't been updated in some years, this is a more active fork.)
OONI probe, a tool to test the censorship of wifi networks
It can also probe the country you're in. For example, in China none of the tests work
Restic, a reliable backup solution.
eldood: lightweight tool to find dates where everyone is free.
TerraForge3D, is a procedural terrain generation toolkit as well as a procedural modellling toolkit. TerraForge3D is suitable for modern 3D Environment design.
https://jaysmito101.github.io/TerraForge3D/
https://github.com/Jaysmito101/TerraForge3D?tab=readme-ov-file
OliveTin, gives you a clean web UI for pre-defined shell scripts, with a dynamically reloadable YAML configuration.
There are a ton of things you could use it for, but I use it for container and system updates. A pre-processor runs on a schedule and collects a list of all containers and systems on my network that have available updates, and generates the OliveTin YAML config with a button for each. Loading up the OliveTin webUI in a browser and clicking the corresponding button installs the update and cycles the container or reboots the host as needed. It makes it trivially easy to see which systems need updating at a glance, and to apply those updates from any machine on my network with a web browser, including my phone or tablet.
freac: free audio converter :)
Zulip: An open-source team chat platform with topic-focused threaded conversations.
super productivity
To do list with time boxing/time tracking. No data collection--it's all local to your device. There are several DIY options to sync the desktop version with the mobile app.
NotallyX. Basically free, open source Google Keep, for anyone that enjoys that app.
krusader is a dual-paned file manager for KDE. It runs on Linux (of course), MS Windows, and Mac OSX.
Folder sync is what makes krusader outstanding, even if you don't care about dual-pane file management. Open the two folders you want to sync in the panes and go to Tools > Synchronize Folders. You can synchronize both ways, exclude files, delete lone files, etc. Very powerful.
Being a KDE app, krusader does not skimp on features, so there are lots of other things that krusader can do.
link: https://krusader.org/
snac: a simple, minimalistic ActivityPub instance.
mednafen, the multiplatform emulator. classic gaming is so easy with mednafen's graphical interface
Newsboat: an RSS/Atom feed reader for the text console.
Changedetection.io: track selected websites for updates or price changes
beancount: double-entry accounting from text files.
Also, ledger.
CopyQ: clipboard manager with history and pinned items
The UI is a bit janky, but it does the job well.
Mihon Manga reader for android. Allows auto aggregation from web sources to make tracking and reading manga smooth and easy
sgt-puzzles. Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle collection.
Contains a bunch of simple puzzles, of the minesweeper and sudoku style. Loopy is my favorite.
Available for Linux, Windows, MacOS, Android, and anything with a web browser and a mouse. Packaged in Debian and F-droid, and probably many other places.
I like it for time wasting in lines at the DMV, for a low-stakes game when anxious, and for falling asleep.
Guake, drop down terminal.
SMplayer, one of the best multimedia player, fast, capable to stream YouTube and almost everything, all codecs.
Windows (all), Linux, Mac
https://www.smplayer.info/
https://github.com/smplayer-dev/smplayer
Hexchat, irc client
Photoshop (almost) right in your browser, desktop or mobile, also as PWA or even selfhosted
https://viliusle.github.io/miniPaint/
https://github.com/viliusle/miniPaint?tab=readme-ov-file
readest.
good play books alternative. upload your own pdfs and read them across devices. syncs progress, so pick up wherever you left off.
candle, an android app that turns your display into a flashlight-like utility. very useful on tablets without an actual flashlight. I have a shortcut to it on my lock screen on my phone, and I use a red background to see when my wife is sleeping.
brilliant!
Open Video Downloader: Download any video or playlist from Youtube as audio and/or video, in various resolutions.
Toot: a CLI and TUI tool for interacting with Mastodon instances from the command line.
FMD (FindMyDevice) - An absolute necessity, especially if you aren't using Google services.
It allows you to use any device/contact you've approved to send commands to enable/disable various settings on your devices, like bluetooth, do not disturb, camera, GPS, etc. via SMS, a FMD server (self-host optional) or from notifications (i.e. use Signal to send commands). So if you've simply lost your phone in your house you could make it ring no matter what, or if it got stolen you could lock it, use GPS, or factory reset it entirely.
The dev made it after he lost a phone that didn't have Find My Device activated.
Trillium Next: The last note taking software you will ever need. It works as a standalone, or in a client/server configuration across almost all platforms.
Linguist translator extension (Chromium, Firefox). Multi-engine (customizable), TTS, translate pages, selected text, words, inclusion in context menu, offline translation, privacy focused, 130 languages.
https://linguister.io/
https://github.com/translate-tools/linguist
weechat, a multiprotocol chat client with many user scripts and a remote interface.
ZOOD location, a location sharing app that actually works
Dude you don't even know how long I've been looking for something exactly like this
Edit: shit android only?
Its the only location sharing app that actually works (and is open source). Glad I could help you out!
I'm kinda concerned that they don't give any server selfhosting instructions. And the F-Droid page warns:
The Zim Desktop Wiki. Backed by files stored in git, lightweight and fast, ideal to capture and organize unstructured information.
tag studio It's a file manager designed to use tags instead of files because tags are a much better system. It's still in alpha and I haven't actually tested it yet but I plan to use it instead of regular file managers once it becomes stable and well supported.
Ferdium - Allows to run multiple online chat/mail accounts in a single interface, without cluttering our browser. It's an electron-based software that takes a lot of ram, but it's a nice way to organize stuff and avoid getting overwhelmed.
podget: a simple podcast aggregator optimized for running as a scheduled background job (i.e. cron).
gitolite for when a shared git folder is not enough but you don't want a full gitlab. Provides SSH-based access management for a bunch of git repos.
Auto Dark Mode: to switch my Windows between light and dark modes based on sunset / sunrise times
CoolerControl - Fan control for Linux based on any available sensors.
I find it much easier to use than fancontrol included with lm_sensors and much more reliable for me.
Since using the internet for a quarter century on daily base, there are half the Internet in my bookmarks. Gems a lot.
SherpaOnnx TTS for Android. There are many different voices to pick from that sound very life like and are totally worth using with GPS apps like CoMaps.
Also, just found out about Medicat recently but haven't used it yet. It looks fantastic though: Medicat is a toolkit that helps compile a selection of the latest computer diagnostic and recovery tools into an easy to use toolkit.
Ventoy is a software you put on a USB stick to make it so you can load as many bootable ISOs as you want on it at the same time and still use the leftover space for normal file storage.
Having discarded many other options, I'm looking at Cloud Stack for hosting VMs at home and the job2 site.
This will be like your proxmox, libvirt, openstack (which derived from it), oVirt(RHEV,OLVM,etc).
If you are in the market for a new alternative, please consider this less-known option.
Silverbullet is like Trilium or Obsidian a markdown notes app, which is lightweight and highly customizable (by css and scripting). And all files could be forever accessed as simple markdown-files in an easy folder structure without much overhead. The database is only for indexing and could be restored anytime.
I used to recommend Glimpse as a more sane front-end for GIMP but they pretty much stopped maintaining it and put in the towel.
mblaze: a set of Unix utilities for processing and interacting with mail messages which are stored in maildir folders.
Workrave: screen break reminder
I recommend v1.11 because the v1.10 UI is very retro 😅
pigallery2 A super lightweight immivh alternative which makes browsing photos a breeze
PortMaster, program designed to streamline the management of Ports on your handheld Linux devices
Shosetsu is a Free & Open Source Android Novel reader that I use to read my favorite freely available web novels!!
Eternity for Lemmy (somewhat.. inactive? can't tell though) for Infinity Reddit App but for Lemmy, as it has the best UI for me out of all others, IMO and Quillpad, for note taking purposes, I love its notebook system, and the look of it.
MkvToolNix has been really useful for me, mainly just for trimming videos and removing surplus language tracks/subtiltes without having to reencode
https://www.pollen-robotics.com/reachy-mini/