Gonna go with Firefox as both my most-used piece of open-source software, and the software I see as most important to its ecosystem. If Firefox fails then we’ve just got Chromium-based browsers and, I guess, Safari.
This a million times over!
I love and use Bitwarden daily.
There something I don’t understand. How does one use Bitwarden daily? It generates, remembers and autofill passwords, right? I rarely enter a password anywhere. What am I missing? Please educate me.
There are certain sites which terminate your sessions after a while. For example, banking sites or most government portals. In such situations, the auto fill function is very handy.
Also the fact that if you use a shared machine at all to login, it’s best practice to intentionally log out of everything, and clear cookies/cache when you’re done.
Like the other commenter said, I use it for sites that tend to sign me out after a few hours. I also use it for work things that sign out every session.
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I auto wipe cookies all on every browser close so that gets more use.
I also love bitwarden daily ;)
I knew about Bitwarden, but I thought how could a cloud based thing be truly open source, but they actually do have their backend on GitHub 🤯
Firefox and its derivatives. They’re the last free bastion preventing a Chromium monopoly on the browser market, which is hugely important - especially these days with Google’s push for Mv3.
Signal, Thunderbird and Bitwarden
Signal, Firefox and Eclipse.
Too bad Signal are dropping support for Windows 7 ;(
Kind of odd to use Signal (a privacy and security focused messenger) on Windows 7 (an EOL and thus highly unsecure operating system).
it is a development machine with highly specialised tools - Altium Designer, SolidWorks, IDA Pro, Altera Quartus, etc.
Upgrading the OS is not a trivial thing as would be on a phone or tablet. Also when upgrading the OS it would make sense to upgrade the HW as well, and that is a major investment. And Signal is just not important really to warrant that.
I would still use it on my phone though, but on the PC is just Viber unfortunately (whatsapp dropped as well).
I wouldn’t say upgrading the OS on a phone or tablet is trivial… Especially when compared to a PC. Upgrading the OS on a PC is much easier.
Both is trivial in my opinion. The problem is OP using ancient software that only runs on an ancient OS. In this case upgrading is not trivial. Even though upgrading is a major investment in this case, it only gets worse the later its done. Typical case of technical debt
Well, it depends on the phone and tablet of course, but given how many cannot be rooted anymore thee days, I’d say it’s no longer trivial.
I didn’t know thunderbird was open source!
Yup, it’s the nephew, so to speak, of Firefox!
Ill throw in some obscure ones I use daily.
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StemRoller. It’s an AI-powered toolthat takes an mp3 and separates each instrument into its own file. Im a musician, and having access to stems like this is a game changer.
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Carla is a tool for hosting VST plugins without the need for a full DAW. I primarily use Amp Simulators, and this has become a mandatory tool on any computer I use. It’s also maintained by the creator of KXStudio.
omg, stemroller sounds amazing!
Stemroller sounds insane.
Just downloaded and tried StemRoller. Definitely impressed, I’d say it works marginally better than any of the “free” (aka trial version, need to pay for full features) stem separators I’ve tried online, so very happy to find this!
Both of these sound interesting, though I can’t really think of a use for running vsts without a DAW. For a moment I thought it would be nice to play synth without opening a daw, but if I decide to record something I played I have to set it all up again.
I use Ampsims nearly exclusively. When I’m practising or just noodling I don’t have any intention to record. Carla has a much smaller footprint than a standard DAW, and therefore less energy usage.
Keep in mind I’m a string instrument player primarily. I don’t play with synths or anything like that.
Those I’ll need to check especially the vst host. Nice :)
These two links might single handedly change my life. Many thanks!!
How does StemRoller compare to Serato?
I haven’t tried it so I can’t speak to the features/results you get, but I do know Serato is closed-source. I always go with FOSS if I can.
Same here, I’ll give it a shot once I can.
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Blender by a huge mile. Yes, there’s tons of other software like Linux, of course, but Blender is such a powerful, well managed, economically viable and healthy (community) project that it should be shown as an example of how Open Source should be.
My biggest hurdle with other projects is the fanboys, because many times they’re quite toxic, insulting everybody who doesn’t adore the project and don’t accept constructive criticism.
GNU+Linux
Firefox, Thunder, LibreOffice, Kdenlive, Audacity on GNU+Linux … (I’m no pro which is why I’m on Ubuntu but even still, I haven’t paid for software in years)
uBlock Origin, it’s not even close!
Firefox. It is the only thing keeping Google from total internet domination
Firefox and Bitwarden
LibreOffice is equal to any office software out there, and has been much more stable than OpenOffice, and works without an internet connection unlike Google Docs.
Linux.
Proxmox, opnsense, fdroid, and many more on r/selfhosted (now on lemmy also) .
sunshine, moonlight ( play my games anywhere in the world, games run on my pc at home)
Firefox (the best browser against google monopoly), thunderbird (best mail client)
LineageOS, microG, Mozilla Location services, Magisk (let me use Android without any of google tracking)
Bitwarden, Proton mail/vpn, Nextcloud (finally no gmail tracking)
Jellyfin, kodi (lets me create my own Netflix)
GNU/Linux, GNOME, KDE and host of other Linux projects. No more windows tracking. Also if you want to really know how the OS works, you should start tinkering with Linux. I expanded my knowledge base by just using Linux as daily driver.
The list just goes on and on. I am so grateful for all the open source devs that put their time in developing these tools.
For those wanting to go further, checkout https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
I’d go with either Firefox or Thunderbird. Both are immensely useful pieces of software that I use on a daily basis, and have evolved (mostly) nicely over time.
Not to give Mozilla too much credit, Nextcloud is also pretty slick!
I forgot Firefox was even open source
Wait for real? I feel like that’s their only marketing point sometimes 😂
No, I did too and I love Firefox.
These days, being an open-source browser that isn’t part of the Chromium monopoly is pretty much the only good thing they have left…
That is a good point, and in my experience Firefox has just kinda sucked less in the last couple of years. But of course that’s anecdotal so doesn’t really mean much lol
Home Assistant, a powerful home automation platform.
HA is still more of a lifestyle choice than just software.
Someday I’ll get around to putting those bulbs back on the Homekit controller instead of trying to run them through OTBR.
The exhaust fan turning on when the litterbox detects a cat is pretty cool though.
It does take up a lot of time, but I’ve found it really rewarding.
Was there more functionality through HomeKit Controller?
I’ve thought about running the air purifier when the cats use the tray, but haven’t done it yet. What do you use to detect the cats?
https://www.litter-robot.com/explore/litter-robot-4
Unfortunately their API isn’t local and goes through their site.
Cheers! I have been thinking about a Litter Robot, haven’t been willing to fork out the cash yet though. How do you rate it?
The cats appreciate it, and it makes things less urgent. Gives more time when we’re out in vacation. They don’t really use the old one anymore.
You still have to deal with it in the end though.
Thanks very much mate!
I’ve had one for 5 years and it’s definitely a quality of life improvement over the alternative. Yes you will need to empty it weekly or so (really wish they sold an upgrade to the waste drawer) and yes it will require cleaning occasionally… but otherwise pretty flawless.
The company behind it is repair friendly (sells parts, kits, provides instructions and videos) which I consider a big advantage from the competition, especially when investing this much into a fart box. Only fix we had to do was replace the waste full detector light bar and it left a good impression how DIY supportive they were.
Can you do voice activation with this? I am using google home it works pretty well, but I’d like to move to a more custom setup. But I need voice activation. It’s so nice just talking.
Philpo explained it well.
I’m currently using Home Assistant as my integration platform to talk to everything, and as an automation engine to make things happen.
Home Assistant can then expose your devices to other platforms like Apple HomeKit and Google Home.
For controlling things manually, I mostly use the Apple Home app, and Siri and Google Assistant for voice control.
This year the Home Assistant developers are focusing heavily on building out native and local voice control. There will be an announcement in a week on their progress. It looks like they will be announcing the ability to use wake works to activate voice commands (like Google/Siri/Alexa but all done without compromising your privacy).
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/live/sXzItFksYFA?feature=share
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
You can actually still use google Home if you want to - it integrates well with Google Home and Alexa but is currently massively expanding their own voice assistant option.
Home Assistant is more a “background” integrator - it links up all you different smart home options, makes them thereby smarter and adds external data (e.g. weather, traffic,etc.) whenever you want. And of course enables you to easily add your own visualisation and your own automations.
It is on one side incredibly easy to “start”. And on the other side incredibly powerful.
