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Definitely Syncthing.
Great app to sync my phone with my laptop.
It's also great for sharing files with friends/family. I gave a couple of friends a folder address, and we all just drop shit in there that we want the others to see.
I have an extensive syncthing set up but I find the mobile app a battery hungry
Syncthing-fork which fixes battery drain issue and others as well. I'll just leave this here for your battery needs: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncthingandroid/
Firefox. Fuck chrome amiright
The funny thing is that when Chrome was first released, I was pretty excited that open source web engines were becoming more widely adopted.
Whatever one thinks of the current dominance of Chrome, I vastly prefer it to the time when Internet Explorer 6 had >90% market share. Open standards and FOSS technologies really are a winning cause even if the end products aren't always FOSS.
Kde connect on my phone (iphone) and laptop.
Recently installed Linux (Nobara to be specific) and I'm amazed this isn't talked about more. It's so useful! Windows is seriously missing out not having a program like this built in.
Microsoft has released something similar for Windows. I believe it's called Windows connect for phone? But it does exist.
Yep, although I've found KDE connect to work better. It was more reliable while the windows one kept doing unexpected things
You will get no argument from me there. I used the one on Windows a couple of times. Wasn't all that impressed. But the one on KDE is the one I use most myself.
Errm, Wireshark. Please bear with me.
Wireshark is a shining example of an open source project completely and utterly crapping on the closed source competition. As a result we all benefit. I recall spending a lot of someone else's money on buying a sort of ruggedized laptop with two ethernet ports to do the job back in the day.
Nowdays, I can run up a tcpdump session on a firewall remotely with some carefully chosen timings and filters and download it to my PC and analyse it with Wireshark.
OK, all so convenient but is it any use?
Say you have a VoIP issue of some sort. The PCAP from tcpdump that you pass to Wireshark can analyse it to the nth degree. Wireshark knows all about SIP and RTP (and IAX) and you can even play back the voice streams or have them graphed so you can see what is wrong or whatever. That's just VoIP, it has loads of other dissectors and decorators built in.
So what?
The UK (for example) will be dispensing with boring old, but reliable, POTS (Plain Old Telephony System) by 2025. Our entire copper telephony and things like RedCare (defunct soon) will go away.
We are swapping out circuit switching for packet switching. To be fair, a lot of the backend is already TCP/UDP/IP that is shielded away from us proles. When SoGEA (Single Order Generic Ethernet Access) really kicks in then the old school electric end to end connection will be lost in favour of packet switching, which never fails (honest guv).
If you are an IT bod of any sort, you really should be conversant with Wireshark.
Thank you for the detailed reply and the explanations to (mostly) all the jargon :-)
Sweden is also doing a lot of deprecation of old telephony systems, those that I know of is that 2G and 3G are going away by 2025.
The less tech debt we pass onto future generations, the better.
I'll try to keep this to lesser known apps:
Catima (saves barcodes for gift cards, gym memberships, etc so you don't have to worry about the physical card)
Cofi (nice timer for active guidance through coffee brewing recipes)
10,000 Sentences (a language practicing app that doesn't have a mildly threatening owl 😉)
OSMAnd+ Mapillary, Overlay Maps, and 3D Features (seriously, the best. I only use Google maps to get around traffic these days since, unfortunately, Magic Earth doesn't work very well in my area)
Obtanium (as a gateway to lesser known software, no shipping to an app store required!)
RethinkDNS (an absolutely amazing piece of software that gives you fine-grained control of the domains your apps are talking to. A bit of a battery sync but it's been a game changer for me. On my GrapheneOS setup I use it in the Google sandbox to reduce the amount of data scraping servers my Google apps can talk to)
Cofi seems quite nice! I've already installed it as it seems much better than me using the standard Android stopwatch! Thank you for sharing!
10,000 Sentences is new to me!! I’ll add it to the list of apps that I’ll eventually use to learn a new language. 😏
(I love downloading and archiving stuff lol)
Joplin for notes, and Rclone drastically improves any cloud services.
Gadgetbridge lets you connect and get data from supported smart or fitness watch without manufacturers app. Completely local.
Borg for backup. I'm really surprised it's not more widely known. It's an incredible piece of software.
Also, not really lesser known software, but a lesser known feature of file systems including the ones we use in FOSS operating systems: extended file attributes - useful to add metadata to files without modifying them.
Paperless has taken me from various stacks of important documents strewn around my apartment, to having all of these things nicely organised and searchable.
pivpn for wireguard setup:
newpipe and libretube for youtube:
And the entire Fossify app suite in Android:
scrcpy for connecting to my Android screen from my laptop:
kde connect for general android/laptop connectivity:
Shotcut helped me get rid of the heavy, bloated Premiere Pro.
Have you used Davinci Resolve? Curious how it compares to that.
Resolve isn't open source. But Kdenlive might be a good alternative, it has more features than Shotcut.
Logseq pkm note taking/outliner https://github.com/logseq/logseq Syncthing https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing Omnivore, Pocket alternative https://github.com/omnivore-app/omnivore Bypass Paywalls Clean browser addon https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clean
Open source AI models and tools like HuggingChat, Whisper
rclone - you can use cheapest cloud or s3 provider and sync encrypted data. Syncthing - sync across devices.
Android
Audile like SoundHoud and Shazam but open source
Funkwhale a federated cloud community music streamer app
Innertune find new songs from YT Music
Open Video Editor edit videos
Heliboard successor of OpenBoard
Tubular successor of NewPipe
ZipXtract a zip extractor
Wger fitness app
Please just a reminder, consider contributing to these apps developers.
Loop habit tracker app on android: https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits
They are in the google play store and f-droid i believe
I switched from Mint.com to the FOSS Money Manager EX for desktop a while ago and couldn't be happier.
ddcutil is a daily driver for me, lightweight, hyper compatible, full monitor control. I primarily use it to lower brightness at night but also constantly switching inputs with simple macros so I can share multiple monitors with multiple systems.
Barrier: https://github.com/debauchee/barrier
Edit: Input Leap looks like a promising KVM replacement for Barrier, thanks for sharing!
To save people some times : Barrier seems to be an app meant to control multiple devices with the same mouse and keyboard. You need to install the software on all the machines for it to works.
You can then bind a keyboard shortcut to switch device. You can also bind it if you put your mouse at the and of a screen.
Take care you all
To save them some more time: Wayland isn't supported yet, unfortunately.
KDE itinerary. Keeps track of all my train tickets, airline tickets, hotel bookings, etc... all offline. This is quite handy, especially for via rail in Canada as often internet can be sketchy when you need to bring up your tickets.
My favourite program is CherryTree notes. It's a hierarchical notes app which supports hyperlinking between nodes and to external files, URLs etc. I pretty much use it to organise my whole life! You can have it encrypted and make your own theme as well.
Kotatsu and Mira, both on F-Droid. Kotatsu makes it easier to read manga without a subscription and you can add your own DRM-free manga. Mira is similar but adds anime and K-drama streaming as an option as well.
Even though I am subbed to Crunchyroll, having an option to watch if I have to cancel to save money, that's very helpful.
Stremio. A free Netflix-like UX for streaming bittorrents.