this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Hi everyone! For... I guess over a year now? I've been observing and trying out lots of software recommended by the privacy community and internet as a whole. With that time, I've been able to slowly put together a list of all the software I personally believe to be the best for their own various reasons. I finally have enough to be able to share it with all of you!

I'm also looking for feedback. I haven't tried all the software on that list, and I'm sure there's software I've never heard of that needs added. I'm looking for your feedback on what you think should be added, removed, or changed. That includes the list itself, if you think there are any design improvements.

Do note: Any software marked with a ⭐️ I am not looking for feedback on. This is software that I firmly believe is the best of the best in its category, and likely will not be changed. However, if there is a major issue with the software that you can provide direct proof of, then there is a chance it will be changed in the next release. There are no grantees.

The sections marked with ℹ️ are lacking, and can use your help! Some software there may not be the best one, or may have many software or sections missing. I am absolutely looking for help and feedback here, and would love your help!

My goal with this project is to help people find the best software from many standpoints, and to prove that there really are good open source alternatives for almost anything! I hope this helps someone, and I look forward to your feedback!

Thank you all for reading and taking the time to look through my list!

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[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 5 points 2 days ago

My latest favourite is missing: Note Taking Apps:

Joplin is good for organising text-based notes, so I'm not surprised to see that on your list. But xournal is a for mixed drawing / hand-writing / text, etc. So it's a different use-case to Joplin. (It would be perfect if Joplin supported xournal notes; so that you could write with xournal and then organise with Joplin. ... But that hasn't yet come to pass.)

[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

man i wish there was a more powerful alternative to gimp hope gimp 3.0 solves it and currently am using the affinity photo 6 month free trial

[–] x00za@lemmy.dbzer0.com 41 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Too many emojis. Just make a table and put the emojis in there.

[–] Charger8232@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Hi! I agree that it is getting cluttered with emojis. I plan to revamp this today to clear it up a bit. Thanks for your feedback!

Edit: Decluttered in version 5.2024.09.15.1

[–] alexdeathway@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Charger8232@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I will look into that today, thank you! Stay tuned for the next release :)

Edit: Partially fixed as of Version 7.2024.09.16.0

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[–] unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There's obviously a zillion open source games you could add, but I'm partial to pixel dungeon and its many variants

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[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Not to disparage your effort, but I looked into music and I only see:

Audio & Music

Audacity Audire Audile

Aaaand I'm out.

This is so lopsided it should be titled "A random collection of free software that has caught my eye"

[–] Charger8232@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

I'm sorry you weren't satisfied with some of the software on my list. Audire and Audile are not options I preferred to add, but there are simply no better music recognition apps out there that I could find. I would love to know if you have any! As for Audacity, I'm not sure what concerns you have over that. If you have any constructive feedback, I'd love to hear it!

The project is still in its early stages, so not everything is perfect :)

[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

How about Music players, Sequencers, studio, DJ, Drum machines, Guitar software amps, software radios...

The fact that you simply ignored music players disqualifies your list. Also considering that Arch's AUR, for example has over 90.000 packages, the idea of one person compiling a useful general "best of" list is deluded and doomed from the start.

I don't write this acrimoniously, I simply state the fact that unless you enlist help (and a lot at that) your endeavor is useless.

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (6 children)

For instant messengers, I would also add Wire and Matrix/Element (Matrix is the protocol, Element is the messenger that uses the protocol).

https://wire.com/en

https://matrix.org/ - https://element.io/

Both good open source secure messengers. Matrix is made by a type of non-profit foundation made to guide the development of the core protocol, and Wire is a Swiss company staking their future on how secure their messenger is for Enterprise applications. They both have different philosophies on how their operations are ran, but they're both open source and secure.

They're not as privacy respecting as Briar or SimpleX, but they're also more aimed at organizations and groups that plan on self-hosting and potentially not federating with the rest of the network to help silo their organizational data. Wire obviously aims towards Enterprise customers, but Matrix does as well, despite a different approach. Matrix has had growth with both German and French governments for various secure communications systems within their government bodies based on the matrix protocol. So good messengers, just aimed at a different group of people as Briar/SimpleX.

So maybe they could have their own "Enterprise Chat" section? I dunno, just my thoughts.

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[–] OlPatchy2Eyes@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 days ago

Thanks for the list! Sharing this with lazy friends.

[–] Dop@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Email : tutanota (mail.tutanota.com) Notes : quillpad (https://quillpad.github.io/) Distro : mint

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[–] DigitalNirvana@lemm.ee 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Thanks! I’ll give it a gander. I was off hiking today, and used some crappy app to track my progress. I know there’s an open source ware that can do it, without invading my privacy; it’s time to start using that ‘ware.

[–] Charger8232@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Trail Sense mentioned in my list has options for tracking hiking progress. Unfortunately, open source health apps are few and far between.

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[–] 01011@monero.town 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

No rsync? No pass? I’d definitely have the xmpp and matrix protocols on that list with a few clients listed for desktop and mobile.

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[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Love that you have Joplin on the list! I started using that recently to handle all of my notes and it’s been great.

[–] bunkyprewster@startrek.website 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

I'm still on Google's Keep. Please tell me why I should switch.

[–] KillingAndKindess@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Your data has monetary value to google. Giving them access, without getting any money from them (or even knowing what ways it will be used) is not something you must do.

If the app provides enough value that is unique to it, then thats OK, but if a data-respecting alternative exists that costs nothing to download or use, and fits the same (or more) needs, then using it just makes sense.

If thats not you, then thats ok.

I also use keep, but thats because I haven't degoogled my phone yet, so they already have most if not all of that data. Once I am in a position to be able to root and remove google without risking bricking my device (currently unhoused, and just cannot risk it rn), then I plan on never touching the damn thing.

To each their own.

[–] FutileRecipe@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Your data has monetary value to google. Giving them access, without getting any money from them (or even knowing what ways it will be used) is not something you must do.

To be fair, while you may not be getting money in its direct form (cash, bank deposit, etc) from Google, they are providing you a service which costs them money for free. So they are providing something of monetary value.

Only the individual can determine if their data is worth that free (to the individual, not free to Google) service. I'm assuming that most people in a privacy community would be against that, though.

Agreed. But as we have recently seen, its of more value to google than some of us ever thought. They are fighting long practiced User Blocking/geohoping and whatnot, and they are burning through serious cash and social credit with some of the bullshit they've been doing.

I know damn well my data is worth a fair amount more to the market, and that's reason enough for me.

[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 7 points 3 days ago
  • Joplin has a lot of customization
  • Can store your notes wherever you want (Dropbox, WebDAV, OneDrive, Nextcloud, Joplin’s own cloud service, etc)
  • Backups can optionally be encrypted (you set a password used to decrypt them and store that somewhere)
  • You can make multiple notebooks in the hierarchy structure you want
  • Open source
  • Markdown (if you’re into that)
  • Plugin support
  • Tags
[–] 0x0@programming.dev 15 points 3 days ago (2 children)

How about not hosting this list in Microsoft's GitHub?

[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

lemmy hosts their source code on github and alot of floss sites uses github also i agree with you not to use github dont understand why people use github for markdown

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[–] Charger8232@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 days ago

Creating mirrors on other platforms such as GitLab and Codeberg is on my to-do list. Thank you!

[–] itsmect@monero.town 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Nice list. I chuckled at the fact that the bitcoin section does not recommend bitcoin :) We're also here on lemmy, if you ever need help or just want to say hi

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[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 4 points 3 days ago

Now plz do hardware

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