Been awhile since I saw a thread like this and they’re always good for at least one or two things I’ve never heard of before. Bonus points if the software is open source and cross platform. Extra bonus points if you link to where we can see it/get it.
My contribution: Destiny which is an anonymous, P2P, E2EE file sharing app - its basically a GUI for a Magic Wormhole implementation. Works on Linux (tarball or appimage), Win, Mac, Android (inc f-droid) and iOS. Only downside is it’s not been updated for 2 years.
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For Windows users, I want to recommend PowerToys: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
The “toys” that I use a lot are: PowerToys Awake: to keep my laptop awake even if I’m away from keyboard for a while.
Fancy Zones: to create my own layout of windows, especially on the ultra-wide monitor I have at work, it’s easy to have 3 smaller windows next to each other according to my layout.
Mouse Utilities, I often can’t find my mouse cursor, just pressing a hotkey will literally spotlight the cursor.
Quick Accent, especially for multi-lingual people this is really handy, though it takes a bit to get used to its working.
I use fancy zones, and also the one that finds your mouse cursor as I’m always losing it, and the always on top mode for when I don’t want a teams call to vanish while I do something else
Be like me, just make your mouse cursor neon green and huge.
LocalSend is open-source and great for file transfer (or even just sending text) between my devices.
Never occurred to me to even look for such a thing!
Greenshot is free, open-source, and the built-in image editor is perfect (for my use-case, ymmv). ShareX is also FOSS but more well-known.
Another vote for Greenshot, I use it nearly daily for my work.
I used to use Greenshot but switched over to Flameshot. Also Free software, but has better and easier editing tools. The numbered arrows are so handy.
I’m surprised how many people don’t know about a Linux utility called “fuck”. When you make a mistake on the command line and get an error, you just type “fuck” and it looks at what happened and suggests a fix. If this looks correct - and it almost always is - you just hit Enter and it types that in for you. Best thing ever!
Bulk Rename Utility for Windows:
Here’s a bunch of equivalent things for desktop OSes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batch_renaming#List_of_software
If any of you still aren’t using YT Revanced… why?! So yeah, that one, cause God knows my limit for insipid and repetitive ads is extremely small.
Because I don’t watch videos on my phone.
YouTube has broken uBlock and Firefox. Still works on Edge, but I’d rather not switch browsers back and forth. Yes, I’ve cleared my cache.
Anyone?
Is it because of your religion or…?
Why would I watch videos on a shitty little screen? My PC is hooked to 40" and 55" TVs.
What if you’re on the bus?
Just in case, a big thread this week for Linux users: https://feddit.org/post/14167855
Qalculate is a fancy calculator available for Linux, MacOS and Windows. I use it for calculations that involve unit conversions, but it can do much more.
I acutally use Qalculate as well when I have to use my Windows laptop
Fuck Microsoft for not bothering to improve on the calculator app for decades.
They have improved. You can do unit conversions, great binary/hex/oct calculation/visualization, do graphing, calculate dates. It honestly is very good.
You can do unit conversions, great binary/hex/oct calculation
Ok you’re actually right about those improvements👍 and yeah those were actually really handy.
Are you sure it can do visualization, graphing, and dates? Is this on W11? I’m not on my computer atm but I don’t remember those functions/features.
Yeah this is on win11. I am not 100% sure if graphing works on win10 as well, but i think so :)
Best of all, you can also install it using winget. Yes, package management through the cmd in Windows. Well, as long as you’re the admin of that computer. Don’t expect this to work with all corporate laptops.
And Android!!
Oh that’s a good point. Totally missed that one. Seems that there’s also a webapp for other platforms.
OmniDiskSweeper. Forget apps that help manage disk space with some ugly graph that’s difficult to understand. This just lists files and directories with the heaviest / most space used from top to bottom in a file tree. Essential. Here’s what it looks like:
https://logseq.com/ a personal knowledge base with markdown and has a whiteboard feature. I live in this program now. From daily little notes and reminders to full on script writing. It’s a little clunky but it works with my brain. Other similar programs are notion, obsidian and anytype.
A windows app that shows you the space things are taking up on your computer so you can easily delete them. Usually helps me clear out a ton of space.
I prefer WizTree. It’ll show you space usage, but you can also search for files, and it’s incredibly fast.
It’s also much faster
Edit: you said that already lol sorry
I’ll have to give it a try one day.
Wiztree and Treesize are both much faster.
Windirstat is still relevant… But slow.
dua-cli is good for this.
ncduin LinuxThe same disk space visualisation, on Linux, can be shown with:
(Available from your distro package-manager)
- Converter Now: An all-in-one convert everything to everything app.
- Light Meter: Calculate light levels and color temps for photography and videography.
- Stellarium: Honestly don’t know how “well known” it might be. But it’s fun to point at stars and planets.
+1 for converter now, close to my most used app on Android.
URLCheck on Android. Displays a popup on opening links allowing editing the URL before opening (with such features as removing chosen parameters with one button), applying transformations like Shitter→Nitter, http→https, sharing the URL, copying and selecting the application to open the URL in. Oh, and if you decide to open in Firefox or Fennec, you have the option to open in the incognito mode. Can’t imagine using Android without it now. Absolute gamechanger
From the store, or else where???
F-Droid. IzzyOnDroid has a tad quicker releases
Ah yup nice, thank you :)
https://www.sportismygame.app/ Helped me get of my fat ass and move every once in a while
sl is a classic command line program for something harmlessly pointless
calibre for digital library software (cataloging books/docs/articles)
Comic book reader, it’s a cbz/CBR comic book archive reader that tries to do the panel/smart auto zoom that used to be a part of comixology until Amazon bought it to kill it as competition to their shitty books app
I donated to calibre, makes my eBook viable.
