What's A Piece Of Software You Could Never Do Without?

voidtools everything

tried it once, never been without again

1

uBlock origin

221

Firefox. I hate how inflexible other browser are.

202

Bitwarden. Otherwise I won’t be able to log on to any of my accounts.

131

The kernel. I can take or leave most things, but I'm not going back to the days of writing directly into memory-mapped registers.

110

Android. As bad as it is, if I had to use iOS or Linux phones it would be even worse, at least with the current state of Linux phones.

But actually, maybe if Android didn't exist, the FOSS community would focus more on Linux phones and they would be an actually good option. Maybe Android shouldn't exist?

61

You can pry Vim from my cold dead hands.

51

On Android, it's probably a little utility software called Quick Cursor (it's not FOSS). It's incredibly convenient being able to spawn a cursor on your phone from thin air that you can use to reach the "unreachable" portions of your screen, especially if you are holding your phone with one hand. Besides being a "phone touchpad" it has a bunch of ways of triggering actions/shortcuts, for example: volume or brightness control, launching an app (I use it for launching a floating calculator, notes...), opening notification shade, copying text (it can copy any text that is under the cursor, even if it's not selectable)...

It's not that I couldn't go without it, but it changed the way I use my phone and it would feel really weird without it. It feels like it should be a part of the OS.

49

Linux, seriously, it's in my phone, my router, my desktop, my ISP and nearly the entire infrastructure of the internet upon which I rely uses it.

44

Firefox, uBlock Origin, uBlacklist KDE, Dolphin, Kate, LibreOffice, CherryTree Kid3, Flacon, LosslesCut, qBittorrent, VLC Musicolet, Simplenote, F-Droid, AuroraStore

35

A compiler. I mean, yeah, I guess I could go back to writing asm, but I really don’t want to.

33

Going back to a "normal" text editor after using Vim for a few years would be horrible

Life without qBittorrent would also be pretty difficult, hell no, I'm not paying for DRM content that requires proprietary software to watch

31

vmlinuz

27

firefox

27

Yt-dlp. It's basically the only way I download music nowadays.

26

Python

25

7zip

25

KeepassXC + KeepassDX

23

Leisure Suit Larry

21

I'm bored so I'm just going to make a list:

Lightroom Classic (I've tried Darktable, just not for me. I take a lot of photos on my DSLR and I've been using Lightroom since 2015 so for me it's worth eating the awful monthly subscription that I split with someone else.)
Anki (flashcard app, very popular among med school students and folks trying to learn new languages. Open source and tons of useful decks available. I've aced plenty of exams thanks to Anki.)
Bitwarden (finally caved and got a password manager-- could not be happier)
CHIRP (the best for programming handheld, mobile and base station radios)
CrystalDiskInfo (great for checking the health of SSDs and HDDs)
DaVinci Resolve (love using this for video editing-- pirated copy was easy to find)
Deluge (great for torrenting)
foobar2000 (I love it for music)
Greenshot (useful screencapture software)
inSSIDer (great for wifi analysis)
IrfanView (very good for photo management)
MusicBrainz Picard (amaaaaaaaaazing god tier music management software to get all the correct metadata/album art)
reWASD ($7 but it's so good for no BS macro'ing of keyboard/mouse/gamepad shortcuts and profiles. I have two PCs and two mice + gamepad attached to my PC and this software is very helpful. I think the license is for life.)
WizTree (SSD/HDD visualization tool that is useful for figuring out what's taking up too much space on your drive)

20

git, vim/nvim

18

Obsidian.

Since the Internet in general is getting harder to find genuine information, it is becoming increasingly important to save anything important to you. One day it could just disappear without warning. Obsidian can be used for an offline knowledge base. Design it however you like. I do recommend NOT watching YouTube Obsidian “gurus”, their system works for them not you.

17

Notepad++

16

Vi/Vim - had it on every computer I've owned or used since about 1991.

16

qBitorrent, undoubtably

16

Newpipe, will kms when yt blocks APIs, or switch to bilibili and not understand anything

15

Termux on Android.

I've got some videos on my phone I might want to watch on random computers, so I serve them up with NGINX. I've got wget-created mirrors of some old websites on my phone, so I serve them up with NGINX. Other files I may want to move out from my phone to untrusted computers on the network can too be served up simply by NGINX.
I've got the full Wikipedia zim file from Kiwix on my Micro SD card, so I run kiwix-serve (behind NGINX).
I've got all the music on my phone, naturally the phone is then running my Navidrome server (behind NGINX).
Of course, I may want to manage this from a computer, so it's running SSH server.
My phone is always connected to VPN and uses NextDNS, naturally I may want to use this with other computers, but I can't install software to computers I don't own (I mean, I can, but ... it would be disliked), naturally it is then running Tiniproxy HTTP proxy server.
Some desktop GUI apps can be useful on a phone too. noaa-apt, Kid3, Audacity, desktop Firefox, Handbrake because I am too dumb for ffmpeg, so I run XFCE DE on it. Naturally, I can access it from a computer (I know) too, after all it's accessed via a VNC server.
Am I stupid enough to expose something using HTTP protocol running on my phone to the internet? Of course I am! I can use cloudflared.
Do I want to encrypt a file? I can use GPG.
Do I want to create a compressed archive? I've got TAr and GZip.
Do I want to browse Gopher? I've got Lynx.
SSH or telnet somewhere? The clients are there.

15

LiGNUx, VLC, Firefox w/Ublock, KDE Connect, Dolphin, Kate, KDE. Vim, i3wm, Keepasses, yt-dlp, deluge, freecad, librecad, slic3r/cura. Some of these are clearly redundant or overlap. My use cases vary

Non-foss: Steam library.

I wouldn't spend so much time on the PC if I had to pay a premium for every little thing much like I've experienced with my arts-related hobbies.

15

bash

14

Probably an OS

14

On Windows: EarTrumpet

Being able to quickly change audio outputs is awesome, I am always bouncing between headset and speakers. Also the pop up volume mixer is better than the built in one. Been using ET for years and years, can pry it from my cold dead hands.

14

Windows: PowerToys. First thing I get approval to install on a work machine. PowerToys Run (Launchy on roids) saves me from the built in Windows search, a quick calculator, etc. PowerRename gets used more frequently than I care to admit. Video Conference mute is a second nature key combination. Can't remember the name of the window manager module but it is a key part of my workflow.

Android: As I've mentioned in a reply, Edge Gestures has been on my phone for years (first installed on a Pixel 3). Having 10+ apps accessible (especially 2FA, password vault, home assistant) from any screen, plus gestures for quick controls (flashlight, brightness slider) is incredibly handy. And unlike the notification shade, the edges of the phone can actually be reached with your thumb.

Linux: Docker. It's been an instrumental part of building out my home server which allowed me to kill my Microsoft 365 & Google One subscriptions. For me it has been the gateway drug in to learning more and more about self hosting - to Proxmox, LXCs & VMs, pihole and unbound, etc.

13

Joplin App

13

Obsidian

12

libreoffice, particularly calc. I keep all my finances and planning in spreadsheets I migrated from excel years ago.

12

I think vim (and other text editors with vim bindings). I've gotten so accustomed to the vim way of doing things that I can't go back

11

Emacs, of course!!!

I can not imagine trying to get stuff done without it.

It makes organizing, programming, writing, just everything so much easier.

11

Firefox, emacs, restic backup, bitwarden, linux/bsd

11

My first instinct was to say GIMP or Firefox, but I could still use Krita or Chromium in those cases.

I'd say Anki then. I don't know of any other FOSS flashcard app this good, and I have so much saved on it that losing it would be devastating.

11

KDE. My brain is hard-wired for Windows, so KDE is intuitive and just gets out of the way.

10

NAND gate

10

Joplin because I struggled for years with a consistent way to keep and refer to notes that I could find easily at a moment's notice and access from any device, anywhere.

(Please don't tell me about how you use a text editor and markdown in your home directory Like GH* INTENDED because I tried that FOR A DECADE and it didn't work for me. I'm old and cranky. Get off my lawn! :)

10

Python, Jupyter, Freetube

10

Newpipe

10

At this point Everything Search is goated.

9

Irfanview. Quick easy very low fuss image viewer / low level editor

Advanced renamer.

8

KDE. Been using it since v3, tried various other systems like Gnome, Enlightenment, XFCE etc. and I've always been coming back to it. KDE just feels very intuitive and easy to use.

8

I've gotten very used to this little free app called Audio Switcher that makes it way easier to switch back and forth between speakers and my headphones.

8

Web browser

8

Shove-it, an ancient Windows utility by Phord Software that shoves any half-offscreen windows back onto the monitor so that you can get to all the gadgets. Phenomenally useful. First thing I install on any new build.

7

Browser, I guess? Without one you'd be back to early 1990s home computing.

7

OpenSSH

7

Git

7

My first thought is that my work requires office365 mail and my discovery that davmail exists has been a godsend. I'm not going to install outlook on my linux pc, so being able to check those emails using any client (claws in my case) is a massive convenience upgrade from relying on firefox to login.

7

On my laptop/desktop, for now I'd say Strawberry Music Player because I like playing/listening to the audio files I've stored locally on them.

For my phone, it's currently Auxio for the same reason.

These are subject to change if I find something better.

6

Twenty, even fifteen years ago I would've said Windows Notepad / vim. Now I rarely use basic text editors.

I don't think there's any technology that can never be superseded.

6

Currently, Notesnook and Proton Pass.

6

PaintTool SAI 1 is my beloved, I don't care how old it is, I love it and it's just so comfy to me!

For those who may be wondering, PaintTool SAI is a lightweight drawing program developed by Systemax Software that was released in 2008. The "SAI" part of its name is unrelated to AI, and is an acronym for Systemax Advanced Illustrator. It was developed by one person, Koji Komatsu, and he runs Systemax all by himself. What a guy!

6

For my work, Bluebeam.

6

Linux. Luckily we have such a great FLOSS kernel to free is from the Gates and the Jobs of this world.

6

Emacs.

5

Nextcloud.

Does everything from GSuite that I need it to, but without looking through everything I upload, and analyzing it for advertising and other purposes that I wouldn't consent to.

5

Ditto clipboard manager Xmbc Explorer patcher Moonlight sunshine Everything search Wiztree Altsnap Powertoys KiTTY

5

Gvim. I even write documents in it and then paste them into Word for final formatting.

5

Paint.NET

5

Permanently Deleted

5

Jellyfin, NZB360, HortusFox, HomeAssistant (soon), Docker?

5

There are too many so I've compiled them here: Mostly excellent “free” software.

When obligated to pick one it'd be AutoKey: “a desktop automation utility for Linux and X11.” Relatively and subjectively speaking, without it I feel hampered like crazy while most other software is “just” convenient.

4

JPEGView It's a simple but powerful image viewer (don't be misled by the name, it can view most any standard image formats).

It feels weird to even have an opinion on such a simple piece of software, but this is the type of tool that reminds you of what software could be like. When you open an image, you see the image. No loading time. No unnecessary toolbars. No fucking pop-ups to update the software to get the latest AI tools.

Don't get me wrong, it's plenty powerful. It's got all the tools you'd expect: viewing EXIF data, cropping, rotating, brightness/color correction. It even has some more advanced tools: navigating collections of photos (including nested folders), viewing a collection as a slideshow or movie, perspective correction, batch-renaming... The impressive part is that it does all this without getting in the way of it's job: viewing images.

Unfortunately, the project has been abandoned, though it appears to have been forked here (I haven't actually used this version, but hopefully they haven't changed too much).

4

Reeder RSS client.

4

Encryption.

4

Obsidian.

4

Outlook. /s

3

Windows 11, Stable Diffusion, Twitter, Google Chrome, Facebook Messenger, ChatGPT, Epic Games Store, official Reddit app, YouTube Music

3

wwe.start.me launcher page. I have all my links on all devices in the same place. My first step when i install a browser.

3

On windows it's grepWin - it is an excellent utility implementation.

3

On foss category KDE connect. I use my phone as keyboard and mouse to navigate my laptop/PC while sleeping on my beanbag. You could use wireless mouse or keyboard but i find KDE more convenient. Also i can control the media from there

For non foss believe it or not it was google lenses, i used to use Accessibility Button setting floating bubble just for lense easy access from google assistant. They removed it and change it to "Gemini AI" now you need to screenshot and open the separate app.

Before that you just open it from accessibility and just search the screen. Translate, searching products from your screen, copy paste text from image you can do it from there no need for screenshot.

Edit : Just found out that you can change the default assistant function from the assistant app. I can use the lens with accessibility setting again *Horay

3

Unfortunately, Excel. It’s the lingua franca of the business world. Absolute shyte program.

3

Kate

2

glibc

2

Blender.

The only reason I got into 3D is Blender. I wanted to make some models for my favorite game many years ago and the developer of that game used blender to make them. I follwed the famous Donut tutorial (the old 2.7 one) and it opened the eyes for me that blender was so much more than a modeling tool. I had used SFM before in small amounts to make tf2 wallpapers, so I guess I wasn't completely new to CG, but Blender kinda shaped in which direction I steered my life.

1

I can't live without fre:ac. It's an open source project aimed at being the best and most accurate CD ripping and audio converting software. It supports Linux, Windows, and I think Mac OS as well. It's very similar to Exact Audio Copy for Windows. I'm a big music fan who still rejects streaming so I need this.

1