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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/47032660

Discover Hidden Gems: Open-Source Software You Should Know About

We all love open-source software, but there are so many amazing projects out there that often go unnoticed. Let's change that! Share your favorite open-source software that you think more people should know about. Here’s how you can contribute:

  1. Single Option Per Comment: Mention one open-source software per comment to be able to easily find the most popular software.
  2. No Duplicates: Avoid duplicating software that has already been mentioned to ensure a wide variety of options.
  3. Upvote What You Love: If you see a software that you also appreciate, upvote it to help others discover it more easily.

Check out last year's post for more inspiration: Last Year's Post

Let's create a comprehensive list of open-source software that everyone should know about!

I advise you to post any recommendations to the original post, I was just sharing it here so others can find it! I also wanna see those recs myself so that's the motive for posting this 😅

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[-] nymnympseudonym@lemmy.world 53 points 1 month ago

LibreWolf is what FireFox was supposed to be: no VPN ads, no telemetry, no AI, uBlockOrigin built in. It's literally the latest FF release, but with the crap ripped out and decent privacy installed.

https://librewolf.net/

[-] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 month ago

I'm still looking for a Librewolf or similar Android fork, has that ever made it close? I know the original project devs dont seem interested.

[-] xyx@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 month ago
[-] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 month ago

I haven't, but I will now! :)

[-] jobbies@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Go for it, Ironfox is brilliant.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

Can second IronFox, it's my daily.

[-] Stomata@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

Go for it. It's really good in terms of privacy

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[-] hobata@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

They went too far in pursuing their foolish dogma and castrated a decent browser to the point where you don't want to work with it at all. For example, they removed the interface element that allows you to save passwords, even though the password manager is still there.

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[-] Stomata@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 month ago

XMPP. It replaced WhatsApp in my family that signal failed to do.

[-] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago

I'm curious, I've never had the chance to really use Signal much, and I've never used an XMPP client before. What made you dislike Signal and use XMPP instead? I wish I could convince my iMessage loving mom to jump to anything else.

[-] Stomata@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago

I had no issue with signal (except phone number verification) but according to my family members signal uses a lot of ram and battery. Non of them have Google play services. XMPP doesn't use that much resources and it's simple, no unnecessary bloat.

[-] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 6 points 1 month ago

Sure all family members dont have play services...

Also bullshit that Signals drains ram or battery, i wouldnt notice and never heard this before.

[-] F04118F@feddit.nl 8 points 1 month ago

Maybe Signal drains battery when it can't use Google Play Services for notifications and falls back to keeping a connection alive to Signal servers instead?

[-] med@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I have signal installed direct using obtanium, with the background connector enabled. I've not yet had an issue with it.

[-] Stomata@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

Yeah thats the reason.

Im running grapheneos with molly foss (signal fork). I tried both notification deamons, Websocket and Selfhosted UnifiedPush. Both dont drain my battery at all.

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[-] EngineerGaming@retrolemmy.com 3 points 1 month ago

I prefer it because of resilience. A centralized service can be weakened, geoblocked or shut down by proposals like Chat Control. Decentralized protocols are much safer in such an environment, especially if there is variety in clients and servers.

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[-] infjarchninja@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 month ago

There is also signal-FOSS as an alternative to signal and Molly

Signal-FOSS

https://www.twinhelix.com/apps/signal-foss/

A fork of Signal for Android with proprietary Google binary blobs removed. Uses OpenStreetMap for maps and a websocket server connection, instead of Google Maps and Firebase Cloud Messaging.

add the repo to your app store to F-droid basic

https://fdroid.twinhelix.com/fdroid/repo/

The twinhelix repo is in the droidify and neostore repo list.

[-] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 8 points 1 month ago

Why the fuck is signal using Google maps

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

It's not letting me register. When I have my VPN turned off it can't conbect to servers, and when I have it turned on I get swamped with recaptchas and the veriification code doesn't send

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[-] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 14 points 1 month ago

Immich!

Keeping personal photos off someone else's server and stopping google and apple from training their AI on your nudes.

[-] berty@feddit.org 12 points 1 month ago

CoMaps, formerly known as Organic Maps.

[-] tekato@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

Not formerly known. CoMaps is different from Organic Maps. This is the same as saying “Librewolf, formerly known as Firefox”.

[-] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 month ago

I advise you to post any recommendations to the original post, I was just sharing it here so others can find it! I also wanna see those recs myself so that's the motive for posting this 😅

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 month ago

Matrix is good for communication.

[-] solrize@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 month ago

GNU Jami, when I can get it to work and not jank up the sound too much. https://jami.net/

[-] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago

Any Linux distro

[-] OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

VeraCrypt, Clonezilla, Joplin, Futo voice and Futo keyboard, Sentry, Wasted, Untracker, WTMP app, Fossify app suite.

[-] BorisBoreUs@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Futo Voice and Futo Keyboard are rad and getting better (Swipe needs more time in the oven). Ive used VeraCrypt for a while and dig it

[-] OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

I haven't ever found a better open source keyboard or voice type than futo. It really is that good. With so many languages. I'm unsure why some of them got downvoted but oh well. I'm sure there's a ton more to add that are privacy focused open source apps but those were off my head.

[-] beyond@linkage.ds8.zone 3 points 1 month ago

Unfortunately those tools are not open source, they are under some source-available proprietary license. That may be why they (rightfully) get downvoted.

You can use them if you like of course, but they should not be advertised as open source.

[-] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 month ago
[-] Zerush@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The best Portmaster (Windows, Linux) and InVizible Pro for Android and forks (LinageOS, /e/OS....), apart common sense (PEBCAK license)

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[-] CCRhode@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

I recommend my python script, Tonto2.

What does Tonto2 do?

It keeps lists.

You can use lists to keep in touch with family, friends, and cow-orkers.

Tonto2 keeps four kinds of lists:

  • You can use an address list to keep track of contacts' phone numbers, mailing addresses, and eMail addresses.

  • You can use a calendar to remind you about events and appointments including date, time, and duration. You can add notes about finding the location and other prerequisites to attendance.

  • You can keep separate passwords in a password list for every website you visit and every piece of gear you own.

  • You can keep links to favorite websites in a bookmark list.

Additionally you can make a list of bibliographic entries for writing research papers and for saving well-formatted footnotes for Web sites, but this is an arcane topic that will probably not be of general interest.

The information in these lists is at your fingertips.

You own it, and you can keep it. You can share it piecemeal with other people and computers without having to trust anyone or any thing with the whole enchilada. This is the idea of Tonto2.

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[-] mugita_sokiovt@discuss.online 4 points 1 month ago

Picocrypt, which is an encryption tool for files and folders. It's a 3MB application that utilizes XChaCha20 as its encryption algorithm. It isn't developed anymore, but it's well worth it regardless.

Neigsendoig, my producer, just started using it, learning how it works.

[-] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago

open keychain - foss to to track pgp keys and generate them

[-] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Okay, just curious, does anyone else have a bug preventing them from using Openkeychain? Whenever I try to confirm a key, it simply gets stuck at the "My Key:" selection drop-down. There's a 8 year old GitHub issue that was started and it never got solved...

And like, there's no alternatives for this app are there? It seems Thunderbird defaults to them.

EDIT: I've been trying to create a keypair from Open keychain and simply export the pair to my laptop to use it there but any key it generates is unable to be imported by both gpg and Thunderbird. It seems I'm not the only one having this issue, meanwhile the project seems to be no longer maintained. What do I do? Give up on using Thunderbird on mobile?

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[-] QuestionMark@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

Florisboard. Android keyboard, doesn't have spell checking yet but I've been using it for years, you might not need autocorrect as much as you think! (Note for Samsung users: Samsung Keyboard keeps adding items to its clipboard history whether it's default or not. Clipboard history is also accessible through Edge Panels. Your passwords might end up and sit there for a long time... you can use adb to disable com.samsung.android.app.clipboardedge and com.samsung.clipboardsaveservice.)

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[-] Jarix@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Surrey for the tangent, that might be my favourite comic of all time. I think it's an incredibly valuable lesson menu pepper still and always will need to learn at some point in their lives

[-] QuestionMark@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

Delta Chat, for messaging. Sign-up is extremely easy using the default server, and I've convinced some of my contacts to join.

[-] BallShapedMan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Oh shit, I'm doing this with my granddaughter! She's not 2 yet so I need to wait a bit but I'm doing it!

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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2025
176 points (97.8% liked)

Privacy

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