Just games. And I am thankful for all the open source implementations as they are almost always vastly superior to the original releases.
Thank you John Carmack for releasing the sources to your games!
same, everything i use is foss apart from games
Steam, because most my games are on there.
Discord, because most my friends and social groups are on there.
Google Maps. It sucks, and stores randomly pop in and out while you're trying to zoom in past the McDonalds ad that's showing despite you searching "shoe store", but it has so much more info than the competitors that they don't compare.
Just want to add this comparison between Google Maps and OpenStreetMap. Google Maps is definitely better in some areas and OSM is better in others.
Yeah, this is a cool discussion. Thank you.
Tried Openstreetmap? OSMAnd? Organic maps? Both of which use OSM. HERE maps (not open source)?
I've used organic maps, and maybe osmand? It's good! And progress is fast. But it's not quite there yet for me.
This conversation is making me realize that it may have been a year since I last tried it? Guess I'm due!
The user generated data on google maps is really useful though.
OSMAnd is good in many ways (and has come a long way too), but the app suffers from too many settings and too much menu diving for my taste. OrganicMaps is good because it's like having "OSMAnd lite." Used to be that without Google Services that there was no voice navigation, but now I'm able to use RH Voice with Organic Maps. MagicEarth is another map navigation app, but not open source.
Well... Steam.
Steam
WhatsApp: I have been unable to convince my family and friends to use any other platform. Plus. in alot of countries, having WhatsApp becomes a must. Office 365: The only option I can use for work including Outlook and Teams. Google Maps: I keep trying to use OsmAnd+ but it is almost impossible to search for addresses.
I'm not off Google Maps either, but the closest to replacing it for me is Organic Maps, FWIW.
I don't understand why we spend so much time praising proprietary software in these communities.
As to your question, I have a separate Windows machine for gaming, but that's it. I keep one foot in the free world and one in the proprietary. As for productivity tools I can't think of a proprietary tool I "can't quit" or that I would pick in favor of a free tool.
Fans of proprietary software have this weird belief that free software users choose inferior tools for purist or idealist reasons. This is offensively ignorant. No one chooses bad tools on purpose; we just consider freedom to be part of the criteria of a good tool.
This. Freedom is part of the quality of a program.
Google Earth and Google Street View.
Even after all these years of using them, I'm still amazed.
TotalCommander.
I was using Norton Commander in DOS in the 90s, then WindowsCommander in Windows 3, which was renamed TotalCommander. Using this for maybe 35 years. I don't know how to use Windows gui to copy/paste or explore multiple folders etc.
Affinity was an affordable and featured alternative to the Adobe suite, but just sold to canva so yay capitalism
Steam
Solidworks - A reliable FOSS 3D CAD package would be amazing... Parametric Blender? Photoshop/Illustrator - I know how to do 50% of what I need to in GIMP/Inkscape, but I lean on Adobe usually!
FreeCAD is the best FOSS program I know for solid modeling. Librecad works for 2D.
Man, I tried to learn FreeCAD, but coming from the Inventor/Solidworks paradigm it was hard.
Proprietary firmware on Google Pixel, blobs in Dasharo Coreboot.
On Android there are tons of video and image editors embedded in Whatsapp, Telegram, Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok etc. but nothing comparable.
I find Desktop video editors confusing but I use Footage (GNOME) and "OpenVideoEdit" on Android.
Google maps, venmo, and lyft are my last real holdouts.
I tried Osmand~ but it like using your dads Garmin from 2005. The last two have been hard to find good alternatives to. Would be nice if signal payments were in a stable coin instead of a shitcoin.
Discord, Steam and Obsidian.
I'm really liking Logseq. I started on it instead of Obsidian since Logseq is FOSS. I understand it's not too hard to switch over since they both use markdown files, granted some scripts need to be run to convert markdown differences between the two.
Logseq's business model is to charge $5/mo for syncing on their (fully encrypted with a private key) server, but you can use a FOSS syncing solution (or a property one) if you prefer. I pay to support the project and to simplify sync on work devices I don't have administrator rights on (so most other sync solutions wouldn't work well.)
Discord has friends locked in. IRCcloud is so convenient. Tap to pay app is too useful. The app that controls my heat and AC is going to be a big project to replace. Spotify has family locked in. All the garbage running on my car would be nearly impossible to change.
GBoard is one I've tried to ditch a few times and end up coming back to. :(
Discord. As a chat platform, it is by far the most user-friendly one out there despite its proprietary nature and lack of respect for privacy.
Just a comment -- for InDesign-type work, I find something like Inkscape (or Scribus) easier to work with than LaTeX. I usually only use LaTeX for things where the layout needs to be pretty but not customized. Its possible to use it for design, but not a good use of time.
Plex. I'm not sure if Jellyfin is foss, but if it is, I haven't felt like converting my library. I've put a lot of work into making it just right.
Steam, obviously.
other than video games, I think that's really it. I still use some others, like Spotify, but not primarily, I just like to have options.
Jellyfin is FOSS. You can by the way just install it and point it at your library to see if it recognises everything. It won't change your file layout. If you have your movies named "title (year)“ and series in a folder format like "series title/season x/s0xe0x" (x being season and episode numbers), it should actually automatically recognise it all.
But I admit, if you have deviations from that you would need to correct those first and it seems from what I read that Plex is not as picky with that as Jellyfin is.
Games, for everything else I've found a foss alternative that I prefer. I will do a google search once every couple of days if I'm really struggling to find something but even as a last resort search engine it's been getting worse - I heard they put an ad person in charge of search... so that would probably explain that descent.
Reaper DAW, and I have no plans on replacing because I like it. Also Reason, which I do have plans on replacing, but with what I haven't a clue. Unfortunately, audio continues to lag way behind on Linux and open source. Additionally, VST is unfortunately THE standard for audio plugins, and they are indispensable in audio production.
Well I have separate computer for music production which I don't think has any FOSS software on it, so everything that has to do with that.
Dropping The List here because answering in detail would take ...a very, very long time.
I also run a lot of proprietary stuff like Discord or Instagram due to peer pressure but I let it slide and put my hopes on Android sandboxing the apps and GrapheneOS tweaks. In my opinion, making sure that proprietary app can't reliably access your data and never giving it anything sensitive yourself is a decent risk model.
The only proprietary software I use and somewhat trust is Obdisian. Honestly, it's just excellent and I can't see myself moving away from it anytime soon.
Rhino for CAD.
However, I have been using OpenSCAD for parametric design more than the Grasshopper extension.
Thankfully, skipped ArcGIS entirely for QGIS and Python GDAL wrappers.
Spotify, Netflix, a bunch of online services, old games, the update software of my car GPS...
FolderSync on android. It's the only automatic sync application I've found that syncs to mydrive.ch.
Also a couple of UI apps, BarLauncher, which is a notification thing that let's you put app icons to launch from the notification drop down, and LaunchyWidget, like a scrolling "fence" to dump app icons in on your home screen. They're both so simple, I'm surprised that nobody has built FOSS versions of them.
On my PC I don't use any proprietary software at all.
If it's free and open source and it's also software, it can be discussed here. Subcommunity of Technology.
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