VLC! No ads ever, that’s insane!
Bitwarden is one I use several times a day. They do have a support plan for like $10 a year that gives a couple extra features like TOTP support, but the base level is incredibly robust. It’s open source, too. I know a lot of folks also host their own servers with Vaultwarden, but that’s a little beyond my skill level.
Firefox. I couldn’t imagine using the internet without it.
I’ve never thought about it, how do they make money? I’ve never seen an ad or sent them money.
They make a large amount from Google paying them to be the default search engine. Also they have been making additional projects that can be subscribed to as add-ons for Firefox (like a VPN and an email forwarding service that allows you to make fake email addresses or phone numbers to use on sites that will forward the messages to your real inbox/phone). You can use a limited version of the email thing without paying though so it is easy to try out. And they are always ready to take donations of any size and can be reoccurring. I personally pay .99/month for the email service even though I don’t use it often. As it is nice to have if I need it, and it is basically a donation at that point. lol.
Here are links to those products if you care to read more about them or at least see pricing.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/products/vpn/But even just making a point to donate some one-offs here and there does help in small ways to keep a real option in browsers that isn’t just another Chromium-based project.
https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/Everyone hated when IE was the only browser that sites were coded for, and we are seeing more and more Chromium only sites. Which means a bad vulnerability in Chromium will impact all the browsers based on it. Also privacy add-ons for Firefox tend to work better and block ads well.
Mozilla seems to be pretty transparent. You can see their financial statement at State of Mozilla.
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Donations
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Getting payed by google to make it their default search engine.
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They get paid by Google to feature their search engine as the default primary search engine. In Fennec, the non-google-play version of mobile browser Firefox, Duckduckgo is set as default, even though both versions are maintained by Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind Firefox.
I donate every. single. month.
Mainly a non profit
I adore Firefox but several years ago, Google Suite (Docs, Sheets, Forms, etc) decided to change their font system in some bizarre way that they’re never formatted right on Firefox and cause spacing issues. It sucks because I use Docs and Sheets so frequently that I end up needing to keep two browsers installed and switch whenever I want to work on some of my projects.
This but in the Fennec flavor
Fennec is only for Android, because the desktop Firefox doesn’t have have weird app-store shennanigans to begin with, so there’s no point of maintaining Fennec for desktop.
And I do use Fennec for Android, just to keep the Google-Play shennanigans out of my browser.
I’m on Fennec on Android and LibreWolf on desktop.
7-zip
Yes, I totally paid for WinRar.
It’s said that when Jesus comes back, you get to go to heaven if you paid for it.
The three people who did are going to be pretty lonely.
Microsoft is adding extensive archive format support (using libarchive) to Windows 11. I’d like to thank 7-zip for its service over the decades, though.
The way Msoft are going with right click options I’m doubtful it’ll complete.
If you’re talking about the more limited set of options you get when you right click a file in Windows 11, just hold shift while right clicking to get the original options. You’ve actually been able to hold shift to get additional options going way back, I think to windows XP.
There’s a lot of extra useful options in there too like opening command prompts to the current folder and copying file paths to the clipboard.
Only extraction. You will require 7Z for strong compression.
Bitwarden and firefox
I don’t use it but blender is another one
For the self-hosters out there, there’s VaultWarden, which works seamlessly with all Bitwarden plugins and apps.
It’s very lightweight and easy to setup and run. It has support for multiple accounts, so you can use it for your family, or business, or whatever!
What is blender for? I would Google it but I imagine it would mainly be kitchen accessories
Blender is an open source 3D art/graphics program, on-par with what companies charge hundreds of dollars per month for. Unlike some things where people say “Use GIMP instead of Photoshop!”, Blender is actually industry standard everywhere I’ve worked
3D modelling
Linux
Not an “app” but close enough :) I agree anyway
On this note it’s crazy there are people who will spend over $100 on a Windows license, when all they do is use a web browser or simple productivity apps like spreadsheets or word.
I can get if you’re using some adobe products, or some game that hasn’t been updated to the Linux compatible EAC, but for the vast majority of people paying over $100 (or having that cost passed onto you from the manufacturer if Windows is preinstalled) is crazy.
I came here to post that!
Linux.
The world would be a very different place if linux didn’t exist.
No Android phones, insanely outdated internet, software development confined to what corporations allowed… Yea things could have been a lot worse
Insofar as BSD is very different. Linux emerged while BSD’s legal status was in serious doubt, and had already gathered considerable inertia by the time the court case ended, but the court case ended favorably for the BSD community, so we’d have ended up on that if not for Linux.
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This is it.
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It seems evident that the effort put into a comment would mirror one’s investment in the topic. With these bare minimum answers I always assume the quality of the recommendation matches.
With a catch: If it’s something absurdly popular, then no. Something like Google Maps, you really don’t have to say why it’s both surprising and unsurprising that it manages to be ad free. The whole conversation is self-evident and no more words are needed.
fyi Google Maps is very much not ad-free
Have you considered asking the question yourself and explaining in your post that you are seeking for actual recommendations instead of expecting them in a post with a one-line random question like this one? Maybe?
Most “ITT people” love to help with “ITT” matters, but also enjoy throwing quick answers in posts like this. Just a heads-up.
I mean, when asked for something like this and the quick answer was Everything, you’d wonder if the OP meant the voidtools’ file search software ‘Everything’ or just… everything. At least provide a quick explanation of the usage, 1 sentence is usually enough.
Although I agree with your point, all I see is a will to complain in this thread. And for free. The popular thing to do, I guess.
Firefox, ppsspp, termux, VLC, Tachiyomi(SY), and KeypassXC/DX are coming to my mind. Probably there are a lot more. These are for android. Although they do apply to desktop except termux and Tachiyomi.
Edit: I haven’t added the various FOSS tools as they don’t really come in “App” Category. Some of them:
- Linux kernel
- git
- gcc
+1 for Firefox and VLC. Always amazes me that such good programs are available for free. Remember to donate to FOSS projects, people!
Thanks for the reminder about VLC. I don’t use it much any more, but back in the wild west days of audio/video codecs (some of which were paid), VLC would play everything.
VLC is still one of the most powerful video/audio player in existence.
I just wish it had a dark mode. All the fan skins are so bad and hide functionality. I just want the exact same UI but darker.
Umm… It has darkmode. Atleast in Linux can’t say about windows.
Saved us from media player market bloat (ui, market, microsoft, etc)
VLC + autohotkey = game changer. I use it every day
I’d replace PPSSPP with RetroArch
Jellyfin, it’s literally free Netflix if you own even just an old computer and some storage. Also open source that is another huge plus
I fucking love my Jellyfin server, it’s so seamless
One thing I like about Plex is that there’s literally an app for every device I own. What’s the Jellyfin support there?
There’s an app on f-Droid, there’s an app on the Linux app store (Pls don’t get mad at the name, i switched to Linux less than a month ago) that’s as much as I need, I don’t own a “smart” TV, I don’t own a car with an iPad, my fridge is dumb so the only screens I need supported are the Linux pc and the phone, and those screens are supported.
I gave Jellyfin a full year, and at the end of that year, the problematic Chromecast support did me in. Back to Plex I went.
Genuinely free? VSCode
Freemium: Discord
You pay with your data: Google Maps
Blender
LibreOffice for word processing and spreadsheets.
Honestly the open source office suites are pretty amazing now. It’s what put me off Linux initially all those years ago, how Word/Excel just felt way better than LibreOffice, but now even the browser based stuff is on par.
I’ve only ever used Google Drive suite for my office work so that was super easy on Linux. I’ve heard people who crunch huge datasets in Excel don’t have an alternative though
Home Assistant. It is an incredibly powerful smart home solution that is far more capable than any other solution one needs to pay for.
Taking the opportunity to get on my soapbox and remind everyone that free software still requires someone’s time and effort to maintain. If you’ve been using a free app for a while and you and you enjoy it (and you have the means to do so), consider sending a donation to the developers/maintainers! It’s a good way to help ensure that the great, free app you enjoy stays great and free.
If I might add to your excellent reminder, that if you’re lacking on funds but have some coding skills, most projects are in need of some help. Stick your head into the dev forum and try a low-hanging bug.
If you can’t code, MANY projects need help with documentation, translation, marketing, fund raising, etc.
Writing a comprehensive positive review on an app store or review site can have an impact.
If you do have a few bucks but need more for them than a donation can offer, buying their products (when available) - even just stickers and mugs helps to spread the word around while also supporting the developers.
Or, if you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.
Totally agree. I donate to projects already but I need to do it more.
