Gonna go with Firefox as both my most-used piece of open-source software, and the software I see as most important to its ecosystem. If Firefox fails then we’ve just got Chromium-based browsers and, I guess, Safari.
I love and use Bitwarden daily.
Firefox and its derivatives. They’re the last free bastion preventing a Chromium monopoly on the browser market, which is hugely important - especially these days with Google’s push for Mv3.
Signal, Thunderbird and Bitwarden
Ill throw in some obscure ones I use daily.
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StemRoller. It’s an AI-powered toolthat takes an mp3 and separates each instrument into its own file. Im a musician, and having access to stems like this is a game changer.
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Carla is a tool for hosting VST plugins without the need for a full DAW. I primarily use Amp Simulators, and this has become a mandatory tool on any computer I use. It’s also maintained by the creator of KXStudio.
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Firefox. It is the only thing keeping Google from total internet domination
Blender by a huge mile. Yes, there’s tons of other software like Linux, of course, but Blender is such a powerful, well managed, economically viable and healthy (community) project that it should be shown as an example of how Open Source should be.
My biggest hurdle with other projects is the fanboys, because many times they’re quite toxic, insulting everybody who doesn’t adore the project and don’t accept constructive criticism.
By a huuuge mile indeed. Blender devs are great at listening and communicating with the community.
The standardization of hotkeys and features across the software is fantastic. The UI is snappy and filled to the brim with intuitive QoL features I wish were standard for my OS.
I have irreconcilable grievances with a lot of open source software, VLC, VSCode, etc, and find development slow and heading non optimal for others like Sharex and Firefox… but Blender, that’s green on all fronts.
Firefox currently firing on all cylinders, it’s a real beauty
Blender is the model open source project :P
Krita for me!
Honestly, Blender was the first software that really “proved” open source software to me, and I’ve been an open source exclusive user to this day
uBlock Origin, it’s not even close!
the web would be miserable without it.
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My vote was for Godot but this one is a very close second. I even have it installed on my mobile Firefox instance.
GNU+Linux
Firefox and Bitwarden
Linux.
LibreOffice is equal to any office software out there, and has been much more stable than OpenOffice, and works without an internet connection unlike Google Docs.
I recently read an article about how the “Open XML” M$ format was artificially made super cumbersome and complex so that it makes open source software support it almost impossible.
The article was written by one of the Libre office collaborator who was saying that they are intentionally introduced bugs so that we never see a better adoption of it in open source tools.
The whole standardisation process was a sham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML
Everyone should use LibreOffice … unless you work in a very specific office or school environment that specifically requires it, go install Microsoft Office, and even then, get your school or business to pay for it
Otherwise, for day to day document writing, letter writing or anything you have to do for yourself at home … LibreOffice is more than enough.
About five or six years ago, I was buying a new laptop at Bestbuy and I found myself a great deal and specifically asked for a system that didn’t have an OS with it or any software … they got an old returned unit, wiped the drive and sold it to me for about $200 at the time. While I waited, I listened as a salesman sold a new laptop to a clueless mother buying a unit for her son in high school … they got her to buy a $600 laptop, all sots of extras and MS Office and topped her off at about $1000 for a shitty laptop that was no more powerful than what I was getting
I’d go with either Firefox or Thunderbird. Both are immensely useful pieces of software that I use on a daily basis, and have evolved (mostly) nicely over time.
Not to give Mozilla too much credit, Nextcloud is also pretty slick!
uBlock Origin - the chaddest AdBlock of them all!
Proxmox, opnsense, fdroid, and many more on r/selfhosted (now on lemmy also) .
sunshine, moonlight ( play my games anywhere in the world, games run on my pc at home)
Firefox (the best browser against google monopoly), thunderbird (best mail client)
LineageOS, microG, Mozilla Location services, Magisk, aurora store (let me use Android without any of google tracking)
Bitwarden, Proton mail/vpn, Nextcloud (finally no gmail tracking)
Jellyfin, kodi (lets me create my own Netflix)
GNU/Linux, GNOME, KDE and host of other Linux projects. No more windows tracking. Also if you want to really know how the OS works, you should start tinkering with Linux. I expanded my knowledge base by just using Linux as daily driver.
The list just goes on and on. I am so grateful for all the open source devs that put their time in developing these tools.
For those wanting to go further, checkout https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
Firefox lets you use extensions on mobile too
LineageOS, microG, Mozilla Location services, Magisk, aurora store (let me use Android without any of google tracking)
Can you expand on this more? I’m getting more and more interested in cutting ties with Google altogether. I’ve been using bing for the last few years now. Not much better, but at least I get paid for the info they glean from my searches. I rooted my galaxy S4 way back and was happy to finally get rid of all the bloatware and I’d like to do that again with my current phone, but ridding myself of Google location services is also really appealing.
For degoogling i remove stock os that comes with my Android device. I buy phones which have good support for custom roms (like nothing, oneplus, pixel). You can find the custom roms on xda threads and telegram groups for your device.
After installing the custom rom i root it with magisk and flash minmicrog package which installs microG (oss version of play services) and with it comes mozilla Location services.
You can install minmicrog package on stock rom also.
