In the past, most software I used was paid and proprietary and would have some sort of limitation that I would try to get around by any means possible. Sometimes that would be resetting the clock on my computer, disabling the internet, and other times downloading a patch.
But in the past few years I’ve stopped using those things and have focused only on free and open source software (FOSS) to fulfill my needs. I hardly have to worry about privacy problems or trying to lock down a program that calls home. I might be missing out on some things that commercial software delivers, but I’m hardly aware of what they are anymore. It seems like the trend is for commercial software providers to migrate toward online or service models that have the company doing all the computing. I’m opposed to that, since they can take away your service at any time.
What do you do?
Paid Software Experience:
- “Hi, Thanks for choosing us! Please sign into or sign up for your account! You agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy right?”
- “Great, and thanks for your purchase! Did you know we have a limited time sale on our Ultra Pro Superprofessional Edition?”
- “No? Well we also have a monthly subscription plan that can get you very cool features! Wanna check that out?”
- “No? Alright we’ll get on with installation. But first, we need to make sure you’re not running a VM, VPN and other software we don’t like from our handy DRM software.”
- “Oh, that DRM software also happens to collect your contact information and read your files so we can sell that for money. Thanks and enjoy!”
FOSS Experience:
- Aight you got enough disk space? Here’s the GPL. Where we droppin? Cool, enjoy your program! Support me if you feel like it, bud!
Mostly FOSS since moving from Windows to Linux, still use the odd proprietary software (pirated of course).
With the recent rumors that Microsoft is moving to move Windows in its entirety to be cloud based I feel like I switched to Linux at the right moment.
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Steam games or console games?
In my younger years I just pirated the hell out of software. From Photoshop to Sony Vegas. Nowadays i use Foss because of my Linux use, but even for my Boyfriend PC’s I mostly leet him choose between Pirated Programms and FOSS software and he mostly just needs an easy software. FOSS isn’t as feature full as paid software but mostly for the normal stuff you do you can just use FOSS.
It was early 2002 when I decided I had enough with proprietary software. Without much thought on how successful my transition would be, I just downloaded a popular distro at the time and tried to make it my new home. I’m glad I did that.
It has as smooth a ride as climbing the Himalayas, but that gave me a much necessary DIY attitude to tinker and find solutions for which I’m deeply grateful for.
So if I see someone feeling inclined to jump ship and go all FLOSS, I not only encourage them, but give them the necessary push.
By the way, I’m not a programmer. I’m not even STEM trained. I’ve made my career in the humanities.
A little after you, but similar. Over a decade of Linux as my primary OS for personal use. The effort of piracy or the cost of keeping up to date commercial software was just pointless. For a good chunk of uses, the FOSS alternative is good enough.
I get it for people with certain professional work-flows, there is usually commercial software that is pretty much expected. Unfortunately, most commercial software in professional use is already getting pretty good at extracting maximum profit from you. If it’s necessary, the more they can make you pay.
I mostly use FOSS, but most games arent FOSS, so thats the only thing I pirate now.
Except for games I use FOSS on my Linux desktop and on my Android phone. The FOSS alternative is often better than the proprietary software.
What kind of FOSS software can you get for your android?
F-Droid has tons of good apps!
Any recommendation in general? some that you can call a must have in your phone?
A few I like:
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StreetComplete, fun ‘mini game’ for helping fill out Open Street Map data
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Hacki, hacker news reader
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Mull, fork of Firefox with more privacy stuff enabled
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Simple Gallery
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Bitwarden
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Simple SMS
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Birday, birthday manager, nice for keeping track
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VLC
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Scrambled EXIF, gets rid of private EXIF data in your photos before sharing
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Auto Auto-Rotate, enabled auto-rotate automatically in specific apps
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Shelter, useful for setting up a work profile
StreetComplete looks like a nice bit of fun! Good way to get me out of the house.
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TrackerControl is essential, imo. The f-droid version is the complete one, too, compared to the play store.
Simple X (Simple Gallery, Simple File Manager, Simple Calendar, etc) are very good for the basic android functions. As for what else, that’ll really depend on what you need. I like Librera for reading stuff
I forgot about them. I didn’t know they were FOSS. Is F-Droid primarily for nerds and programmers? Or do normies also use it? I stopped working on Android apps because I don’t want my hobby to be subjected to the whims of Google’s acceptance criteria. But maybe I could publish to F-Droid instead.
Yeah it’s pretty friendly many normal people use it …
I would say it’s probably not that widely known outside of open source and privacy groups.
Open source is better these days but it still can’t entirely replace everything. One day, we’ll be able to make the switch though
Both, plenty of FOSS alternatives are not good enough yet. For example, video or image editing is much easier with adobe products.
Most SW I pirate are games or windows/office for friends.I use mosly free foss apps. It’s has become a hasle to use programs that force online acounts. Kinda hate it when a app is slowly turned into a weird web app with heavy drm. And exploitive licenses
As a teenager I pirated everything, but that was mostly because I didn’t have the money to buy it anyway. These days I mostly use FOSS and buy things like games. That being said, my 11yo likes The Sims 4 and it is almost $1200 for everything so fuck EA.
jfc i thought you were goofin on us but that’s fairly close. $1064 according to this source
god damn, EA
Not to mention 4 is the worst one between 2, 3 and 4…
I just use FOSS. I don’t trust that proprietary garbage. I generally don’t pirate software in general. Its far too easy to trojanize it. I also buy games on steam to support linux/deck and valves investment in the ecosystem, I buy them steeply discounted though. With Roms, sales and free games I have a massive backlog so being patient pays off.
I also find that the quality of the FOSS stuff is better and way more configurable. Not hating on anyone that does pirate software or prefers proprietary stuff, to each their own
I hate proprietary stuff, but sometimes Proprietary is the best option. IDA and Binja have features that Ghidra and Curtter lack, Charles Proxy and Fiddler have more features than mitmproxy, IntelliJ is just better than Eclipese or VSCodium, Autocad and most of the Autodesk suite have no FOSS counterparts. On the flip side, you have Notepad++ that’s better than Sublime, x64dbg is my favorite debugger, and I’ve been using Lunacy for photo editing recently over the multiple m0nkrus packs I have in my torrent client, and Blender is better in a lot of scenarios than Maya or whatever else.
I agree, there are some insane FOSS apps and programs like NewPipe (kinda uses proprietary but eh, there’s no real replacement for YouTube) that I would always prefer over a pirated version of another, better known app.
Absolutely grade-A username, my dude. Also, if you haven’t, consider joining us at !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works or !patientgamers@lemmy.ml. I only just learned about one of those because of some kind of new autocomplete feature for federated communities.
I should go.
Haha thanks man, I’m already a member of the lemmy.ml patientgamers ;) . That is cool to know thanks
I only use FLOSS software. It’s just a better thing being able to see the source code.
And you can help if your a developer and improve it.
Yep!
I use FOSS whenever possible.
If kdenlive was even in the same ballpark of usability as Premiere maybe, but so far it’s not even in the same country.
You should try Da Vinci Resolve
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