• FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
      732·
      3 months ago

      some new weird video format opens windows stock media player because it’s not yet associated with vlc

      “Hey… it looks like your going to have to buy a codec…”

      manually open in vlc where it runs seemlessly

    • cm0002@lemmy.world
      14·
      3 months ago

      +1 VLC will dutifully try to play even corrupted to hell files that any other media player would just fail with some form of “can’t play, file is corrupt”

    • d00phy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      3 months ago

      VLC is pretty great. I would say IINA is at least a close second on Mac. Haven’t had a problem playing anything in it yet.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
          3·
          3 months ago

          It even runs on iOS. It’s one of the only ways to play videos that aren’t in Apple’s bullshit proprietary format.

      • million@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Yeah I personally prefer IINA on the Mac because of how native the interface is. Neither VLC or IINA has had trouble paying any video files I have.

    • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
      4·
      3 months ago

      Wasn’t there some big thing where they tried to buy it and the person that made it was just like “nah”

    • M137@lemmy.world
      63·
      3 months ago

      I agree that it’s cool and all, but I just really don’t like VLC. It’s ugly, bad UX and misses some major features. I love other similar and also free ones thoigh, like PotPlayer, MPC and MPV.

    • frunch@lemmy.world
      3·
      3 months ago

      VLC just managed to get some newer video files to play for me on a 10 year old tablet that wouldn’t play them with it’s included video player. It was also one of the only apps on the play store that would still work on that old tablet as well. It’s been my go-to video player for years now, terrific software 🥂

    • AlpacaChariot@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      3 months ago

      I haven’t used windows in about 15 years on my personal machines but see 7zip referenced everywhere…why is it so popular? Can windows 10/11 or whatever we’re on now not compress/extract most things itself or do people prefer it for some reason (nice interface etc)?

      I’m always amazed when I’m following a tutorial written for windows and it says “download and install 7zip, then extract the file using 7zip”. I just right click the file and extract it…

      • vividspecter@lemm.ee
        33·
        3 months ago

        Windows only recently got support for 7z and RAR. For the several decades before that, it supported neither.

      • viking@infosec.pub
        1·
        3 months ago

        Windows can do that, but opens archives as folders and will run executables by extracting them to a temp folder without dependencies. And the unpack dialogue is cumbersome, with 7zip you get a simple right click -> extract here / to folder dialogue, that somehow still is too much to ask of the main OS.

  • ArchRecord@lemm.eeEnglish
    69·
    3 months ago

    Practically every single FOSS application I use is highly useful to me, and of course, free, so I’ll just list them all here.

    • Immich - A full-featured replacement for Google Photos, has a sleek UI, face detection, albums, a timeline, etc.
    • Paperless-ngx - Document management system, saves me a ton of paper hoarding, and makes everything easily searchable with OCR.
    • Syncthing - Simple file synchronization between my devices, on my terms. Doesn’t share data with big tech companies about my files, and hooks up extremely fast P2P connections that beat cloud-based services by a long shot.
    • Metube & Seal - Simple interfaces for downloading with yt-dlp, can download from YouTube, but also many other sites. Doesn’t spam you with popup ads or junk redirects like those “youtube downloader” type sites. Seal is my favorite of the two, but is only on Android.
    • Image Toolbox - Insanely feature-packed app for doing practically anything you could want to an image. Converting formats, clearing EXIF data, removing backgrounds, feature-packed editing, OCR, convert to SVG, create color palettes, converting PDFs to images, decode and encode Base64 to and from images, extract frames from gifs, encrypt & decrypt files, make zip files, and a lot more. All local.
    • Rustdesk - No-nonsense remote desktop, tons of features, simple file transfer, cross-platform compatibility, and P2P communication without needing a third party server if you so choose.
    • LibreOffice - Essentially everything you’d get with Office 365 (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint) but without the $150 price point. Compatible with the same file formats, and has the same functionality.
    • Cashew - Feature rich financial app for budgeting, tracking purchases, saving for goals, etc. Doesn’t have automatic import, but I find that manually putting every transaction in keeps me aware of my spending much better than before, so for me it’s quite worth it. Install directly from the APK, or use on web though. The version on the app stores has some features locked behind a paywall.
    • Linkwarden - Bookmark manager with cross-platform support, a web interface, automatic tagging, automatic archiving of any saved links in multiple formats, collaborative sharing capabilities, and more. It’s free, but you can also pay $3/mo if you want them to host it for you.

    Edit: And Umbrel (on Raspberry Pi) if you want to host things more easily. Basically just a much more hands-off, user-friendly docker for people who don’t want to tinker as much.

    Edit 2: Non-FOSS, but Obsidian is the best note taking app I’ve ever used. Great selection of community-made plugins (which are FOSS) for additional functionality, and all notes are in standard cross-software-compatible Markdown. No locked-in proprietary formats.

    • Not a replicant@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      3 months ago

      Some of your data flows through Syncthing servers (but I agree that’s a great product, I use it myself) LibreOffice works for entry-level users, but it does not have the same functionality as MSOffice. And the UI sucks as much as MSOffice.

    • dishpanman@lemmy.caEnglish
      4·
      3 months ago

      Syncthing is awesome for home devices backups like phone pictures and videos and computer documents that can be version controlled. I also use Local Send app to share files between phones and computers in the house.

    • Vinstaal0@lemmy.world
      3·
      3 months ago

      You can buy office separately these days again. Not sure if Libreoffice is feature complete these days, but last time I tried it, it was missing a lot of the more advanced featureslike Solver/Powerquery/certain advanced formulas.

      I recommend it for everybody and if it is not for you, you wil realise it in a couple of minutes of working with it if you are a oower user

    • Samsy@lemmy.ml
      21·
      3 months ago

      I use near the same stuff. But I don’t like these all-in-one centers like umbrel and Casa. I simply use dockge.

      And happy cake day.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    62·
    3 months ago

    Blender, Gimp, Inkscape, OBS (open broadcast software), Linux distros of various sorts, openHAB, LibreOffice, Firefox (and plugins like uBlock), PiHole, VirtualBox, Notepad++, Paint.NET, VLC, 7-Zip, FileZilla…

    I’m sure there’s more.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      84·
      3 months ago

      Gimp is a bit of a stretch.

      I’ve used it a lot, but unlike most of the others on this list, the commercial product (Photoshop) is so much better that I’m willing to shell out the monthly fee to use it over Gimp.

      • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Back when Photoshop was $300 (600 todays money) It was fine for non-professional work.

        It could use a little UI finesse, a content aware fill without plugins, and a regular human usable macroining system.

        But for 90% of non-professional work clone, dodge, smudge, burn, masking and curves are perfectly serviceable.

      • cactopuses@lemm.ee
        1·
        3 months ago

        I’m not sure what field you’re in and photoshop certainly is the standard but Affinity has been great for my needs and is pay once if you’re looking to avoid SAAS

      • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
        15·
        3 months ago

        One story that I should write down because I always tell it when discussing Godot since it’s a great example of why Godot is better than other engines is that a while back I was doing a single player game for a game jam, because I was testing it with multiple controllers I wanted that it would pick any controller (it’s a single player game after all, no one cares which controller I’m using) and was annoyed at the fact that every game engine requires you to create mapping for all controllers individually to do this, e.g. “controller 1 button A”, “controller 2 button A”, etc. So I went into the code for Godot and added a couple of lines that allowed me to create a mapping for all controllers, i.e. “Any controller Button A”. This felt so useful that I wondered why no engine has it, so I submitted a PR and last I checked Godot is still the only engine that allows for “any controller” style mapping.

  • Amax@lemmy.ca
    461·
    3 months ago

    Can’t believe no one has mentioned Home Assistant. Automation engine for home and have local control over almost everything “smart” at home.

  • Nerandza@lemmy.world
    36·
    3 months ago

    New pipe, I didn’t see anyone mentioned it

    Besides, I use Linux, Organic maps, Signal, VLC, KDE on daily basis and THANK YOU good people on internet for making my life happier!

  • Resol van Lemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    351·
    3 months ago

    I think Blender is a very honorable mention, especially since the team that makes the software has also used it to make some really impressive short films, such as Big Buck Bunny. Who knows, maybe some indie studio can use it to make some truly wonderful stuff (and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case).

    • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      “everything everywhere all at once” was made largely in Blender I think, it’s the most popular film from a studio using Blender that I know of