Spotify for music. I like the UI and the fact I can use it on all my devices.
Steam for games. I like that I can have progress synced across my Steam Deck, laptop and desktop.
Waze for maps and navigation. I like being able to report things on the road and update fuel prices etc
There may be some hope of better FOSS map and Navigation Apps due to Overture Maps.
Microsoft Office. I write a lot of documents that require contant citation and updates of sources, comments, etc. I have to review documents, create tables of content etc etc. Even though MS Office is far from perfect in many of these, free alternatives such as Libre or Open Office are just terrible.
Also, have you used sheets? Hot shit compared to the fucking powerhouse that excel is.
Oh god, that’s a mess
Yeah, I was going to say Excel. I’m an accountant and I regularly use Excel to its limits. Honestly nothing else comes close, though I dearly wish it did. I run Linux on my desktop and I have both libreoffice and wps installed and will use them occasionally depending on what I’m doing, but if it’s anything serious I go to a Windows machine with Excel.
Learn to use latex
Yes and no. For stuff like citations: absolutely. For reviewing stuff, the mode to suggest edits in Office (or even Google Docs) is great and doesn’t really have equivalent with a proper UI for LaTeX. Yes, you can use PDF comments, but then you need to change the LaTeX document manually.
But that’s the whole point. I started exploring it and learning about it and realized that it will take more time than it’s worth - by that time I completed it in Word and fixed it’s own citation issues manually. I really, really want these to be better than MS Word…but they just aren’t there yet.
Altium. Reasons. (the octopart integration is really nice)
OSM over HERE/Apple/Google maps. It has much much better mapping of footpaths, which makes it much more useful for planning runs/walks/hikes.
I think you misread OP’s question
True. Soz. Read it while tired.
Join our community: !openstreetmap@lemmy.ml
Also, you answered the question backwards, but I don’t mind XD
Qlab is vastly superior to any other live theatre show control software.
Photoshop is easier to use than gimp. I don’t pay for photoshop, but if I needed something like that I would.
I’ve had a pretty good experience using photopea as a photoshop replacement. Definitely not quite as powerful, but it has more than enough features for your average user
If you’re talking about general ergonomy (as opposed to functionality), you may find Affinity Photo to be a breath of fresh air. It’s close to Ps (on purpose) but it is so much better thought out, the way you interact with your documents. Really worth trying
Same with Inkscape vs Affinity Designer.
I really wanted Inkscape to work for me, though I was constantly fighting the UI and some weird artifacting Inkscape produced exporting SVG files.
Affinity Designer was, and still is, especially since their licenses are perpetual/non-subscription, well worth the price and is a dream to use.
It’s usable with photogimp, but Photoshop still has better tools and filters.
Same with Lightroom vs Darktable.
Darktable is pretty much a Lightroom replica in terms of the workflow. Its main issue is that Darktable reacts to slider changes in an unpredictable way. Small value differences lead to overblown changes to the image. Fine tuning the result is near impossible.
Ah, might be! It’s been 10+ years since I tried it. Back then I found it very hard to navigate
Does it have a good panorama sticker or HDR merger? Those are the tools I absolutely need from Lightroom
Not sure, never used these features.
How does Rawtherapee compare to that? Many people seem to prefer it over Darktable
I tried it once a very long time ago. It was super slow and buggy. It’s easier to get used to Darktable quirks.
Photoshop is one i cannot shake too. If I need to make a graphic to post on social media for my shop, Photoshop does it. If I need to edit a picture, Photoshop.
Krita is closer to Photoshop than Gimp, although still not up to it. Just in case you ever need PS, try krita first.
Krita has g’mic and it’s open source. It’s photoshop that is still not up to there
Thanks I’ll remember that just in case!
Photopea is good for most tasks
Krita is excellent for painting, not very good for image editing though.
Hard disagree. I use it all the time for photo editing.
Well, there’s better tools out there
Again, just my opinion, but I prefer Krita to any FLOSS alternative. I’ve been designing professionally for over a decade, using Adobe for most of it; Krita is my preferred FLOSS tool for photo editing, and I’ve tried them all.
I’m surprised, I never managed to use it efficiently for that purpose. Perhaps AffinityPhoto spoiled me a bit. I love Krita for illustration work though, nothing compares… As far as commercial alternatives go, I haven’t tried Clip Paint although everybody praises it- but I don’t really feel the need to. Apparently it’s excellent?
Krita is a drawing program not really a photo editor like PS/Gimp. Paint.net was a pretty good PSlite last time I tried it
Also Photoshop, along with DxO PureRaw.
My camera supports 10 bit/channel color. My monitor does too. GIMP only supports sRGB, so 8-bit color. It’s unsuitable for editing, and even worse for printing.
Consider Photoshop Elements for a similar UI and one time payment to use forever.
Thanks for the tip I didn’t know about that.
Hard to compare.
The two apps just have a different workflow…
Well yeah I was answering for me though, not the whole internet.
Gimp has a work flow that I can’t get into, photoshop clicks better. For you, it could be the opposite and that’s great.
I’m not selling photoshop, I don’t even use either anymore. It would be stupid not to try to make gimp work for you first.
Depends if you learn gimp or PS first.
Like if you start life with Linux, windows seems weird
Idk, I learned GIMP first for years, and kept being annoying how unintuitive it was.
Then I tried Photoshop on a friend’s computer for a week, and found how much easier it was to use.
I don’t use Photoshop though since I use Linux
Well yeah, that’s the whole point. It’s harder to learn another workflow when you’re already in the mindset of the other.
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They aim to introduce that in version 3.0, which they say will be a complete overhaul of the app.
Non-destructive editing through live adjustment layers is definitely the single most useful feature any editing software can have.
That alone makes life so much easier.
I remember people saying “3.0 is right around the corner” several years ago.
I categorize GIMP 3.0 the same as ASOIAF, Star Citizen, and the Google Drive client for Linux. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if I see it, but I ain’t holding my breath.
I imagine by the time it releases I’ll have bought Affinity v3 already
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iMessage unfortunately
What do you like better about it over Signal or Whatsapp?
Apple would get so much more money out of me charging $20 a month to use imessage on windows/android vs waiting for me to replace my iphone. I get I am the rare user but by golly I wish they would go multi platform.
Im running a mac os virtual machine with the app/server called airmessage. I get iMessage for my family group chats now though it’s tied to my email.
I’ve heard of it but didn’t want to buy a Mac or trust a third party with my messages.
I don’t trust it either but I’ll pick my insecure conversations over my family/friends complaining about contacting me (and contacting me less).
Didn’t pay a thing for the VM
Studio 3T over MongoDB Compass. Despite the comparatively dated UI, S3T is way more capable
I’m still a widow of robo3t. I still use it over any alternative but every time I need to setup a new machine I find it harder to download than before. It’s also throwing a lot of errors with newer mongo versions.
Both studio 3t and compass have an interface that just doesn’t feel right to me.
FL Studio. I’ve been using it since the late 90s. I know it like the back of my hand.
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The most recent one is, of course, Sync for Lemmy. It may just be muscle memory at this point, but I find the experience a step improvement in browsing.
On my home server front, I would mention Plex despite Jellyfin’s massive improvements over the past 2 years. Plexamp is just a magical piece of software.
For the most part, though, I think I’d reverse the question. Most of the time, I prefer OSS.
I agree about Plex. But I don’t get the love for Sync.
It feels kind of clunky and it lacks some features many of the other apps have. Personally, I’m liking Thunder right now, but I’m excited for Boost to come out.
Sync has ads unless you pay, it’s not open source, and I haven’t actually found anything superior about it.
It feels kind of clunky and it lacks features many of the other apps have.
Care to mention some? I’ve used Thunder but I find it unbearably ugly and not as visually customizable as Sync.
It’s missing some of the gesture customization others have. I particularly like the left AND right swipe gestures in Thunder. Plus, there are more actions you can assign to them.
Thunder also has more visual adjustments. Things like edge to edge images and post action customizations.
Also, the reply window makes formatting and quoting easier.
The feature different isn’t big though, and most of them aren’t a big deal.
I’m not sure why you think Thunder is ugly though. The way I have them setup, they look almost exactly the same, except I have nested comments in factors more visible on Thunder, which makes it a bit easier to track the conversation.
I was unable to get the font sizes right, to change only the base font to affect all proportions, and to colorize the indented comments the way I like them. Maybe I just wasn’t able to find the settings, though.
Fair enough.
I use Navidrome over Jellyfin for music hosting. The open source music clients for the subsonic API are a little more varied.
If you’re happy using closed apps, Symfonium supports both Jellyfin and Subsonic.
I just switched from Plex to Jellyfin. Aside from a few minor features like intro skipping, I don’t miss it.
So i bought plex pass a while ago and i keep hearing about plexamp, I dont really understand why is it considered so good, could you elaborate on why you like it? Does it do more than play music from my home server?
I love Jellyfin and mainly use it and recommend it where possible these days, but man, the download situation sucks. Hate having to download files without compressing them, especially since I keep my media lossless. Its the main reason I’ve still kept Plex running on my server. Also sometimes the clients can be wonky, I’ve found Jellyfin works best for me with Kodi as the player for most things, which is interesting. But overall I do like Jellyfin and support it and its mission, hopefully gets better in these aspects in time.
Try reiverr, its a jellyfin ui made by a lemmy user that integrates with the arr suite and tvmd so you can easily find new things to watch https://github.com/aleksilassila/reiverr
It definitely looks promising, but I still don’t think Jellyfin and Reiverr are quite ready to compete with Plex yet.
Same here. And especially for watch parties Jellyfin has been great.
Such a cool feature to self host
Yep! Just need faster internet so I can share with more friends 😭
I’m glad I used Infinity for Reddit, which was always FOSS, and there is now a new fork Eternity for Lemmy.
Jetbrains IntelliJ is a big contender, but I get along just fine in other, FOSS IDEs. I prefer GIMP to Photoshop, actually, but that may just be a case where I learned photo manipulation on GIMP and didn’t touch Photoshop until far later.
My final answer has to be in image processing/photo editing software. CaptureOne Pro is leagues ahead of anything FOSS I’ve ever tried. DarkTable, RawTherapee, ART, none of it can come close to comparing right now. No matter how much time I give it, I just… Can never make the transition. Which sucks, because CaptureOne is not available on Linux and it’s pretty well impossible to get it running. 🥲
Whatsapp. Everyone in India uses it. Its like the imessage situation in the US. So widespread.
Schools, college, friend groups, family groups all are on whatsapp.
there’s a kerala lemmy? thats neat
telegram is used a lot in slav countries, i feel like its pretty decent
Cool instance you are on.
Thanks. May I ask what is so cool about the instance that I am on? ;)
I can only speak for myself, but it’s nice to have more international presence here. Right now it’s mostly Anglos and other Europeans
Did not know we have our own instance
Same in the Czech Republic. My whole family communicates only through whatsapp.
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Can second this for Germany, too.
I tried to degoogle and to only use FOSS apps and services, but ditching WhatsApp would throw me in a black hole.
Half-and-half here (also Germany). Almost everyone I know uses Signal & WhatsApp both. But WA is for bad connectivity and group chats, plus a few (mostly foreigners) holdouts.
I have ONE contact who uses Signal. Yes, it’s a shame but at this point I think that I could convert more people to using Linux than to switching to Signal.
I hear that a lot, it’s so weird, even my mum, dad and aunts (all around 70 years old) use Signal, and that was not my idea (I used to avoid all those fucking phone-number messengers for a few years until I caved in and realized Jabber is not making a return to mainstream …)
Same here. I wonder if there is an easy way to leave an old phone with whatsapp at home and forward the messages to my daily driver. Would prevent the zuck from reading out my contact list at minimum. I know he still has everybody else’s but still.
Matrix bridge?
You don’t have to give contact permission to the app.
So you prefer it because everyone use it? This doesn’t sound smart
How am I supposed to message people when the only messaging app they use is whatsapp and facebook messenger (which I don’t use)?
I guess the only easy alternative is to use SMS and email since everyone use it. But it is not safe.
I am always open to alternatives like Signal, Element,etc. But no one use them. I am not going to force people to use a messaging app.
As a workaround, you can bridge most services to Matrix. I currently bridge Telegram, Signal and SMS to my Matrix server and only need Element on my phone and desktop.
Unfortunately Element is fairly focused on business users, would be cool if they could host bridges for individuals to make the barrier of entry easier.
Zbrush is better for sculpting than Blender. (Although Blender is not sculpting specific, so it’s really good as a general 3d suite tool, capable of things ZBrush can’t do).
If you know of a FOSS 3d sculpting tool that is as good as Zbrush, let me know.
I must admit that I cannot get used to blender.
Might be that I’m an old fart who started on 3ds max back in the 00s, but I cannot get used to how different blender is from the normal modeling software paradigm.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely applaud and appreciate all that the Blender Foundation has done for 3d modelling and all the industries it touches, but it’s just not for me.
I’m lucky enough to be in a position where the cost of my software of choice (Modo) isn’t a problem, but I get kind of anxious as the idea of being forced to really use blender to do actual work.
I have a Maya background only, so I can’t compare to Modo or 3dsMax. But I found bridging over to blender not as bad as I thought it would be. It just takes time to get accustomed to the interface and some of its quirks. UV tools seem weak and the outliner hierarchies still leave me stumped, along with their pivot points system, but I’m hopeful I’ll get around those eventually.
If you haven’t tried Blender 3.5+ I’d recommend you give it a go, perhaps it is not as bad as you may remember. Or not, maybe the juice isn’t worth the squeeze in your case, I don’t know.
I recently tried coming back to sculpting and damn, zbrush honestly feels horrible, the thing doesnt even have proper HiDPI scaling so its all blurry on my screen (paid product BTW), not to mention the awful UX. Tried using blender for sculpting and honestly, I got suprised on how good it is. Some defaults are messy and it lacks layers but other than that its pretty decent.
I’m the same vain, Houdini is better than blender for simulations.
Ah, Houdini! I’ve heard lots of great things about it, I need to get into it sometime.
MacOS instead of some Linux distro. Mostly because of the hardware that comes with it, making a neat integrated product.
I agree, love the intervonnectivity with iOS, especially AirDrop. And it’s still more comfortable to use than Windows IMO (no forced updates that slow down the shutting down process!).
I agree, love the intervonnectivity with iOS, especially AirDrop.
To me, that sort of “feature” is nothing more than a security vulnerability waiting to be exploited.
Maybe I just think that because of past trauma from Microsoft products and IoT devices being blatantly insecure, but…
