After moving to Fedora around January full-time, I was still using a few paid applications in my daily workflow and some free apps that I just… I don’t agree with philosophically speaking. So here is what I’ve been able to replace so far.
1Password → Bitwarden
Chrome → Firefox
TextExpander → Autokey
NordVPN → ProtonVPN (I know it’s not free, but it’s open source. If someone has a Free VPN service they can recommend, I’m open to changing)
What software/services have you been able to replace with open-source/free alternatives since moving to Linux?
Password store (aka pass) is a great console based password manager. You can pair it with git to sync your database between computers. Combine that with the tilda pop-up terminal for super quick password access.
I used Bitwarden for awhile (which I still love and recommend to people), but eventually switched over to KeepassXC. It keeps my passwords local instead of in the cloud, reducing the size of the target for 1337 h4x0rs, and has some features that you’d have to either pay for or self-host to get in Bitwarden like TOTP’s. >!I know storing TOTP’s in my password manager isn’t as secure as keeping them separate. But it’s the right mix of convenient and secure for me. For anyone who doesn’t have access to my password manager, the TOTP’s still keep me more protected than not having them at all, and I doubt anyone’s going to be targeting my lone password database in the first place. As far as I’m concerned, the security goes: separated OTP’s and password manager > both in one > only password manager.!<
To keep my passwords synced between my devices, I use Syncthing.
KDE Connect lets my phone and computer be connected in ways that I found a lot more useful than I expected.
Czkawka is niche, but if you need it it’s a life saver. It searches for duplicate/visually similar images, similar music and videos, big files, empty files and directories, broken symlinks, broken files, and bad extensions.
I used to have a really great Windows utility called “Encspot” which could help you gauge the quality of your mp3s by telling you the bitrate, the encoder used, and let you see the individual rate on each of the mp3 frames. Never been able to find a Linux program that could do the same, though. And the company’s website is long gone.
I run a full microelectronics fab company on Open Source, from accounting to website to design to fab to marketing. That amounts to over 16 resources / softwares. Link in profile for the curious!
ProtonVPN’s free tier is the ONLY free vpn I would ever possibly recommend to anyone, and it’s all about Proton AG. I genuinely believe they’re ideal driven.