Hi guys, I want to expand the sticky “Where to start?” article with a section about switching services and digitial products (or have a post about that?).
Many alternatives where already discussed and I can look them up on the alternatives webpages. But if you want to name alternatives that are underrepresented, feel free to support me here.
(Based on various sharepics) these topics came into my mind, did I miss anything essential?
- Browsing
- Searching
- e-Mail/Office suite (gmail/outlook)
- e-Mail clients
- mobile Apps
- Messaging Apps
- Passwordmanagers
- VPN providers
- Social media (obviously)
- Maps and navigation
- Shopping
Re: Office Suite, i’m slowly persuading my work to move to all text based. Markdown to replace Word docs. Csv files and python scripts (streamlit, pandas, numpy, scipy, duckdb, plotly) to replace excel & power bi. Markdown and Slides to replace powerpoint. Git to replace sharepoint.
Imo, all corporate & government documentation should be in plaintext. Changes easily tracked, versioned, inspected, and audited.
Helix editor with markdown and python LSPs and formatters has been my stack for all my personal documentation/personal finance for years, so i know the approach works. And since it’s just plain text, anyone can use their preferred editor. Vim, emacs, etc
Working in a company where this is standard, I lust say that it cannot be done for all companies. For us git and markdown might be second nature, but for many it is a productivity bumper at first.
Good UIs (editor, git client) help, though.
SimpleXchat doesn’t seem to get a lot of love. Open source, European, encrypted and very privacy focused.
I gave it a try yesterday as I was curious. It’s impressive privacy wise, but it’s still missing some features to become a Whatsapp / Telegram replacement.
People are now used to be able to create topics in groups, that would be a nice addition.
Yea, it’s still a work in progress for sure. And it seems that their focus is mainly to get the architecture stable and secure rather than focusing on end user experience. But personally I’m impressed with the dedication to make a secure and private messenger.
Searching
I feel like SearXNG goes way under-mentioned. It’s a meta search engine, basically a search engine aggregator…
mobile Apps
Obtainium should be mentioned more. It’s not technically European, as its creator is Canadian, but it’s fully open-source. It’s an app that helps you manage other open-source apps. I feel like it’s a good way to avoid the Google Play Store, if you’re looking to use European open-source software.
Passwordmanagers
KeePass is oft mentioned, but KeePassXC is better, IMO. Keepass2Android is the Android equivalent.
