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Recommended Software

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jdrch edited this page Oct 26, 2024 · 61 revisions

Foreword

  • The following are either software I've used personally or know to work best in the noted capacity/context.
  • The list of supported OSes for particular applications is not necessarily exhaustive. Ports for a particular OS may exist; check Repology or Packages Search
  • FuryBSD KDE is FreeBSD with a bundled live image desktop and KDE installation, and so anything that is listed as working with FuryBSD can be assumed to work with FreeBSD also unless otherwise stated
  • I've omitted listing OSes on which I don't recommend each app

Antimalware

Archive Managers

7-zip (Windows)

Backup

Backup Targets

Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition (Windows)

Clients

NOTE: These do not necessarily have equivalent features.

Servers

Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition (Windows, supports all Veeam client host OSes as sources)

There are many people who swear by rsync, but I find it obtuse to use, so it's not listed here.

BitTorrent Clients

qBittorrent (BSD, Haiku, Linux, macOS, OS/2, Windows)

Bluesky

Calculators

Calendars

Google Calendar

Clock

Shaidin (Linux, Windows)

Comic Book Readers

Community Chat Clients

  • Discord (Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, web, Windows)
  • Slack (Android, iOS, macOS, web, Windows)
  • Telegram (Android, FreeBSD, iOS, Linux, macOS, web, Windows)

Computational Fluid Dynamics Solvers

Data Recovery

TestDisk

Diagramming Clients

Download Managers

Duplicate File Finder

DupeGuru (macOS, Linux, Windows)

Email Clients

Desktop

Corporate

Microsoft Outlook (Windows)

Email Services

Gmail

File Managers

File Manager Utilities

(s)FTP Clients

IDE

Visual Studio Code (Linux, macOS, Windows)

Image Organizers

Image Viewers

IrfanView (Windows)

Instant Messengers

IPTV Players

Media Players

VLC (Android, FreeBSD, Linux, macOS, Windows) (Android, FreeBSD, Linux, macOS, Xbox, Windows)

Monitoring

Music Players

Music Streaming Clients

  • Soundcloud (Android, iOS, web)
  • Spotify (Android, iOS, Linux, web, Windows)

Music Taggers

MP3Tag (Windows)

Network Discovery

RunZero Community Edition (Linux, Windows)

Nostr

Notekeepers

Microsoft OneNote (Android, iOS, macOS, web, Windows)

Notification Mirrors

Pushbullet (Android, web, Windows)

Operating Systems

By Family

BSD

FreeBSD

Firewall

pfSense

NAS

TrueNAS CORE

Server

FreeBSD

Linux Distributions

Internet of Things (IoT)

Raspberry Pi OS

Desktop

Debian Stable (KDE installation)

Server

Debian Stable + Cockpit

Virtualization

Proxmox

Android

Microsoft Windows Semi-Annual Channel

Pro and Home work well enough for both consumer desktop and server applications, but the following SKUs have better feature parity with the other non-mobile OSes listed here.

Desktop

  • Enterprise
  • Pro for Workstations

Server

Server (Since 2019, Microsoft has dropped the "Server" part of the name, calling it just Windows 2019. Presumably subsequent releases will follow this trend)

UNIX

Desktop & Server

macOS

Unix

Desktop & Server

OpenIndiana Hipster GUI

By Application

Desktop

Linux Distributions

Debian Stable

Microsoft Windows Semi-Annual Channel

  • Enterprise
  • Pro for Workstations

UNIX

macOS

Unix

OpenIndiana Hipster GUI

Firewall

pfSense

Internet of Things

Raspberry Pi OS

NAS

FreeNAS

Server

BSD

FreeBSD
  • FreeBSD

Linux Distributions

Debian Stable + Cockpit

Microsoft Windows Semi-Annual Channel

Server

UNIX

macOS

Unix

OpenIndiana Hipster GUI

Partition Managers

Password Managers

PDF Clients

PDF Editors

(Merge, split, etc.)

PDF Arranger (FreeBSD, Linux, Windows)

Productivity Suites

Microsoft Office 365 (Android, macOS, Windows)

Reddit Clients

Desktop

Reddit Enhancement Suite (Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Opera)

Remote Desktop

TeamViewer

  • WARNING: TeamViewer is a major security attack target whose default settings are inadequate for that fact. Enable TOTP 2FA for your account and unique, strong, per device remote access passwords

Simulation Environments

ANSYS Workbench (Linux, Windows)

SSH Clients

Streaming

OBS Studio (Linux, macOS, Windows)

Structural Solvers

ANSYS Mechanical (Linux, Windows)

Don't use anything other than Mechanical unless you absolutely have to. Everything else is an absolute pain to deal with, relatively speaking.

Sync

Resilio Sync (Android, FreeBSD, iOS, Linux, Windows)

Task Managers

Todoist

Text Editors

Time Zones

Converters

World Time Buddy (Android, iOS)

Twitter X Clients

Honestly, don't use this app/social network if you don't have to.

  • Tweeten (Chrome, macOS, Windows)
  • Twitter (Android, iOS, web, Windows)

Two Factor Authentication App

Authy (Android, iOS, Linux (snap), macOS, Windows) - A Chrome extension exists, but is no longer maintained or supported

Uninstallers

Windows

When Windows' built-in uninstallation mechanisms don't work use:

Unit Converters

Videoconferencing

Zoom (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows)

Visual Studio Code Extensions

Volume Spanners

StableBit DrivePool

Weather

Weather Underground (Android, iOS)

It's difficult to find recent independent weather app accuracy studies, but in my experience (Upper Midwest, US) Weather Underground is pretty spot on. The annual subscription is worth it to escape ads and get extended forecasts.

Web Browsers

Organized Alphabetically:

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