Ask Lemmy

Proton. Literally makes any of the big linuxes into the streamos people are waiting for

There are some excellent apps already listed that I won't repeat, but I'll add FFmpeg. Not sure it's quite what you're after, but it's incredible.

Windows

1. MPV - Video Player
2. DaVinci Resolve - Best Free Video Editor
3. Audacity - Audio Recorder
4. TeraCopy - File Copy Tool
5. Rufus, BalenaEtcher, Ventoy - Bootable USB Creator
6. Wireguard, OpenVPN - VPN Client
7. ShutterEncoder - Media Converter
8. Revo Uninstaller - App Uninstaller
9. Throttlestop - CPU Tweaker
10. Peace, EqualizerAPO - Audio Equalizer
11. Voicemeter - Virtual Audio Mixer
12. Qbittorrent - Torrent Client
13. Raindrop - Bookmark Manager

Android

1. Aegis - Authenticator
2. Wireguard - VPN Client
3. NextDNS Manager - DNS Manager
4. MPV - Video Player
5. NewPipe, GrayJay, LibreTube - YouTube Client
6. FUTU Voice Input
7. FUTO Keyboard
8. Aves Gallery
9. Delta Icon Pack
10. K9 Mail - Mail Client
11. QKSMS+ - SMS App
12. Perplexity Ai - GPT
13. Wavelet - Audio Equalizer
14. SafeSpace - Encrypted Vault
15. AppOps - App Permission Manager
16. Shizuku - Required by AppOps

Home Assistant, not only an App but it changed the way i look at IoT/Smarthome and in that way it brings me a lot of comfort.

LibreOffice (and Open Office). When Microsoft Office is $200 or a monthly subscription.

I just used LibreOffice Writer to update my resume a few minutes ago and it’s a bit to switch to but it makes sense and I loveeeee the UI that caters to both people who prefer classic Office (‘97-2003) or those who prefer the more modern UI (‘07 and newer).

It does get a bit annoying because it is so powerful that it has a mind of its own and tries to do things for you, like formatting, but if you’re patient (like I was just now), it’ll work out for you and be really great.

Retroarch.

God awful complexity but once you figure out how it all works it’s incredible.

Organic Maps. After switching to graphene, I quickly found plenty of apps replacing the "defaults" I had on stock android, however, a good app for maps was impossible to find until I stumbled over that one. Great UI, local maps, even has a navigation feature. Completely replaces google maps for me.

LocalSend, Immich, Signal, Aurora store, Radio Garden, Gray Jay, yt-dlp, and Bitwarden just to name a few

Librewolf, FFmpeg, Vim, Wine

I still can't get used to calling programs apps

May be a bit out there, but on Android, Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a rogue lite game that is free and extremely fun to play. No ads, not very demanding on your phone, still gets updates, and easy to pick up and play when you're out traveling.

Its a very hard game, where knowledge is very important, as well as experimentation.

Emacs

OnlyOffice. Great office suite. Also any app from FUTO

Photopea Fully functional Photoshop in your browser. Amazing.

and Audacity

Pretty much every major open source project at this point. I need to start looking into donating to the programs I use the most.

Libby ebook reader/browser

Lichess :) (FOSS Chess server, no account needed to play, second biggest chess server overall)

The folks behind it are one of my admirations

VSCode. I don't get why Microsoft hasn't monetized it but I'm glad it is free. Has so many extensions and gets great updates, even if I don't understand half of the stuff in their patch notes when I open up the program.

Another one is a little program called Stacher that basically serves as GUI for yt-dlp. It's a very pretty one though! And all the settings and buttons are super great. I'm not very good with CLI stuff so I'm glad it exists for free, saves so much time.

I dislike the implication that the most useful apps are not free.

I always feel more comfortable using FOSS software, even if it doesn't look as nice as the commercial option.

Apples
Edit: I steal my neighbours apples

audacity

neovim

calibre

mpv

KiCad. It's an electronics design tool on par with commercial options in the industry, which cost a ton of money. Ever since the UI facelift it got a few years ago, it has become my go-to option. They are even working on integrating circuit simulation and finite element analysis, which is just crazy.

I miss when apps were specific to phones and we kept desktop computers out of it.

for windows:

• WizTree - Disk space visualizer
• Everything (& EverythingToolbar) - Search tool
• Playnite - Game library

for android:

• Mihon/Tachiyomi - Manga reader
• Obtanium - Manage apps from various sources (github, gitlab, etc)
• Syncthing-Fork - File syncing
• MiXplorer - Feature dense file manager
• Universal Android Debloater Next Generation (technically a windows/linux program) - Remove/disable stock apps

for linux:

• wine/proton - windows translation software
• yazi - File manager
• easyeffects - Audio processing
• mpv - Video player

OctoPrint for 3D printing

Watch duty

AntennaPod

Signal

Shattered Pixel Dungeon

Quite a few of my favorites have already been mentioned, so I'll add some that live on my toolbar:

Zim, a desktop wiki with markdown and a lot of plugins. Great for organizing all of your notes with links and a fast search function.

Heroic launcher, for organizing your Epic, GOG and Prime collection.

Geany, an extremely configurable and light editor that can be as simple or as full featured as you want, via plugins.

Terminator, a solid multi terminal emulator where I spend most of my time at work.

Jellyfin.

It depends on how you define "app" and "free". But for free (as in beer) smartphone apps I really like.

• tidy
• Librera Reader
• these pre-packaged apks for the onnx text to speech engine which uses the piper voices that can be used in conjunction with the above Librera Reader to turn any compatible text doc to an audio book.