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Egon Willigh☮gen 🟥

we should have an international "switching software" day, switching.software/

@DrSuzanne @egonw Deezer works fine. Not sure they're *much* better than Spotify but at least I'm not enriching Joe Rogan.

@saxbrightwell @DrSuzanne @egonw I just switched to Qobuz a few weeks ago. Its nice.

@DrSuzanne @egonw I’m using Tidal. They pay the most per stream to artists, integrates with my Plex server, and there’s no Joe Rogan.

@ddlyh @ajroach42 Ooh nice! I love that! Yes, similar in terms of promoting indy music. Although mine is just a personal project, not monitised … people can listen along and then if they like a particular song they can go directly to the artist if they want to hear more/buy the music.

@DrSuzanne
I have been using Pandora, and I find it to be fairly decent. It is not exactly a 1:1 replacement, but premium (mode) does provide a lot of the features people like in Spotify.
@egonw

@egonw@mastodon.social

Bloody good idea.
FOSS, while not necessarily better, is at least devoid of spyware in the main.
Generally it is the Fediverse of software, users get out what they put in one way or the other.
Back in the day I used to get as much Mac software as possible via Shareware, paying to unlock full versions if I liked them.

The more modern Donationware is really good too.

I already use LibreOffice (MS Office), Firefox (although am looking to switch), Vivaldi (same original developers as Opera).

By way of recommendation I suggest Masto users look at the rest of the Fediverse's software which offers things for different users
One of the most actively developed, at least in terms of forks, is Misskey - I use the Sharkey fork.

@egonw I like how, keeping with the spirit of their project, they list alternatives to themselves.

@ruawhitepaw ah, nice! I had not noticed this yet. I want to explore it more, and see how I can contribute pages for scientific software (maybe starting with reference managers and other very general software)

@egonw there's the day to clean the computer (pending details)

@egonw I really wish the only serious FLOSS photo editor had developers that weren't so downright hostile to suggestions not to use a ablist slur as a software name though...

@egonw @matrix I'm currently evaluating, which commercial software I can replace.

- Krita looks good and may be sufficient for my image editing needs. Gimp is probably closer to my requirements, but Krita is the nicer software with the friendlier UI. (1/3)

- Darktable as a lightroom-replacement is very complicated and not user-friendly at all. Lots of "this slider is shown in the UI, but you should rather not touch it, otherwise something else breaks down the line". Looked at it for a week now and I slowly think that my edits are getting better.
- Kdenlive is just not there yet. It is slow, buggy and color effects do strange things (i.e. a simple white balance adjustment clips color channels). Staying with Resolve for now. (2/3)

- Found no replacement for Google Keep that is equally suitable as a shared shopping list. Joplin requires its own cloud account for sharing notes. Nextcloud Notes & Deck require far to many clicks to make this practical (functional checkboxes required).

And by the way, we recently replaced Matrix/Element with Nextcloud Talk, because at the moment Element does not work well (i.e. delays Messages). (3/3)

@armanuki
What do you mean by delays messages? I haven't had issues with it in the last few years I have used it.

@armanuki @egonw @matrix

I've been using GIMP for years just trying out Krita now - I think I like it.

@egonw this is lacking in options. No Affinity programs, no Clip Studio Paint, no Bluesky, no cohost, no Cara, no pillowfort...

@egonw Gimp and easy-to-use? For Photoshop users? Ehmmmm ..no.

@leKnecht @egonw

I would say the opposite is also true - it's just a matter of getting used to it.

@fi @leKnecht sometimes the closed source product is better. I cannot think of something to replace Gmail's spam filtering (yet)

@fi @egonw sure, not saying Gimp is bad. Just saying that, for someone who comes from PS, the confusion will start directly after the launch, as gimps multi-window mode is untypical (its still default, no?).

@leKnecht @fi I don't think it is. it has started as single window for many years for me now, since before my current laptop. and I don't think I changed any setting on this laptop

(otherwise, GIMP did have a good learning curve for me... then again, I am not a graphical artist)

@egonw @fi uh! Then maybe my historical bias is outdated!

@leKnecht @fi all the more reason to have a yearly day :)

@leKnecht @egonw

No I don't think so. There are a few artistic filters on PS that I miss but Krita might have something a bit similar.

@egonw Very cool website! Thanks for sharing!
They are in the #fediverse as well: just follow @switchingsoftware and spread the word! <3

@egonw

lnstead of audible, join your local library and borrow books for real or borrow ebooks, audio books and emagazines if like mine they use BorrowBox.

@Havant_Enviro yeah, supporting your local library is always a great idea

@egonw Ah, there isn't? I thought that was every day?! ;-)
2024 is the software changing year, though.

@egonw "Since 2006, Software Freedom Day has been held on the third Saturday of September. In 2024, this event will be held on 21 September. "
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softwa

softwarefreedomday.org

en.m.wikipedia.orgSoftware Freedom Day - Wikipedia

@egonw I just went back to this site after seeing this post a fortnight ago as it was so good! But unfortunately the link seems to be dead know. Do you know if they have moved to an alternative domain, or is this just a temporary problem?

@Codeberg @egonw @switchingsoftware Ah perfect glad to hear its back! And thank you so much for such an incredible resource!!!!

I’m not sure I still have any software to switch away from.

Beside Firefox, but for that one I know of no credible alternative.

@vv221 browsers I find tricky too. I am not switching a lot either, but feel free to switch an online service instead

I did that a long time ago ;)

The only corporation-backed online service I still use (and I can think of) is YouTube, I still download 2~3 videos a month from there.
And DuckDuckGo too from time to time, but my main Web search engine has been Wikipedia for several months already.

CC: @egonw@mastodon.social

@egonw whoa this whole thread is golden, going to take a while to work through.