The Best Things In Life Are Freeware

Linux! Ubuntu! Pop!_OS! LibreOffice! KDE! GNOME! I am so tired of everyone bitching about AI and Spyware and having to subscribe to software instead of buying it when THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE. (My profile pic is Xenia, the Linux Fox, as interpreted by Tori: https://xenia.efi.pages.gay/ - So call me Xenia, if you wish, and use xe/xir pronouns.)

[soup-mother]

Step back everyone. This post requires the delicate touch of an annoying gimmick blog

[isuggestopensource]

I have a sugWAIT HANG ON

[glares at my main blog]

[kremlin]

uninstall adobe acrobat. it is malware. it has been malware. these aren't opinions: acrobat meets the definition of malware.

it installs a user-login-time "startup" executable that ignores any windows directives to disable it on startup. doing so only removes the even-more-malicious taskbar-icon-creating advertisement-notification-creating process. no matter what you do, the sleeper "updater" process starts when you log in, and runs perpetually

it sends & receives encrypted network traffic both periodically and non-periodically. both are bad, both are suspicious, and a program doing both is more suspicious than the sum of their parts. and to boot: acrobat will polymorphically edit its code after such network activity

this isn't new: it has always done this. now, it does not even do the thing it is meant to: provide a way to interact with documents, which is amongst the very first features computers were built to provide. you can merely open PDFs and read some of their content in the narrow space between the requests for adobe to give them your money, and interface for features you cannot use (because you don't) or do not, have not, and will not ever need

adobe and microsoft would very much like the user's cultural norms around computers to allow for advertisement built into the local software and even operating system itself. the web being 100% advertisements was not enough! sure enough, acrobat will hijack the windows notifications system thing to give you the 2026 equivalent of pop-ups

i don't really know enough about windows software equivalents, so i'll paypal $20 to the first person that reblogs this with a list of 3-5 PDF reader/editor/etc acrobat equivalents that meet the following criteria:

open source, locally-built executables must match checksum of prebuilt distributed executable

no paid features/premium version/subscription/whatever

not a toy hobby project thing, must be windows-users-proof

cheers

[andmaybegayer]

Firefox's built-in PDF.js viewer: does everything you could want from a basic viewer, fast enough search, and can now do annotations for filling in forms and such

KDE Okular: is a decent viewer and can also do basic annotations, and is so not-a-toy that you can even download it on the Windows app store.

LibreOffice Draw: I don't ever really like having to open this but if you have to edit a PDF in detail it does work, and doesn't just vomit up a bunch of polygons when you give it text to work with. Better as an authoring tool than an editor.

[ms-demeanor]

I've 100% replaced free acrobat with the firefox built-in and it works wonderfully for general office use and research/reading/viewing. It doesn't have robust redaction capabilities, but if you need to fill and sign and highlight a form it's actually much more intuitive than acrobat reader.

[isuggestopensource]

These are all good suggestions

[rioblitzle]

i go to the shop and I ask if they have any raspberries. they say no, they used to sell raspberries, but they haven't had any in stock in the last 15 years. I ask if there's somewhere else I can go to buy raspberries. They say no, with confidence and pride, they're the only shop around who has ever sold or will ever sell raspberries. Other shops might sell other fruit, sure, but they have a monopoly on all raspberries forever. I ask if they're possibly planning on them selling them again in future? they say they can't tell me that.

on the way home, I encounter someone eating raspberries. I ask and they tell me that they grow their own, they got some seeds from the shop back in The Raspberry Days and kept them. They take me to a field of many beautiful raspberry plants and invite me to pick my own, they're free for all the town to pick whenever they'd like.

someone comes up behind us. It's the shop manager, President of Nintendo Shuntaro Furukawa. he hatefully throws a bob-omb that blows up and kills both of us instantly for stealing 200 trillion dollars worth of potential Raspberry Shop That Doesn't Do Raspberries Anymore profits that they weren't making and then he turns around to the camera with a big thumbs up and says don't do piracy or something ok please

[i-suggest-piracy]

i have a suggestion

[isuggestopensource]

So do I

[scramratz]

Y’all think there’s any way in hell I could run modern windows on this thing?

[scramratz]

What is Linux and why would it work on this 27 year old machine?

[isuggestopensource]

I suggest the reblog comments!

[xenasaur]

we need legislation banning games >100GB

[xenasaur]

OPTIMIZE YOUR SHIT BETTER THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR A 150GB GAME!!!

[xenasaur]

upon reviewing the notes I'm changing my position. games must be <50GB. no more mandatory 8k uncompressed textures!!! I don't believe in 8k I think it's fake

[xenasaur]

to be clear games really ought to be around 20 gigs or less. but I think in the spirit of generosity and mercy we won't criminally prosecute the developers until the file sizes breaks 50

[creamypancakebatter]

Helldivers 2 heard you and went from 156 to 23

[xenasaur]

wait is that real

just looked it up. holy fuck. they did it by de-duplicating assets. I'm just. my jaw is on the floor. supposedly duplicating assets helps load times on HDDs but. holy fuck at what cost

[somespicycheese]

it's worse than that: The Helldivers devs were told that duplicating assets would help HDD load times, but then they actually tested it and it had basically zero effect on load times!

So they had more than sextupled the size of their game by following industry standard practice that actually did basically nothing!

[barryogg]

You know how in The Great Divorce, the damned are staying in hell only due to their inability to reassess their situation, and they could cross to heaven at any moment if they stopped wallowing in pity for a moment?

Because I keep thinking about it when I read anything about AAA gaming.

[isuggestopensource]

I feel the same way when people complain about Microsoft and Apple.

I do have a suggestion, however.

[were--ralph]

Tumblr is unique bc like. It's collaborative shitposting and you can't opt in or out. You can just say something about your day then an evil wizard shows up to turn your post into something humorous

Every other site is just one and done, but here a post is a welcome mat to be funnier than you

[evilwizard]

yeah or sometimes you’ll see a post that hacks into your brain and forever rewrites your instinctual reaction to seeing a pineapple explode

[were--ralph]

[alphabetcompletionist]

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

26/26

[were--ralph]

[live-and-learn]

@i-say-ok You are the only way to improve this

[i-say-ok]

ok.

[thattransotter]

I love you i-say-ok

[i-say-ok]

ok. :] ♥️♥️♥️

[free-post-store]

$0

[is-silksongg-released-yet]

Silksong is not released yet

[were--ralph]

what the fuck happened to this post

shoo shoo get out of here

[were--ralph]

Looking through the notes and. Why is literally (literally) every gimmick blog drawn to this post in particular

What is going on

[porcelain-face-art]

[were--ralph]

[isuggestopensource]

I have a suggestion.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

today's reason I fucking love the open source community: Ageless Linux, a brand new Debian-based operating system specifically designed to break the law by giving children access to computers that explicitly refuse to track their age.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

reblog this post to help a child break the law

[0x5742]

oh goddamn this whole page goes so hard actually, please go read it. what an impressive, visceral takedown of this dumb law

[isuggestopensource]

They have a suggestion

[liberalsarecool]

Ownership meant a physical copy. Now you own nothing and can't find what you want across multiple streaming platforms.

Bring back headphones that plug in. Bring back expandable memory. Bring back owning media.

[isuggestopensource]

I have a suggestion.

[tieflingkisser]

[lesbianslimefriend]

here's where to find it on windows 10

[the-tiny-dragons-tea-room]

Ugh, it was in mine. It's off now.

[the-tiny-dragons-tea-room]

IT GETS WORSE

I had to turn this off, but it's something that allows Windows and anyone using your device to generate text/images.

LOBOTOMIZE YOUR MACHINES

[marougus-the-dragon]

AI is a freacking plague, I share this for any windows user.

[isuggestopensource]

I have a suggestion!

[special-lucky-chosen-one]

I fucking hate it here

[some-sort-of-ecologist]

For those of you with android devices, you can use the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) standalone app control program to get rid of all the bloatware, data mining, and AI crap - no coding needed!

[d-e-w-p]

save

[clatterbane]

There are also Android-based alternatives like GrapheneOS and LineageOS, which are pretty easy to install. These are unfortunately available for a more limited range of devices (Graphene is ironically Pixel only, while Lineage supports more), but it's very worth checking out whether one of them might work for your phone.

GrapheneOS: the private and secure mobile OS

GrapheneOS is a security and privacy focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility.

LineageOS Android Distribution

Typing this from Graphene now, in fact. But, both of those take the Android Open Source Project, without all the bloatware--and largely de-Google the whole thing. They give you much more control over privacy and what the apps you choose to install can do and access on your phone.

I know Graphene sandboxes everything, including the optionally installed Google Play Services which a lot of apps unfortunately require to run. (Lineage uses an alternative to Play Services instead.) So, you can install what would normally be unacceptably intrusive apps and just lock them away from pulling any funny shit with your data, or phoning home. Including the couple of Google things I do still keep around.

I also prefer running much more transparent, privacy-respecting open source apps where possible. Besides the transparency, I'd rather avoid the shitty tech corps entirely where I can. There are pretty good alternatives available for a lot of the usual suspects.

AlternativeTo lets you find apps and software for Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Android, Android Tablets, Web Apps, Online, Windows Tab

An alternative app store:

F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy

[clatterbane]

Also just going to leave this here.

ReVanced

Continuing the legacy of Vanced.

GitHub - ReVanced/revanced-manager: 💊 Application to use ReVanced on Android

💊 Application to use ReVanced on Android . Contribute to ReVanced/revanced-manager development by creating an account on GitHub.

This lets you pretty easily patch some of the worst offender corporate apps to make them behave better.

[isuggestopensource]

These kind folks have suggestions!

[mug-of-beans]

“The old magic persists thanks to it’s unfathomable power.”

No, the old magic persists because the new magic can’t run the legacy spells I need to do my job, and keeps trying to install spirits I don’t want or need onto my orb.

[aqueerkettleofish]

Look, if the new magic didn't have a personality construct that kept trying to tell me which spells to use, maybe I wouldn't still be using the old magic.

[wizard-council-bureaucrat]

Yes it had a deep blood cost, but at least it was a one time sacrifice and not this monthly bloodletting nonsense new age magic has

[wizard-archivist-official]

The old magic is robust enough to survive a decade of use and it's compatible with every wand, staff, scroll, and charm in our collection.

The new magic stops working after three days and every spell uses proprietary runes.

Our preferences, as an archiving institution, should be pretty clear.

[charlesoberonn]

You try to get guidance for the new magic and the king's sorcerers maybe will answer you in a few days with an unhelpful suggestion to buy the newest orb.

You need guidance for the old magic and a dozen retired middle-aged wizards will pop up to explain it to you rune by rune if necessary.

[sodium-ion]

Old magic always works; it may not be always easy to do but holy shit it it effective you just have to learn how to do it you just have to learn how to do it you just have to learn how to do it

[isuggestopensource]

I suggest open sorcery

[fatehbaz]

celebrating Sickbitch Freaksex "Friday" everyday

favs-as-of-late: Errortica (Sasha Balykova), Hasla (of Seoul), and Helena Hauff (needs no introduction)

descriptors i've seen for them: "eclectic" (esp. Errortica); psy/acid house; electropunk; "industrial-infused" tech house; "dark disco"; Italo disco

Loone, MixMix, and Boiler Room nice, though Seoul Community Radio has been most fruitful--for me--for finding new stuff

got distracted from schoolwork today by this one Uruguayan woman who exclusively uses Linux/GNU/open-source stuff to DJ from her toilet-paper-decorated garage and starts all her sets regardless of genre/style by adding beats to the unending voiceover refrain of "all users of Windows are suckers"

[isuggestopensource]

She has a suggestion

[phaeton-flier]

At the guys asking to RETVRN to an imagined glory days of the 50s before feminism or whatever are asking for something they can't get today; the current wave of nostalgia for the early Internet is very much nostalgia for something you can 100% still get. You can, if you want, interact with a 2002 level internet; it will have all the qualities of 2002 internet because you've gotten used to free file hosting and free exposure.

[centrally-unplanned]

To be a little more serious compared to the last post, I do think this is a sub-category of the wider dilemma of the "tyranny of modernity" - like the idea that you, technically, can just go off and be a farmer. In some sense its true, but it does ignore that humans are just inherently a social & contextual species. Making a sailor moon fansite to add to a webring in 1999 felt valuable because that was kind of thing "everyone else" was doing. It was at one level materially different - more of the net population of the internet was doing that kind of thing, so you got visitors, feedback, and other forms of human interaction from it at levels that done today you might not get.

But more importantly, it is emotionally different because doing that in 1999 means you are doing the right thing, you are on the forefront. A million times more people are on the internet today, you quite likely could get more visitors to a sailor moon fansite today than you could in 1999. But you know, deep in your soul, unshakeable and incontestable, that if you just made a twitter account instead you would get a thousand times the views. That everyone is somewhere else, certainly anyone cool and respectable, and you made a choice to go to the abandoned beach on the other side of the rocks to builds your sandcastle instead of the one your entire class is hanging out at.

And there are reasons to do that, the abandoned beach is beautiful precisely because of what it lacks, the encounter with the one other crazy person there means something it could never mean if you met at the ice cream stand, etc. But lets not pretend those are the same reasons as someone making the Twitter account today, or even the webring site in 1999.

You can't really go back, because the "old internet" was like everything a contextual moment of human history. You can either pantomime it for nostalgia, or engage in the current internet in non-typical ways. But neither of those is time travel.

[phaeton-flier]

So on the one hand, you are correct — the thing you're pointing at really is a lot harder to find! My objections, chewed over these last two years are as follows:

1. I think most of this shit is missing because no one is there because most people really don't like it. People don't like the limitations of old style forums, they prefer being on the Big Site With Big Celebs and free file hosting, etc. the old internet was not built on forums because it was a lost Eden, it was built on forums because that was the best thing around and as soon as something better existed people did that instead.

2. If you want to be on the forefront, on the bleeding edge, then you have to... Be on the bleeding edge! You have to actually fucking go where that is. If you want to be in a particular spot, go there, but don't complain that you deserve to also be where the Hip Joint is. If you hang out where it's busy, that's a sign you never really cared about being new, just being seen as new. I'm not sympathetic.

[isuggestopensource]

Jeez, I'm old. For me, when forums started replacing Usenet Feeds, Mailing Lists, and Message Boards is when things started to get unpleasant.

I do have a suggestion, however.

[existennialmemes]

Not to sound like a decrepit, rambling corpse about it, but back in my day Word used to be a pre installed program that came with your computer, if you were running Windows.

No subscription. Just program.

On your computer. You got to use it forever and ever and never had to worry about it going away.

Because it was physically on your computer. As a program. That you actually owned. Not because you got it separately, but because it was a standard inclusion with your computer.

I'm sorry but I'll just never get over it. I remember when companies cared about their products being usable out of the box. I remember when our things belonged to us.

Old man shaking fist at cloud, wherein the cloud is the background of the Windows 98 logo.

[isuggestopensource]

I have a suggestion.

My Linux PC came with LibreOffice installed right out of the box, along with several other useful programs, and a Flatpak installer that lets me search for and install a whole gamut of open-source freeware, including esoterica like QGIS.

No cruft. No adware. No spyware. No subscriptions.

It's MY machine, and the software on it is MINE, physically installed on MY hard drive.

Just like the old days.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

I hate OneDrive.

[isuggestopensource]

I have a suggestion

[isuggestopensource]

Europe has a suggestion.

[mug-of-beans]

“The old magic persists thanks to it’s unfathomable power.”

No, the old magic persists because the new magic can’t run the legacy spells I need to do my job, and keeps trying to install spirits I don’t want or need onto my orb.

[aqueerkettleofish]

Look, if the new magic didn't have a personality construct that kept trying to tell me which spells to use, maybe I wouldn't still be using the old magic.

[wizard-council-bureaucrat]

Yes it had a deep blood cost, but at least it was a one time sacrifice and not this monthly bloodletting nonsense new age magic has

[wizard-archivist-official]

The old magic is robust enough to survive a decade of use and it's compatible with every wand, staff, scroll, and charm in our collection.

The new magic stops working after three days and every spell uses proprietary runes.

Our preferences, as an archiving institution, should be pretty clear.

[charlesoberonn]

You try to get guidance for the new magic and the king's sorcerers maybe will answer you in a few days with an unhelpful suggestion to buy the newest orb.

You need guidance for the old magic and a dozen retired middle-aged wizards will pop up to explain it to you rune by rune if necessary.

[isuggestopensource]

I have a suggestion