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What are some FOSS programs that you think are a far better user experience than their counterparts? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I used Plex for my home media for almost a year, then it stopped playing nice for reasons I gave up on diagnosing. While looking at alternatives, I found Jellyfin which is much more responsive, IMO, and the UI is much nicer as well.

It gets relegated to playing Fraggle Rock and Bluey on repeat for my kiddo these days, but I am absolutely in love with the software.

What are some other FOSS gems that are a better experience UX/UI-wise than their proprietary counterparts?

EDIT: Autocorrect turned something into "smaller" instead of what I meant it to be when I wrote this post, and I can't remember what I meant for it to say so it got axed instead.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Here is my opinion on some FOSS software. PS, I'm too old to give a shit about team mentality, I just want stuff to work. Also, my motivation for liking FOSS is not so much "free", but rather "unencumbered and unrestricted shared human technology and knowledge".

GNOME, for the hate it gets, it comes close to getting everything right. I'd give it a 95/100 score. Windows a 30/100, and MacOS a 35/100. No verdict/comment on KDE as I haven't used it. I have good reasons for disliking W10/W11 and separate ones for MacOS. As desktop environments, they are both shit for each their own reasons.
Blender. 3D/Scultping/Drawing/Video Editing. Aside from Linux kernel, the most impressive and well managed FOSS project there is. I grew up with pirated 3dsmax, and what a dream it would be to grow up today with Blender as it is.
Linux as a OS kernel. One can argue about the desktop market share, but people don't know better. They think the software that runs on it defines it. But, there is a reason why 100% of top 500 supercomputers in this world run on Linux. I'd also mention the Arch/AUR community. Doesn't matter if you use Arch or not, arch/aur wiki is a goldmine.
Godot: 2D game engine. As a 3d game engine, it's not nearly as good as the non-FOSS competition.
Firefox: If it wasn't for Firefox, I don't know what I would do. I don't trust chrome one single bit.
Alacrity terminal: I'm sure there are plenty great FOSS terminal emulators, but the built in ones for MacOS and Windows are garbage.
Prusa Slicer: I think this one is as good as the commercial counterparts for FDM G-code generation.
VLC. Mixed feelings about this one, as I think it's UI is lacking, but since it plays almost everything the UX ends up being great.
LibreOffice Writer. Perhaps debatable. But the fact that you can trust LibreOffice to respect and adhere to the OpenDocumentFormat, and equally trust Microsoft Word to deliberately not do so in subtle ways, LibreOffice Writer is ultimately the better software IMHO.

Projects I wish had an edge over commercial proprietary software:

Gimp. It just isn't as good, even if you get used to it. Some things, of course, it can do much better (e.g the G'Mic QT filter pack). The lack of non-destructive work flows is the key part that is missing.
FreeCAD. It's good, and you can do wonders with it, but oh so rough compared to onshape/Fusion/etc.
Darktable. Not as good as commercial counterparts like Lightroom.
Kdenlive. Not as good as Davinci Resolve, or the adobe counterparts.
LMMS: Not as good as most commercial DAWs.
Krita: This one is actually not too far away from being best in class. I still suspect photoshop and has an edge
InkScape: A "best for some vector things but not all"-kinda thing. It's FOSS nature makes it the defacto vector editing software for certain kind of makers. But as a graphical vector editing suite, adobe's stuff is just much more solid.

Mobile stuff that I think is better than the counterpart, or at least so good that I don't care if there is a counterpart

Tuner: https://f-droid.org/packages/de.moekadu.tuner/ It just does what it is supposed to. There are hundreds of these on the play store, with ads or paid. There is no need for it.
Aegis Authenticator: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.beemdevelopment.aegis/ For handling 2FA keys.
Gallery: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.gallery.pro/
Telegram: Sort of FOSS. Aside from security concerns whereby Signal would win out, it's still the best UX. Compared to Messenger and Whats'App, not even a contest.