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.

  • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    All the Linux file managers I’ve tried are nicer to use and more stable than the Windows File Explorer.

    • klangcola@reddthat.com
      0·
      10 months ago

      Protip: KDE’s Dolphin is available for Windows.

      The Windows integration isn’t perfect, but it’s very useful nonetheless. Multiple tabs and the Ctrl+I filter alone makes it worthwhile.

      On a related note: KDE’s Kate text editor is also available on Windows and it works GREAT! So great that KDE eV has published it on the Windows store, making it easy to install

      • 6xpipe_@lemmy.world
        0·
        10 months ago

        Columns became the dealbreaker when I was considering switching from macOS to Linux. I need my columns.

          • 6xpipe_@lemmy.world
            0·
            10 months ago

            Kind of. They look the same, but don’t act the same. Folder don’t show their contents until you double click them. They act like any other file in that way. One click to select. Double click to open. I like the more basic one click functionality for browsing.

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
    0·
    10 months ago

    Signal. Who else is making a post quantum secure e2ee algorithm and making sure the code is open source and not duplicating the keys everywhere? Thank goodness for the kind devs on this project and for other FOSS projects everywhere!

    • Lemmchen@feddit.deEnglish
      0·
      10 months ago

      The time when they essentially went closed source to implement MobileCoin in kind of a covert operation really didn’t do them any favors, though.

  • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.mlM
    0·
    10 months ago

    Bitwarden password manager. I’ve used several proprietary PW managers, Bitwarden is by far the most stable, intuitive, and functional IMO.

    • portside@monyet.cc
      0·
      10 months ago

      Also KeePass, I’ve switched from bitwarden to KeePassDX on mobile and set up syncing to nextcloud and google drive. Aegis for time based OTP’s.

    • cujo@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      10 months ago

      I’ve been looking for a good password manager, and I’ve heard a LOT of good things about Bitwarden… guess I’ll have to bite and see what all the fuss is about!

      • Ineocla@lemmy.ml
        0·
        10 months ago

        Pro tip : if you self host use vaultwarden. It’s 100℅ compatible with all bitwarden clients but has many more features and is lighter weight

  • moreeni@lemm.ee
    0·
    10 months ago

    VSCodium is better than most text editors. BTW, if you didn’t know, you can still install some (turns out not all of them will work so you might still need the proprietary build from MS) extensions from Microsoft’s store manually.

    ShareX is the best software I have ever found for taking screenshots and/or quick gifs/videos. It’s a real shame it doesn’t have a GNU/Linux version, it’s the only app I miss badly from my Windows days. Any other screenshot software is just nothing in comparison with it.

    Joplin is my fav note-taking app. I have tried a lot of them but this one just works, has quite a big feature set, can synchronise using different mediums, from Dropbox to using Syncthing and synchronising files locally, doesn’t look poorly, is cross-platform, has e2ee, doesn’t cockblock you with paywalls. For me it’s the perfect note-taking app.

    Aegis is the best 2FA app for Android there is atm. IIRC, it got created because Google Auth had some problems with privacy so the whole idea of Aegis is to be the better option.

    Lichess — a chess server with no BS and there are 0 paywalls. chess.com would force you to pay for stupid things like puzzles, with Lichess I am able to procrastinate with chess. For free.

    NewPipe is the best YouTube client there is. For me, it’s because of fast-forward on silence and the ability to unhook pitch and video speed. That means you don’t have to either waste your time on literal nothing or struggle to understand what a person is saying anymore. NewPipe also gives you everything YouTube Premium does.

  • speaker_hat@lemmy.one
    0·
    10 months ago

    GNOME Document Scanner is surprisingly working smoothly out-of-the-box (with Brother printer at least)

  • directive0@lemmy.world
    0·
    10 months ago

    Blender. I feel pretty confident in saying that there is simply nothing like it in the commercial world. Its feature set is unreal; its like the swiss army knife of 3D modelling programs. I can’t say enough good things about Blender. It has replaced so many secondary programs in my workflow and is slowly dominating to become my entire workflow.

    It used to suck to use in the late 2010s and then work was done to overhaul its space-shuttle cockpit interface, and now it actually feels concise and usable. I freaking love blender now. Big time blender fanboy right here.

  • bleistift2@feddit.deEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    I’ll take LibreOffice Writer over MS Word anytime. All that ‘I know better than you,’ ‘You wanted to copy the space, too, right? Even though you stopped marking before it,’ can kiss my ass.

    • cujo@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      10 months ago

      I recently switch to OnlyOffice for their UI/UX, and it’s been brilliant. LibreOffice is a delight, though.

  • ReCursing@kbin.social
    0·
    10 months ago

    KDE is better than Windows

    Audible Audacity is more audio programme than most people need

    KdenLive is more video editor than most people need

    Kritta is more art programme than most people need

    There are edge cases where there are professional programmes that might be better but unless you are a professional you do not need them and even semi-pros would likely be better served by those three

  • Joe Bidet@lemmy.ml
    0·
    10 months ago

    The thing I find hard to convey is that FLOSS software is superior to proprietary software for many reasons, most of which are non-technical: FLOSS software is superior to proprietary software if it isn’t spying on you, if it’s governance is collective, if it’s not build to make you pay for things that should be free, if it lets you decide where your data goes, etc…

    we’re often missing the point when we attempt at side-by-side comparison of FLOSS and proprietary software… It’s usually one-dimentional, and playing on our opponent’s field: these companies racketing their users based on rent-based exploitative business models will always have more resources than independant developpers to improve “UX/UI”… so I think this must not be the only prism through which reading these things.

      • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
        0·
        10 months ago

        xz comes with most linux distros nowadays and uses the same compression algos as 7zip, and works very similar to gzip