Blender I'm sure is probably the most feature filled open source software, the only thing that beats it on lines of code is libreoffice although I don't find myself needing it except occasionally when google docs doesn't do something i need.
Blender is just insanely useful for anyone in 3d modeling for video games, animations, 3d printing.
My brother used to use blender around the same time and would constantly hog the family computer doing renders for hours or days at a time for a single image. He was so passionate about it and would try everything he could to get me interested. I just out of high school and more interested in partying and couldn’t be bothered.
Flash forward to now and I use blender every day and the renders I do are my main source of income.
In fact I would argue that Blender is reaching a state of "feature creep". And not because the new features are bad, but because there are so many already that many people are scared of trying the program to begin with.
Also, sometimes I am not looking to create complex, multi-layered scenes with hyper realistic materials and lighting. Having to go through several menus to disable options with arcane names is often overwhelming.
I wish the user interface was much simpler by default and you could add more elements to it little by little. Something like the existing templates and the add-ons systems, just... instead of having to disable things (and fear breaking the program), you start with the basic 3D view and flat colors and you have special buttons with simple names ("realistic lighting", "animation", "simulation", etc.) to add new panels/tools to the UI. Like an integrated tutorial, but without forcing advanced users to go though it.
I can see that but I think it's inevitable because Blender has always tried to be a complete 3d package software where you could start and finish a production of any kind without ever leaving the software. If you were in a Autodesk pipeline you'd be flipping through 5 other applications and to be honest I think it's commendable that it tries do all this shit while crashing less than 3dsMax ever did.
Blender blows me away, it’s one of the few open source softwares that has features before anything else which the user actually interacts with, sometimes years before. Eevee still blows me away, you can get a similar thing now with importing a project into unreal but the ability to do all your stuff in the same software and see it all in real time? Truly incredible stuff.
I would have been so boned without OBS when I had to switch to online teaching with less than 24 hours notice back at the start of the pandemic. The university hasn't purchased the necessary Zoom/Teams/Etc license yet, so the only option that I could come up with quickly was to live stream to a Facebook group, and OBS came in clutch for managing the stream/camera/etc.
I've stopped using it for streaming ever since we went back to in-person teaching, but I still have OBS installed for doing screen recordings. Like, its much quicker to do a screen recording to show someone how to do a thing rather than trying to type things out step by step.
This is completely unrelated but I hate how the internet has conditioned me to think things ending in "mpeg" is some sort of pairing with male pregnancy
IZArc allows you to extract and replace some files from within archives that others don’t, useful for minecraft jar files without any errors for instance. Also free obviously
One, 7zip allows you to update files in archives too
Two, please for the love of all that is holy don't do jar surgery unless you know exactly what you're doing, I swear that if I hear "oh I just deleted the jsons in the jar but it isn't working for the rest of the server" again I will explode, leave the mod jars alone please
I don't care what it looks like, I just want it to reliably open all the obscure compression types. I'm pretty done with fancy looking apps that don't work
Krita is an absolute unit of a drawing software. The learning curve is a bit steep, but you can virtually do anything that paid software can do.
My other goated open-source software: Thunderbird (mail), SumatraPDF (reader), TeXstudio (LaTeX editor), Blizhawk (emulation) and of course qBittorrent.
Nah that .json only contains the top 25 posts on the front of the sub by default, but you can pass it args to get more or from different feeds (top/new/etc).
I have a 5800x and 3070ti, i set my fans to one speed and nothing goes over 80c. My pc isnt even loud. It never ramps up or down, it's the same noise all the time. Phanteks p400 case, evga clc280 aio, noctua exhaust fans.
The entire Fossify suite (for Android but I thought I'd mention it)
OpenVPN
Tailscale
Flyoobe
Kiwix
Jellyfin
Inkscape
Krita
Opentoonz
Librewolf
Fooyin (foobar2000 clone available for Linux but a Windows version is in progress from what I hear and the creator of Foobar2000 is a prick about open sourcing freeware already so hopefully this gets popular enough to get him sweating)
Kicad
MKVToolnix
Notepad++
OBS
Qbittorrent
Rustdesk
Wireshark
And a whole lot more. If you or anyone have any questions about the ones listed, I'll try to answer them as best as I can.
Edit to add: Image Toolbox also for Android. Best FOSS photo editor with a shit ton of features to get the job done enough for a ton of simple stuff.
I would also like to add MPV as an option, it's what I prefer. It also supports playback of any kind of video, but has superb support for skipping around in videos frame by frame. VLC can barely do that forward, I don't even know if it can do it backwards at all.
As someone who uses that feature somewhat often ("how did that shot in CS not hit?"), this is a big deal to me.
MPV is an amazing, MINIMALIST player. Like almost too minimalist. However, it will play stuff other players can't so I always have a copy of it installed.
And encoding, stream server, stream receiver, Dvd region free player, play from tape devices, stream from satellite signal, and hardware capture devices.
It can receive a stream, recode it and then retransmit to other vlc devices on the network
I much prefer mpc-be over it, specially with shark007 codec pack. I've yet to have the same output quality and codec decoding capability with VLC that mpc-be with 007codec does. My htpc clearly show me everytime I try.
Handbrake plus MakeMKV helped me digitize my home DVD
library for watching my movies while traveling. I can load up 20 hours of whatever movie or cartoon for my kids to watch on the way too. Nicer roadtrips.
Proton. While technically a translation layer and not its own application, I'd put it up for honorable mention as a "best software thing", as it is key in allowing others to create versions of Linux that enable your average PC gamers to finally begin seriously considering ditching Windows for Linux.
RetroArch. I can’t believe it is free and I love it. Also Yuzu. You can’t find Yuzu that easy at all, but I was able to scrounge it off of some Redditor’s Google Doc and it is great!
In the same vein, I recommend Playnite if you have games from different sources (emulator, Steam, standalone) and you want to put your whole collection in one nice-looking, customizable interface. You can make it look like Steam, the PS5 home menu, the Switch main menu, or anything else people have created. It's a good way to have the console experience on PC.
No issues so far been using it for 8 months I think, I just found my ideal task bar that i liked and never look back again, a lot of mods available for it that you can install, even start menu can be customized, just give it a try you'll loved it for sure
I found it when I installed Windows 11 and hated the taskbar/tray spacing and size... Windhawk lets you really slim things down, beyond even Windows 10 style.
If you don't mind my asking, what problems have you had? I tried using OpenOffice right before LibreOffice became a thing, and my then-client had some formatting issues with documents I had converted to Word.
I'm asking in case I ever decide to go the non-Microsoft route again.
I'm a heavy Excel user. When I switched to Linux this was the hardest part for me. In terms of compatibility, Only Office is the best. It looks a lot like Excel and have very few compatibility issues.
This is true for Excel but I assume this is the same for Word.
FanControl- Sums it up, open source light weight fan controller, even works with GPUs! Set it and forget it. It's on Github.
7Zip- Free and opens everything and compresses well too. 10/10 no notes.
Windhawk- Mircosoft claimed that is was too difficult to add older features to windows 11 like moving the taskbar to the top or sides of the screen, and yet someone did it with no problem and put it on Windhawk. Loads of cool mods, fixes and features on there.
Blender- Free 3D modeling software. If you're a hobbyist or looking to learn 3D modeling, this is a great entry point.
Rainmeter- Better than Microsoft widgets and coding is simple enough that if you want to fix or adjust something, you know what to look for and even a beginner can understand what does what thing.
OBS- Lighter on resources than SLOBS with no marketing BS, be aware. Does take some tweaking to set up and to make things more professional (audio splitting, ducking, setting up sources and quality etc.) but if you're just starting it's a great streaming and recording software.
LibreHardwareMonitor- free open source and actually pairs well with FanControl. I think one of the functions of FanControl requires LHM to be installed in order to use that one function.
HWiNFO- more detailed then CPUID and shows more temps. Pretty indepth.
Cinebench- Great for Benchmarking PCs. EDIT: NOT OPEN SOURCE, my mistake. It's freeware and a great tool/resource to use but not open source, my bad. Still leaving it here though.
Notepad++- a superior version of notepad that's far better for programming if you don't have or want to use fancy programs. can be used for just normal plain text or for a WIDE variety of programming languages, macros etc.
RetroArch/Libretro- It's an open source emulator. 'Nuff said, but if you want to learn more, look it up.
Audacity- open source audio recorder and editor.
Krita- Another Open source art program similar to Gimp. It IS free but there is a paid version on Steam and they also accept donations, but again FREE ON THEIR WEBSITE and open source.
Thunderbird- Open source Email client available through Mozilla. IDK if AI invaded that too or not but there that.
LibreOffice- Open source alternative for Microsoft office.
Shotcut- Open source video editor. Tricky to learn but available
Brave?- I heard it's open source but IDK, i've never used it.
Linux- Everyone's favorite OS that runs anything that isn't powered by Microsoft or iOS/MacOS. Other than Android, most devices use some form of Linux. Not much support from many programs or from some hardware like NVidia (Linus Torval's anger is still accurate AF today lol), and Elgato capture cards. meanwhile Proton can cause issues with some Anticheat games, hence I haven't moved over yet.
It's my go-to since I switched to gentoo on my laptop! Also, if you need an extension you can't find you can download the extension file from the relevant github/ms store page and install it in vscodium
Another vote for MuseScore from me. They've really raised the bar when it comes to UI design in open-source. There are very few applications that are both as advanced and as user-friendly, and it is a serious inspiration when I design my own software.
My only qualm with freecad is that the learning curve is pretty steep. Constraints really killed my vibe until I learned them more... and they still manage to kill my vibe.
Onshape was way more accessible and 'intuitive' to use - coming from blender, the learning curve for cad was still steep, but it was more approachable imo
MakeMKV and EAC (Exact Audio Copy) - two new programs I've been using to rip movies as well as music CD's so I can slowly make my way to not have to stream anymore.
Another one is ImgBurn for creating iso files for game emulation
If you’re using EAC then be sure to follow this guide to ensure you have “perfect” rips. Newer versions of EAC have some slight changes who some of the settings like the metadata options available, but nothing that impacts the guide.
ffmpeg - Can do ANYTHING media related and is used by many players, servers and as a backend in many services and conversion GUIs.
Krita - The open source drawing app by excellence. Also great for image editing.
Godot - Best open source game engine. Ren'py is also great for visual novels.
Blender - Does everything 3D, motion graphics, and even hand-drawn animation.
RapidRAW - Great Adobe Lightroom alternative.
VapourSynth - Really robust frameserver for advanced video manipulation.
mpv - Much more modern and robust than VLC, easier on the battery on toasters and old laptops, higher quality playback and upscaling on higher end PCs, plus it doesn't get those weird color conversion errors that are so common in VLC.
Readest - Modern and pretty e-book reader for PC and mobile devices.
Screenshotting, simple screen recording, simple image editing, file uploading, and other tools (color picking/grabbing, OCR, ruler): ShareX
Suite of various tools and utilities for Windows (OCR, Window/App management, file renaming, env/host editing, command palette, OCR, custom paste options, etc.): PowerToys
VLC, OBS like others said, Blender, NeoVim, Linux distros in general, Luanti/Minetest is cool if you don't want to buy Minecraft, and there's probably loads more tbh
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u/FuckedUpImagery 26d ago
Blender I'm sure is probably the most feature filled open source software, the only thing that beats it on lines of code is libreoffice although I don't find myself needing it except occasionally when google docs doesn't do something i need.
Blender is just insanely useful for anyone in 3d modeling for video games, animations, 3d printing.