So, while furiously penning a response to a comment on TDW, I realized part of my comment might be useful for the many pedes looking to kick the Silicon Commies out of their lives. Not a novel idea for a post and many people have posted similar lists here, but I figured you can never have too much information when it comes to freeing yourself from the Billy G's vaccine-happy kid-fondlers...
This IS NOT an exhaustive list and I may be adding to it from time to time. If you know of other good options, even in categories not listed, please let me know. I'll do my best to keep it up to date.
A NOTE ABOUT OPEN SOURCE: While probably better than the proprietary alternative in many ways, do not just automatically trust anything that says it's open source. Just because people can look at the source and warn people if there's something shady about it doesn't mean they have looked at the source and given such warnings. Generally, the big open source names are very trustworthy. However, open source claims should not be treated as the end-all be-all. Just be careful.
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>>> Desktop // Laptop Operating System:
Linux - Linux is a UNIX-based operating system kernel which is utilized by MANY distributions (named versions). Debian-, Slackware-, and Red Hat-based distros make up the lion's share of the available versions. I personally use Linux Mint KDE as I find them to be the most user-friendly. Policy-wise, they're mostly all free and open source. Linux does not make heavy hardware demands and is generally pretty resilient when it comes to malicious software. The best way to experiment and find the best version for you is to find a refurbished computer at your local computer store (you can often find very cheap boxes available), wipe its HDD, and then load up a Linux distro, many of which have a boot preview so you can have a look at the system before installing it. If you don't know where to start, Ubuntu, SuSE, and Fedora are all very popular. If you don't like them, however, there's hundreds more where they came from so don't get discouraged. Once you settle on one, get used to the concept and use of virtual boxes for those times where you MUST have access to Windows or some such. It's a good work-around.
Note: MAKE NO MISTAKE!!! Linux IS NOT Windows or MacOS. Linux distros are not polished consumer products. They do not hold your hand. Basic things like surfing the internet or using an office suite are simple enough, but don't count on this to replace your gaming computer. If you want to get a lot of use out of Linux, you need to come to the party willing to drive down the ENTIRE learning curve. Warning given. Moving on.
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>>> Office Suite:
LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and NeoOffice - Take your pick. They all descend from Sun Microsystems' internal StarOffice system and they have similar development philosophies. Of the three, I must say the one I trust the least is OpenOffice simply because its current incarnation has IBM heritage and changes hands often enough that it's not outside the realm of possibility that a ChiCom company could get their hands on it. I prefer LibreOffice, but I've never used NeoOffice so maybe it's a better option. They're all free and open source as far as I know.
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>>> Internet Browser:
Brave - Seems to be getting a lot of attention lately and I've been using it in lieu of Firefox for the past few months. So far, it's pretty good. Brave is free and open source, but it is also based on the Chromium browser which was developed by Google and Microsoft, among others. Brave is based in the United States.
Opera - Another Chromium-based browser with competitive performance. Based out of Oslo, Norway.
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>>> Search Engine:
DuckDuckGo - As far as I'm concerned, it's the best option out there. In addition to being a search engine in its own right, DDG lets you make searches of many sites using tags they call !Bangs. For example, you can search Google using "!g [whatever you're searching for]". It's a good engine and it does make an effort to maintain your privacy.
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>>> Web Hosting:
Linode - I'm not going to give you a sales pitch for this one. You can go find their website and read more about it. If you need to host your website and you don't wanna use things like BlueHost or whatever, then this is a really good alternative. Their servers are all completely Linux-driven and I've never seen them go down. The same "know what you're doing" rules that applied to Linux apply here, however. Be warned.
Also, as a side note, unless you've got some serious money to burn and really, REALLY know exactly what you're doing, don't try to put your own at home server together. It was a bad idea when Hillary did it and it's usually a bad idea for anyone short of a fair-sized business with solid tech people in house.
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>>> E-mail Service:
ProtonMail - Tons of encryption options for both incoming and outgoing mail. Integrated contacts management (allows you to import your contacts from .csv files). There is a free account option which offers 500mb storage (the email data itself) and supports 150 messages per day. This covers the needs of most users. Paid accounts scale upward from there and allow you some piecemeal control over what exactly you're paying for. Based out of Switzerland, the company claims that even they cannot read the contents of their users' accounts, but their system is closed source and proprietary so there's no way to know how much truth there is to it. If it helps you decide, James O'Keefe of Project Veritas fame uses ProtonMail to receive and manage tips from whistleblowers.
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>>> Audio Editing:
Audacity - A very good audio editing software for anyone who needs to doctor some recordings. Free and open source. Have a look.
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>>> Image Editing:
GIMP - I've used this a long time. I actually find it more useful than Photoshop is, generally. Photoshop's Free Transform tool is pretty irreplaceable, though. GIMP is free.
Krita - I occasionally use this one. It's a darling of the Linux community and pretty useful, all things considered. It's more of a painting software than a photo-manipulation software, but they're adding to it all the time. Krita is free.
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>>> 3D Modelling (Maya, 3DS Max, etc.):
Blender - This stands head and shoulders above most of the other alternative stuff I've used. I almost always keep a copy of the software on all of my computers. It's got a learning curve like anything else, but if you're used to other such software the switch should be pretty easy.
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>>> Text Editor:
Notepad++ - It's not something we generally think about, but Notepad is a Microsoft product. Notepad++ is a far superior version with lots of great tools built in. If you save a file with a .cs, .cpp, .lua, or other code-related file extension, Notepad++ will even provide some basic programming tools from there on in the file. It has a built-in predictive text system which will speed up your programming workflow. As a programmer, this thing is near and dear to my heart. But it's useful for everyone sooner or later. It also won't forget what you were working on if your computer crashes, which is nice (it stores the data locally, so don't worry about being spied on by some weird cloud service). Free and open source.
Ah Linux, I have a love/hate relationship with it, though its more love than hate. I have used a variety of distros from the big 3 (Arch, Debian, Fedora (Red Hat)) and have dabbled in FreeBSD as well. If I had to recommend a distro for those of us new to it, look at Mint which is based off Debian/Ubuntu. I dont recommend Ubuntu as its become a bit of a resource hog lately, along with other issues, Canonical being kinda shitty in the past with regards to their software practices.
Manjaro for those with some ability but still want a mostly point and click experience. Based on Arch, it manages to be pretty user friendly in installation and post install and you gain access to the AUR, aka Arch User Repository. With that though, comes drawbacks. Its a "rolling release" distro so your on the bleeding edge with software and updates and those can break the system. AUR packages can be highly unstable and lead to system issues but if there is a package you need or want and its not in the main repos, there is a damn good chance you'll find it in the AUR.
Fedora is the last of the distros that I can comment on. What was formally known as Red Hat, this distro is a spin off of it and Red Hat has moved into the server/commercial realm. Fedora has been around a while and is a pretty stable OS and the package format (RPM, Red Hat Package Manager) is one of the common package types found in the Linux world, .deb packages being more common I believe. It comes in a variety of desktop environments and runs well on older hardware, though the same can be said about most any Linux distro. If you want a stable, solid and fairly current OS, Fedora is worth a look.
Two of the three I mentioned are point release type, meaning you have to upgrade the entire OS in a big lump when a new version is out, or do a complete reinstall.
Manjaro, and Arch, are rolling release, like I mentioned earlier. These type of distros are always up to date when you run the updates. There is no need to reinstall the entire system to update it to the latest version. Simply run the pacman -Syu command in the terminal or if you have a graphical interface for it, run that (like pamac) and boom, updated OS and it takes far less time to move to the latest version than a point release. Most of the point release distros anymore allow for full system updates using the package manager, but it depends on the distro. Again, rolling release style distros have the ability to break more easily when doing updates, but if you wanna learn what makes it tick, these are good distros to do it on.
This list isnt inclusive of all the flavors of Linux out there and there are distros that arent based on the big 3 that use different packages and so on. Some might mention Debian, and while yes that OS is stable as a rock, its packages usually lag behind and you will be running older version of software, not good for keeping security up to date. Its a good system, just not the best for keeping up with the latest software.
I know there is a ton of stuff Im forgetting and may not be correct on, but feel free to add to or correct me if Im wrong on something. Everything else here is spot on, and Protonmail is a worthwhile investment. Its the best way to move away from Google's Gmail or Yahoo or whatever you're using. It is free but I pay for the Plus account as it has some features I look for and I may upgrade in the future.
Lots of good stuff here!!
Linix Mint is where many novices and veterans consider ready and hardy for daily use
Do you have a source for N++ on Linux? Notepadqq seems to be what I could find in short order.
My thought for messaging is Signal and Signal desktop which is Linux-available
Startmail is also available and paid
Protonmail has a free tier, no?
Sorry. Forgot about the Notepad++ thing. I found a good article about how to add it to your Linux machine, albeit in a bit of a roundabout way. The developer is pretty stubborn about the possibility of developing it for anything but Windows, though I strongly suspect it's just that he doesn't want to have to manage cross-platform development issues. It's just one guy for the most part developing it.
Good to know. Have you tried Notepadqq? The non-snap version feels familiar
It does, I just forgot about it. I use the paid version because I deal with more traffic than the free one offers (it caps out at 150 messages a day). To be fair, that might not be an issue for most users.
Yes. Very true. Linode is not the most secured option around. As I said, it's pretty much for those who really don't want to use the bigger hosting services and would prefer to use Linux machines. I personally use it for a few HTML prototypes I am developing with a small group of other people. I would recommend it really for people who know their way around network security and just want to host something that isn't really that sensitive. Like a blog or something along those lines where the stakes aren't high.
I have been using opera for web browsing. How is Brave better?
I haven't used Opera in a while, so I couldn't readily tell you. I suppose Opera would be a good addition to the list. Opera touts its built-in VPN and privacy commitment. Brave comes pre-loaded with a pretty reliable add blocker and has much the same attitude regarding privacy. I take collegiate studies with a grain of salt, but there was some work done at Trinity College in Dublin to discover which browsers were the most private and Brave came out on top for whatever that's worth.
I think one of the major things Brave likes to push (and do keep in mind I don't trust crypto and have never actually used this feature) the browser's crypto features which allow you to earn a bit of crypto for viewing ads. I doubt very much it's worth the hassle, but maybe it's worth it. If you try it, do let me know.
Opera and Brave are both Chromium-based browsers, so they do have ties to some degree to Google and Microsoft development. Brave is US-based while Opera is based out of Oslo, Norway.
All said, I would suggest that going forward the general policy be to not get too attached to any one product or service. We need to be able to pull the plug on them at a moment's notice like we did with Fox and Newsmax and that means being ready to jump ship. I have no idea if Brave or Opera is more trustworthy. And I don't seem to recall much of a performance difference between the two.
Thank you! Will definitely look into it. Glad there's more options