useful_programs
Table of Contents
Useful Programs
Programs I find useful. Mostly just ones I think I might forget, or that seem slightly obscure.
I don't use Windows anymore, but I'll leave this stuff here 'cause maybe someone'll still find it useful.
(Out of date, need to clear out [better yet, just move?] entries for softs. I don't use anymore)
Relevant Links
PC
※ I don't use Windows anymore, so don't care too much about keeping that info. up to date and have moved a lot of it to §No longer use, but perhaps still useful. Sorry!
| Use | Name | Links | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | find-cursor | Code | AUR | Replicates the accessibility feature in Windows where you can press Ctrl to spawn some contracting concentric circles to show you where your Mouse cursor is. |
| Desktop Utils. | Rofi | Code | Arch | Flexible launcher for i3wm. |
| Files | mediainfo | Home | Arch | CLI and GUI tools for getting detailed information about various kinds of media files (video, audio, etc), in different formats. I mostly use the QT version on Arch, as it has more features than the default GTK one, including a real vital one which let's me set which page of information it opens on, for some reason. Is also on Windows and Macs. |
| Game stuff | Archi Steam Farm | Code | AUR | Collects Steam cards without having to open the game. |
| Hardware | CPU-X | Home | AUR | Open-source clone of CPU-Z. Gets info. about the computer. |
| Media Editing | FFmpeg | Home | Arch | Terminal-based tool for working with video and audio. You can crop, resize, convert, concatenate, etc.; probably anything you can imagine. |
| ImageMagick | Home | Arch | Like FFmpeg, but for images. | |
| Music | MPD | Home | Arch | Run a small music server for streaming music to hardware on your network (or Internet). |
| yewtube | Code | AUR | Stream Youtube audio from the terminal. | |
| ncmpcpp | Feature-rich, terminal-based, MPD client. | |||
| Quod Libet | Music Player and library organiser. | |||
| Organisation | FreeMind | Home | Arch | Mind-mapping tool. |
| QOwnNotes | AUR | ? | Nice bit of software for writing and organising notes. I sync them between computers and phone with Syncthing. Might change to Org-mode one day? | |
| Tellico | Home | Arch | Software for organising info. about collections. Easy to customise what fields you want to use, and does a good job of importing data from places like Discogs. I use it for videogames and music. I also tried GCstar, but liked this more. |
|
| P2P | SoulseekQT | Home | AUR | GUI Soulseek client. Mostly used for music sharing. I much prefer it to the alternate Nicotine+, but I can't remember why. |
| Transmission | Torrent client. I actually use two versions, one for downloading stuff to my computer, and more commonly, one for downloading stuff to my NAS. | |||
| Package Management | Yay | Code | AUR | Gosh AUR helpers keep disappearing. But this one's doing a good job of replacing the now maintained pacaur. |
| Trizen | Code | AUR | I've switched from Yay to Trizen, but they're both pretty equally fine and I can't remember why I changed~ | |
| Scanning | VueScan | Home | AUR | On Windows this was vital to get my scanner working, as it was old and compatibility was broken. On Linux this isn't a problem, but it might still be useful, as the amount of control it gives you over the scanner is unparalleled. Expensive as fuck though. |
| Security | KeePassXC | Arch | Win7 | Encrypted, locally hosted, password manager. Switch to this from some other version of KP 'cause I needed TOTP without a phone. |
| Timed Shutdown | Sleep Timer | AUR | Win7 | Simple program for scheduling computer shutdown, hibernation etc. |
No longer use, but perhaps still useful
| Use | Name | Downloads | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bootdisk | USBWriter | ? | Win7 | Simple, used for Antergos Linux |
| 〃 | Universal USB Installer | ? | Win7 | More options, inc. storage partition |
| Download Management | Megatools | Home | AUR | Command-line tools for working with mega.nz, either with or without an account. |
| Yt-dlp | Code | Arch | CLI tools for grabbing video and audio from Youtube (and some other places, apparently). Spiritual-successor to Youtube-dl. | |
| DVD authoring | DVD Flick | ? | Win7 | Create and burn DVD-video discs. |
| 〃 | ConvertXDVD | Use to create Video_TS (etc.) folders | ||
| DVD ripping | MeGUI | ? | Win7 | Useful part of workflow when making DVD rips (for KG, etc.) https://forum.karagarga.in/index.php?showtopic=27384&page=1 |
| Desktop tools | Albert | AUR | n/a | Nice program / file / web launcher for linux. Easy to theme, unlike the otherwise good Synapse. |
| File management | FastCopy | Lin | Win7 | Copies files faster, with more options. Not sure how useful it is on Linux, but there's a port for it and OSX called RapidCopy. |
| Mediacoder | ? | Win7 | Info. on video files | |
| Pandora Recovery | n/a | Win7 | Super useful program for re-getting deleted items | |
| QTTabBar | n/a | Win7 | Adds tabs (and other stuff I don't care about) to Windows Explorer. | |
| Space Sniffer | ? | Win7 | Visualises HD usage, so you can see what's hogging the most space. Alternatives include Spacemonger and WinDirStat. |
|
| Game stuff | Ice | ? | Win7 | Put ROMs in Steam. Get images from: http://consolegrid.com/ http://steambanners.booru.org/ |
| 〃 | Idle Master | AUR | Win7 | Collects Steam cards without having to open the game. |
| 〃 | Lutris | AUR | n/a | Combined library for Steam, emulators, Wine, etc. |
| Hardware | CPU-Z | n/a | Win7 | GUI program to get info. on computer's hardware. RAM configuration, type, etc. |
| Music | Foobar 2000 | AUR | Win7 | Perfect software for organising and playing music. |
| OH&S | f.lux | AUR | Win7 | Changes screen tone and brightness at different times of day. |
| Organisation | Rainlendar | AUR | Win7 | Is on AUR, not on Chocolatey. Easy to share a calendar between OSes Pro version syncs with Google Cal., CalDAV, etc. |
| Package Management | Chocolatey | n/a | Win7 | Windows package manager!! Not perfect, and a little slow, but much better than nothing! |
| Screenshots | ShareX | n/a | Win7 | Can set it up so 'printscreens' are dumped strait to the desktop :) On Linux I just use a script that uses ImageMagick to get the same function. |
| Windows customisation | Library Icon Changer | n/a | Win7 | |
| 〃 | Resource Hacker | |||
| 〃 | Ultimate Windows Hacker | Privacy stuff to for Win10 | ||
Firefox Stuffs
| Use | Add-on / Extension | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Navigation | Breadcrumbs | Easily navigate a website's directory structure. |
| 〃 | HeadingsMap | Gives you a panel which lists heading-based map of the page you're on (like what you might get in a PDF reader) |
| Privacy, security | Firefox Multi-Account Containers | Designate pages to open in their own, walled-off environment. |
| 〃 | Privacy Redirect | Redirects Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, and Google Maps links to proxies. |
| 〃 | uMatrix | My main blocker, gives good control over media, cookies and scripts. |
| 〃 | Cookie AutoDelete | Dictate cookie lifespan, and manage other stuff pages and browsers store. I use it for clearing out my Youtube history. |
| 〃 | uBlock Origin | I use it as a supplement to UMatrix for blocking specific elements of pages. See: UBlock Origin |
| 〃 | Unshort.link | Fixes shitty link shortener bullshit. |
| RSS | Feed Preview | Shows an icon when a page has a feed available, and renders a preview when visited. |
| 〃 | YouTube RSS Finder | Shows an icon with a link to a Youtube channel's hidden feed. |
| UI | Firefox Color | Easily customise FF's colours. |
| 〃 | Stylus | Use custom CSS on websites. Previously I used Stylish, but apparently that got nasty. Easy to replace an old Stylish setup—uses the same format. See Stylus for some example rules. |
| 〃 | Tab Sidebar | Let's you access tabs from the same panel you can use for bookmarks and history. I was using the popular Tree Style Tab for a while, but it loads slow, and I don't use all the fancy stuff, and it looks ugly with my theme. Sidebery is similar to TST, but looks less ugly. Tab Sidebar just lists the tabs, loads rights away, and even has a shortcut built-in. |
| UX | BlockTube | Block Youtube channels from being shown. |
| Web Development | Popup ALT Attribute | Shows contents of element's alt attribute in a tooltip. |
| 〃 | Duplicate tab | Let's you configure a keyboard shortcut for duplicating a tab. I use this feature a bunch, and having to do it through the right-click menu was a painnnnnn. There's another add-on that's supposed to do the same thing, but I didn't have any luck with it: Duplicate Tab Shortcut. |
No longer use, but perhaps still useful
| Use | Add-on / Extension | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | Simple White Compact | Square, white, compact, tidy (discontinued?) I just use Firefox Color now. |
| Privacy, security | Form History Control | Manage stored form data |
| 〃 | NoScript | Blocks JavaScript. Now use UMatrix for this. |
| 〃 | Password Exporter | Used once for moving my passwords from Firefox to KeePass. |
| 〃 | Request Policy | Control cross-website access (rad). Now use UMatrix for this. |
| 〃 | Canvas Defender | Protects against HTML5 canvas fingerprinting. |
| Productivity | Feedbro | Oftputtingly-named, in-browser feed reader |
| 〃 | Tab Groups | Restores tab grouping feature |
| 〃 | | Super-useful tab splitting. Seems to no longer work? |
| Protocols | OverbiteWX | Redirects Gopher links to the Floodgap proxy :) In the future is supposed to render them on its own! |
| Steam | Super Steam | Use Enhanced Steam in not-Firefox |
| UI | Tree Style Tab | Let's you access tabs from the same panel you can use for bookmarks and history. Tabs can be arranged hierarchically, and there are additional useful add-ons. |
| 〃 | TST Tab Search | Tab searching integrated in to Tree Style Tab panel |
| 〃 | TST Bookmarks Subpanel | Split TST vertically, so bookmarks can be displayed below. |
| 〃 | TST Active Tab on Scroll Bar | Helps you find the active tab in TST list. |
| 〃 | TST More Tree Commands | Menu items to reorganise tab hierarchy. |
| 〃 | TST Colored Tabs | Automatically uses colours to separate tabs based on where they point. |
| 〃 | TST Indent Line | Makes heirarchy a bit clearer by using vertical lines to show groups. |
| Whoops | Lazarus: Form Recovery | |
| Youtube | | Block entire Youtube channels!! But is busted last time I checked. |
| Content | Unpaywall | Find non-paywall versions of paywalled academic documents |
Thunderbird
Previously I used add-ons mostly for syncing calendar sand address books, but that stuff's finally built-in to Thunderbird.
| Use | Add-on / Extension | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Account management | ImportExportTools NG | Used it once for importing and exporting messages. |
Android
I don't too too much with my phone, mostly just look at a few websites in the morning, listen to music at night, and keep my notes synced. All the stuff I don't hate-use is on F-Droid.
| Use | Name | Downloads | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calendar | Simple Calendar Pro | F-Droid | G.Play | Straight-forward calendar that you can either run offline or synced. |
| 〃 | DAVx⁵ | F-Droid | G.Play | Tool for syncing with CalDAV calendars (for example if you're hosting your own). |
| 〃 | ICSx⁵ | F-Droid | G.Play | Used for incorporating webcal, which DAVDroid doesn't handle. |
| Tasks | OpenTasks | F-Droid | G.Play | Decent app for managing tasks (the kind attached to CalDAV calendars). Has a decent widget. Seems to have stopped development, but works fine. I don't use tasks anymore. |
| Notes | ColorNote | x | G.Play | Simple note taking software with a decent widget. I don't use this anymore. |
| 〃 | Markor | F-Droid | G.Play | This is the app I've been using for doing notes. I use Syncthing to keep things synced between my phone and PCs. |
| Drawing | Tux Paint | F-Droid | ? | Fun drawing program! (Also on PCs) |
| Music | MPDroid | F-Droid | x | Pretty out of date MPD client, but works well on old devices |
| 〃 | MALP | F-Fdroi | G.Play | MPD client that's still developed. Interface is a little clunky, but not too bad. |
| Media | Kore | F-Droid | G.Play | Official Kodi remote. Actually on F-Droid :) |
| 〃 | PhotoScan | x | G.Play | Easy photo capture that works really well. By Google though. |
| 〃 | Animal Crossing: New Leaf Guide | x | G.Play | Keep track of Animal Crossing stuffs. Haven't looked into a New Horizons version yet. |
| 〃 | MuPDF | F-Droid | G.Play | Decent, basic PDF reader. |
| 〃 | VLC | F-Droid | G.Play | It's VLC with a weird interface. It's fine. |
| Social | Tusky | F.Droid | G.Play | Most popular Fediverse app. |
| 〃 | Subway Tooter | Repo | G.Play | My fave Fedi. app. Very customisable and FOSS-clunky-feeling. Has a great feature where you can preview local timelines of any instance. |
| Volume Control | Volume Control | x | G.Play | Android volume control is so bad. I can't get it quiet enough to listen to music in bed (through headphones). This app is suss as fuck, full of ads, probably spyware, but it's all I got. Amazed there's no open source alternative. Almost makes me want to learn how to make Android stuff. |
| 〃 | Precise Volume | x | G.Play | Trying this one too. Still has ads. |
| Misc. | Syncthing-Fork | F-Droid | G.Play | I use this for syncing files between my computers. |
| OsmAnd~ | F.Droid | G.Play | Access OpenStreetMap maps. Also lets you download maps for particular regions, so you can use them without an Internet connection. | |
See Also
Gnu IMP
| Name | Downloads | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Export Layers | |||
| Save for Web | |||
| BIMP (Batch Image Manipulation Plugin) | |||
useful_programs.txt · Last modified: 2024/07/16 08:55 by rjt