A lot of blogs I follow seem to be posting their default applications they use and I figure I should share mine too.
📨 Mail Client:
Thunderbird
📮 Mail Server: DreamHost as it is included for free with my hosting
📝 Notes:
Leuchtturm1917 A5 Hardcover Dotgrid Notebook /
Logseq for digital
✅ To-Do:
Nextcloud Tasks
📷 Camera App:
Open Camera
🟦 Photo Management:
digiKam
📆 Calendar:
Nextcloud Calendar for Server /
Thunderbird and
KOrganizer on Desktop / Simple Calendar on Android
📁 Cloud File Storage:
Nextcloud running on TrueNAS Core
📖 RSS:
Nextcloud News
🙍🏻♂️ Contacts:
Nextcloud Contacts for Server /
KAddressBook and
Thunderbird on Desktop / Simple Contacts on Android
🌐 Browser:
Firefox /
Vivaldi Note that Vivaldi is not entirely open source, the UI is completely proprietary.
💬 Chat:
Signal / Discord Website (I’m not installing their spyware)
🔖 Bookmarks: Notebook /
Omnivore
📑 Read It Later: Notebook /
Omnivore
📜 Word Processing: I do everything in Markdown now so whatever text editor is available
📈 Spreadsheets:
LibreOffice Calc / Almost never use
📊 Presentations:
LibreOffice Impress / Almost never use
🛒 Shopping Lists: Paper and a Pen
🍴 Meal Planning: N/A / I need to get into this
💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: N/A / Planning to eventually get into this as well. I used to use Mint
📰 News: All via RSS
🔐 Password Management:
Bitwarden
🧮 Text Editor:
VSCodium /
Kate
🖥️ Desktop Environment:
KDE Plasma
🔎 Search:
DuckDuckGo
I mostly use open source software and services. I self-host Nextcloud and that has taken the roll of syncing all my data between my desktop and phone as well as removing dependance on 3rd party cloud providers.
I’m a fan of keeping things you want to remember in a physical medium so I try to write my notes in a notebook before transferring long term notes to pages in Logseq.
I’m not a fan of office applications like word processors and spreadsheets so I rarely use them. Plain text is usually the better format. I used to Use LibreOffice more when I was in school and before I learned about Markdown.
If anyone has some suggestions for future good open source applications please let me know.
Other App Default Lists
- Robb Knight seems to be the one that started it. I’ve not read his blog yet.
- Wouter Groeneveld
- Kev Quirk
- Manuel Moreale Where I discovered this trend.
