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ziq wrote

Plenty of emulators, Steam and videogames in general.

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moonlune wrote

Some VST plugins for DAW.

there's no drop-in Excel equivalent, and there's no office pack that can reliably read files written in microsoft office; mostly because microsoft doesn't follow their own standards.

I have yet to find a PDF readers that does signatures (not the GPG one, the normie one).

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ikk wrote

mostly because microsoft doesn't follow their own standards.

well, yea, because msoffice can't reliably open msoffice docs, i think i'd argue that LO is viable. calc is fine for excel docs if they're not full of vb macros. but people should just stick to formulas, macros are an abomination.

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moonlune wrote

it also has difficulty with the database-sized files that some people build in excel.

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ikk wrote

ok but at that point they should consider sqlite or prolog. gnumeric also comes with neat cli apps for working with excel docs: ssconvert ssdiff ssgrep ssindex.

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ikk wrote

  • Online payments, e.g. Stripe.
  • Google Translate
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stagn wrote

deepl translator is a good alternative at google translate, is propretary saddly, but i prefer it on google.

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Zerush wrote (edited )

Antivirus and antimalware . I don't know any OpenSource alternative which are not only a bit more than a placebo. Some multimedia drivers, these from your ISP to connect you., most games, some profesional or official apps,

It is always good to prefer OSS or FOSS, but for many things there is no other option than to use proprietary software. In any case, it is always recommended to read the TOS and PP of the soft, apart of a good user support/community, which in proprietary soft is not necessarily worse than in Open Source apps or services. Example https://www.ssuitesoft.com/privacypolicy.htm

(You can test it with Blacklight, or with Exodus Privacy in Android)

https://themarkup.org/blacklight

https://exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/

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ikk wrote

apart of a good user support/community, which in proprietary soft is not necessarily worse than in Open Source apps or services.

I disagree. There are some qualities inherent to free / open source software, such as being safe from vendor lock-out. Even if your non-free app works fine now, you can never be sure that the developer won't pull an Adobe on you, going expensive monthly subscription all of a sudden. That, I think, makes proprietary software necessarily worse in very practical and tangible terms.

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Zerush wrote (edited )

Same in OpenSource, not all OpenSource is free to use. Currently I use Proton Mail and VPN free, both are OpenSource, until now until a limit the use is free, but can change in the future. Anyway, if you use a free product like the mencioned SSuite, it isn't a problem if they change their policy, to use it you don't need an account, the use is completly anonymous. Apart a fast and friendly user support (via mail)

If they change their policy, simply stop using it, but I don't think so, I use it since more than 7 years now and also know that these two guys don't have interests to change it, it is a hobby project, they gain money working as electricians with a own workshop.

Another example is the, I think, very known IrfanView, freeware image and multimedia viewer and editor (only for Windows, but works perfect with Wine in Linux too), it don't have a really FOSS alternative with this amount of functions, the nearest and only is Nomacs -Image Lounge (FOSS), but even this one has only half the funktionality of IrfanView. IV was created in 2006 and until now it only has improved its features, nothing in its TOS.

There is always the risk in any software that one day the conditions of use change, that the dev sells the product, etc. This can have consequences in a product that requires registration to use it, but not in one that is free to use without Registration.

Also in FOSS there are numerous problems, the web is full of abandoned and unattended products, without any user support, or worse, filled with malware (hackers can also read the script, taking advantage of the lack of maintenance).

FOSS is preferable, as I said, but there are never any guarantees and not everything is gold, less so since Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Zuckerbot also developed FOSS.

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ikk wrote

There is always the risk in any software that one day the conditions of use change, that the dev sells the product, etc.

Yea but with free software you can fork it.

it don't have a really FOSS alternative with this amount of functions, the nearest and only is Nomacs -Image Lounge (FOSS), but even this one has only half the funktionality of IrfanView.

ImageMagick?

the web is full of abandoned and unattended products,

Well, yes, but at least with free / open source software, you can pick up the code where it's left and attend the unattended products, say, how people keep hacking on the doom source code.

filled with malware

I find this more of an issue on Windows when pulling random .exes from the web and hoping for the best than with apt or other gnu/linux package managers.

Granted, amongst web browser extensions, even for a free browser like Firefox, there's a lot of malware.

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Zerush wrote

ImageMagick is a fine app, but IrfanView is way better, IrfanView even can substitute a Video or music player, not only images, Even Nomacs is better than ImageMagick.

Yes, you can fork an disatended FOSS, if you are capable to do that. Maybe in a small app you can, if you are a dev, but in more complex apps with hyndreds of thouusends of lines, you need a teem with severral devs to do this.

A normal user can't. He don't even read the TOS and PP of a soft and less thousends of lines of the code to prove that it works without problems,

Although Windows, as the most used OS is also the most atacked, Malware exist also in Linux, with the difference that Windows has a catalogue of dozends of excellent AV, and Linux ? The placebo ClamAV? Don't trust on this, until now Linux are relative secure, because hackers mainly atacks Windows and not so Linux as minority OS, but this is currently changing, due to the increment amount of servers which use Linux.

Every OS can be a victim of Malware, more in these moments in a war between east and west, They don't fight only with guns and tanks, also the cyberspace is a battleground between corresponding secret services since years, with the user in the middle. In every OS is advisable to check well what you download, the biggest security hole is the user himself. As I say, don't trust your own shadow in the web.

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mima wrote (edited )

This PMD98 Music Macro Language compiler. While the DOS assembly source is available, it doesn't seem to be free software/open-source

EDIT: I had to use a url shortener because the original url is tripping some banned words/phrases list for some reason

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Zerush wrote

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mima wrote

I was referring to the assembly code of PMD98 that was written for DOS, not DOS itself

Neat to know tho that Microsoft actually made MS-DOS (at least up to v2.0) free software, I thought it's just source-available but still nonfree

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Zerush wrote

You also can download the compiled version (MIT license). Anyway, it has only academic use. Currently there are a lot of PCs, ofered without OS, only with FreeDOS. It can be a fork.

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Zerush wrote

Google Streetview don't have a FOSS alternative, only Google maps has (OpenStreet Mapand some others). Some Drivers (multimedia and others) don't exists in FOSS

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