I used Plex for my home media for almost a year, then it stopped playing nice for reasons I gave up on diagnosing. While looking at alternatives, I found Jellyfin which is much more responsive, IMO, and the UI is much nicer as well.

It gets relegated to playing Fraggle Rock and Bluey on repeat for my kiddo these days, but I am absolutely in love with the software.

What are some other FOSS gems that are a better experience UX/UI-wise than their proprietary counterparts?

EDIT: Autocorrect turned something into "smaller" instead of what I meant it to be when I wrote this post, and I can't remember what I meant for it to say so it got axed instead.

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[–] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 points 5 days ago

I personally run an older build of emby, the open source software jellyfin was forked from. It's very similar, but I found emby's video transcoding (or explicit not transcoding) to be more reliable

[–] atlasraven31@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

VLC absolutely wrecked Windows Media Player. Firefox was the same with IE.

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you know that MS now charges for you to play some codecs with windows media player?

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unless something has changed recently, that's not exactly true. They charge 99c for the distribution of it through the windows store (or whatever it's called) but you can install them the traditional way no problem

I think it's still dumb but it's a distinction worth making. I think the description even links the website where you can download it

[–] Schmeckinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

You can even install the free oem istaller in the windows store thats hidden iirc.

[–] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Bitwarden password manager. I've used several proprietary PW managers, Bitwarden is by far the most stable, intuitive, and functional IMO.

[–] portside@monyet.cc 1 points 1 year ago

Also KeePass, I've switched from bitwarden to KeePassDX on mobile and set up syncing to nextcloud and google drive. Aegis for time based OTP's.

[–] aksdb@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

I used Bitwarden a lot but it pissed me off that I couldn't add new entries while offline, that accessing attachments requires me to be online as well, and that attachments are not part of the backup.

I switched back to Enpass due to that, which has even a slightly better UX IMHO. It's not FOSS though, but uses the FOSS sqlcipher library for storage. So if push comes to shove, I can still exfiltrate my data without relying on the vendor.

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[–] flameguy21@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

OBS is so good that I don't know why anyone would ever use X-split.

[–] cujo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I adore OBS. I've been teaching my friends the basics on how to use it, as they've all been using some proprietary crap that makes their lives marginally easier in one or two areas but adds a huge headache in others.

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[–] bleistift2@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

I’ll take LibreOffice Writer over MS Word anytime. All that ‘I know better than you,’ ‘You wanted to copy the space, too, right? Even though you stopped marking before it,’ can kiss my ass.

[–] dantheclamman@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Desktop: Zotero, RStudio, Thunderbird, Sumatra PDF, Notepad++, NoMacs (image viewer), Espanso (text expander), qBittorrent, Inkscape

Android: FairEmail or K9 Mail, Authenticator Pro, Feeder, F-Droid, Pocket Casts, SD Maid

Multi-platform: Home Assistant, Wireguard, Syncthing, Jellyfin, Kodi, Samba, Firefox

Honorable mentions that don't have the best UX but are still hugely appreciated for existing: Joplin, QGIS

[–] fubo@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My Pop!_OS system has never shown me ads for Candy Crush.

[–] panicnow@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I just installed Ubuntu server on my little home server which has faithfully run Windows 10 Pro since it came out. I didn’t want to deal with the ads on Windows 11. I ssh into the Ubuntu install and there is an ad in the terminal!

[–] bort@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

there is an ad in the terminal!

you mean the "longer security updates with ubuntu pro" thing?

[–] panicnow@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

No. I got that too. I’m talking about:

“ Strictly confined Kubernetes makes edge and IoT secure. Learn how MicroK8s just raised the bar for easy, resilient and secure K8s cluster deployment. https://ubuntu.com/engage/secure-kubernetes-at-the-edge”

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[–] directive0@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Blender. I feel pretty confident in saying that there is simply nothing like it in the commercial world. Its feature set is unreal; its like the swiss army knife of 3D modelling programs. I can't say enough good things about Blender. It has replaced so many secondary programs in my workflow and is slowly dominating to become my entire workflow.

It used to suck to use in the late 2010s and then work was done to overhaul its space-shuttle cockpit interface, and now it actually feels concise and usable. I freaking love blender now. Big time blender fanboy right here.

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone who gave up on Blender back in the 2010’s, I may need to revisit it.

[–] XPost3000@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You definitely should, it is lightyears improved

[–] Zacryon@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A lightyear is a distance. Not a time.

[–] cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Isn't distance more suitable to describe an improvement than time? Don't find anything wrong with that comment.

"It is better by a mile" vs "It is better by three hours"

[–] Zacryon@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good point. I guess it depends on the interpretation. If you consider that developments take time, be it developments in software, technology, research or whatever, then saying something like "this software is years ahead of its time" sounds appropriate.

That's how I read the comment. Additionally, given that it's a common misconception that a lightyear describes a timespan, I felt the urge to be a smartass.

[–] aksdb@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But you typically can't influence time, while you can influence distance travelled. The faster car will get you further in the same time than a slower car. So IMO distance (travelled) is the better measurement.

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[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

Firefox/LibreWolf

[–] anthonylavado@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the praise! We're not on Lemmy too much, but someone in the Core Team caught site of this and shared it with me. If you're wondering who I am: github

[–] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I want jellyfin, but the number of devices I'd have to manually setup around my house, tvs etc, is daunting and terrifying.

[–] Lemmchen@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What are you talking about? Install the app, enter your server address and log in.
Which of the default settings don't work for you for this to be terrifying?

[–] geophysicist@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Let's be honest though, the Android app for jellyfin is so so buggy. My partner can't even use it because there are certain orders of starting a video, casting, closing the app, reopening to starting subtitles, recasting, just to get it working

[–] vagrantprodigy@lemmy.whynotdrs.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you tried Findroid?

[–] Lemmchen@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Never heard of it before. Thanks for mentioning it.

[–] ohlaph@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you point me to the repository? I'm an android developer and looking to give back. Maybe I can fix a bug or two.

[–] Lemmchen@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-android
Not so hard to find, is it?

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Signal. Who else is making a post quantum secure e2ee algorithm and making sure the code is open source and not duplicating the keys everywhere? Thank goodness for the kind devs on this project and for other FOSS projects everywhere!

[–] Lemmchen@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

The time when they essentially went closed source to implement MobileCoin in kind of a covert operation really didn't do them any favors, though.

[–] bappity@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

does anyone know if there's a free alternative in Visual Studio to PHPTools? I refuse to believe the only way to debug PHP in visual studio is a paid license extension

[–] bort@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

not exactly free, but have you tried phpstorm from intellij?

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 0 points 1 year ago

Xournal++ for pdf annotating, note taking

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I could be biased but 2009scape. While originally a Runescape clone of 2009, they've preserved the integrity of the game much better than the official versions

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

2009Scape definitely a different vibe than the official game, but I still thoroughly enjoy modern RuneScape. There are the typical “RuneScape 3 is just EZScape” complaints that are valid… But as an adult with very little free time, the old school grind just isn’t appealing anymore.

I love being able to idle grind most skills, because it means I can just have it running on my second monitor while I go about my day. It doesn’t take up all of my attention like it used to, and that’s not a bad thing. Lots of people idolize the old school grind because it’s nostalgic. But as someone who only gets a few hours a week (if I’m lucky) to play, it just doesn’t work for me anymore.

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