• Fake4000
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    1168 months ago

    Definitely Syncthing.

    Great app to sync my phone with my laptop.

    • @[email protected]
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      118 months ago

      It’s also great for sharing files with friends/family. I gave a couple of friends a folder address, and we all just drop shit in there that we want the others to see.

        • @[email protected]
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          38 months ago

          There really isn’t any “hosting” with Syncthing. Everyone sharing the folder is kind of hosting.

          • @[email protected]
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            18 months ago

            How did you get to work outside your home network since you have shared folder with friends and family?

            • @[email protected]
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              18 months ago

              Try it out. It’s free. Install it on a PC or phone, set up a shared folder. Put something in it. Set up syncthing on another phone/computer and use the same folder name. The program takes care of all the network stuff.

    • andrew
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      18 months ago

      And so many other things. I’ve also used it for “cloud saves” back/forth from my desktop to my steam deck on games that don’t support them for various reasons. Dyson Sphere Program being one, because the files can get quite large.

      • sag
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        8 months ago

        668 comments in 1 month. It means you like the content of lemmy

        • @[email protected]
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          -28 months ago

          Yes. The content produced by the users.

          Lemmy devs are making the same mistake reddit made. They’re throwing the users under the bus, when its the users that make the platform.

          • setVeryLoud(true);
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            28 months ago

            You can start your own instance, and you could even develop a compatible, federated protocol like kbin. That’s the beauty of the fediverse.

            • @[email protected]
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              08 months ago

              Starting my own instance would just make me legally vulnerable because the tools for moderation dont exist.

              I will likely jump to sublinks when available, which was created because of these issues.

        • @[email protected]
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          -88 months ago

          Mostly because the devs are assholes that are throwing instance admins anf users under the bus by refusing to work on moderation tools and data privacy law related issues.

          • Daniel Quinn
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            18 months ago

            Are they refusing patches, or are you just expecting people to do what you want for free?

            • @[email protected]
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              8 months ago

              They are refusing patches and we as a community do expext them to address serious legal issues that they are being paid by the community to address.

              Its funny to watch them make the same mistakes as reddit.

    • @[email protected]
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      158 months ago

      The funny thing is that when Chrome was first released, I was pretty excited that open source web engines were becoming more widely adopted.

      Whatever one thinks of the current dominance of Chrome, I vastly prefer it to the time when Internet Explorer 6 had >90% market share. Open standards and FOSS technologies really are a winning cause even if the end products aren’t always FOSS.

    • @FrostKing
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      218 months ago

      Recently installed Linux (Nobara to be specific) and I’m amazed this isn’t talked about more. It’s so useful! Windows is seriously missing out not having a program like this built in.

      • @Eldritch
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        118 months ago

        Microsoft has released something similar for Windows. I believe it’s called Windows connect for phone? But it does exist.

        • Otter
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          138 months ago

          Yep, although I’ve found KDE connect to work better. It was more reliable while the windows one kept doing unexpected things

          • @Eldritch
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            108 months ago

            You will get no argument from me there. I used the one on Windows a couple of times. Wasn’t all that impressed. But the one on KDE is the one I use most myself.

            • @Shady_Shiroe
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              28 months ago

              I recently switched to tumbleweed kde, so I tried kde connect for the hell of it, and holy crap I have been missing out.

          • Maeve
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            18 months ago

            I loathe phonelink so much, after trying to use it for a week.

          • @Eldritch
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            48 months ago

            Yes I think that’s what they’re calling it now. They used to call it something else. But it generally works everywhere windows works. Though I don’t have very many windows machines myself and much prefer KDE connect. But there is something similar. Apple has one too. But it strictly only works with iPhones.

            • Maeve
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              38 months ago

              That’s why the US is suing them (locking people to Apple devices).

              • @Eldritch
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                38 months ago

                Yes, I just hope it goes better than the whole Microsoft deal. The next president turned around and basically undid all the work of the Clinton administration.

      • @[email protected]
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        38 months ago

        It does, it’s called “your phone”. In my experience it works more reliably as it uses the cloud, though you still need local WiFi for some reason, it also has screen mirroring, which KDE lacks. However, testy privacy and lacks a bunch of handy tools which KDE connect has

    • @the16bitgamer
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      28 months ago

      I love the idea of KDE connect, but its over featured and buggy.

      Most times I’m trying to send a file, the computer I’m sending to is not visible which requires me to goto that machine and reset KDE Connect. I can’t send more than one file or KDE Connect crashes and resetting it on Linux is a proper pain.

      Plus I just want to use it to transfer files, yet there is no universal setting for the app, thus I have to turn on/off the features I want per device. And when KDE connect randomly forgets a device and I need to re-pair it I have to disable everything again.

      At times Bluetooth file transfer is easier. But then I use it on my iPad, where the app can’t work unless its open and in focus. But the alternative is a great big middle finger. Its fantastic and I will deal with the KDE jank.

    • @[email protected]
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      18 months ago

      I gave this a brief try but it seemed clunky in a gnome environment. Should I give it another go?

  • @[email protected]
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    728 months ago

    Errm, Wireshark. Please bear with me.

    Wireshark is a shining example of an open source project completely and utterly crapping on the closed source competition. As a result we all benefit. I recall spending a lot of someone else’s money on buying a sort of ruggedized laptop with two ethernet ports to do the job back in the day.

    Nowdays, I can run up a tcpdump session on a firewall remotely with some carefully chosen timings and filters and download it to my PC and analyse it with Wireshark.

    OK, all so convenient but is it any use?

    Say you have a VoIP issue of some sort. The PCAP from tcpdump that you pass to Wireshark can analyse it to the nth degree. Wireshark knows all about SIP and RTP (and IAX) and you can even play back the voice streams or have them graphed so you can see what is wrong or whatever. That’s just VoIP, it has loads of other dissectors and decorators built in.

    So what?

    The UK (for example) will be dispensing with boring old, but reliable, POTS (Plain Old Telephony System) by 2025. Our entire copper telephony and things like RedCare (defunct soon) will go away.

    We are swapping out circuit switching for packet switching. To be fair, a lot of the backend is already TCP/UDP/IP that is shielded away from us proles. When SoGEA (Single Order Generic Ethernet Access) really kicks in then the old school electric end to end connection will be lost in favour of packet switching, which never fails (honest guv).

    If you are an IT bod of any sort, you really should be conversant with Wireshark.

    • @[email protected]
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      188 months ago

      Thank you for the detailed reply and the explanations to (mostly) all the jargon :-)

      Sweden is also doing a lot of deprecation of old telephony systems, those that I know of is that 2G and 3G are going away by 2025.

      The less tech debt we pass onto future generations, the better.

      • @[email protected]
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        48 months ago

        In the UK at least, the POTS (Plain Old …) copper phone lines carry an electrical current as well as signals and can power the handset. There are certain guarantees about this so that in an emergency your phone will still work so you can dial 999 (our original emergency number) or 112. Our fire regulations require something like 30 minutes before things should start failing. In the real world, you get out immediately and use your mobile.

        We have an emergency alarm monitoring system used by businesses. Its generally known as “Red Care” which was a brand run by BT (British Telecom). You have a small device connected to a phone line (and powered by it) and it will monitor your fire detectors and building access control systems and a 24 hour manned monitoring centre will notify you in the event of an emergency. Nowadays, these devices will use your wifi and internet connection. Sometimes: old school is best.

        • DigitalDilemma
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          18 months ago

          I respectfully disagree.

          I had redcare via Age Concern for my mum before she went into a home with dementia - it was a few years ago and it was all that was available.

          Nowadays, the panic alarms are, I believe, entirely self contained using a sim card and mobile connectivity and include location information - so they are not reliant on local power or internet connection. That locational information could be life saving - one time my mother got very confused, left her flat and was wandering around outside in freezing conditions. Luckily someone heard her calling out and took her home, but she could easily have died that night and was so confused that she didn’t think to use her dongle which was still around her neck, and it is doubtful it would have been in range of her base station anyway. A modern system can also include geofencing and even positional data (if someone falls down), takes it off, or battery runs low and automatically alert. Just like redcare, the modern systems are manned 24/7 just the same.

          Sometimes old school is not best.

          • @[email protected]
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            28 months ago

            I think we might be writing at cross purposes. The system you had for your mum obviously worked effectively for you and that is the important thing.

            POTS provide(s|d) a fixed point of reference - your address is registered against the number for 999 etc; it provides power for a handset or device; Its been like that for a lot of decades! These are cast iron guarantees. A POTS line has guarantees, enshrined in UK law, that mobile etc does not have. POTS is circuit switched (well it was) which means there is a physical path between the ends for the duration of the conversation.

            So, by old school, I mean that you currently have important guarantees about telephony in the UK that will evaporate in future. In 2025 or so, we in the UK will have finished migrating from our old school POTS copper lines and will enjoy our smart new SoGEA lines instead. Single Order Generic Ethernet Access. Instead of an emulated circuit switched line we will use VoIP across the entire country. Nothing wrong with that but it probably won’t have the guarantees that POTS had.

            Red Care is no more - BT have dropped it on the floor as of Feb this year which may indicate that things are not well with our future comms promises. The general system that Red Care was one product of is still available.

            This is the important point: Promises (in law) that we used to be able to rely on for comms may (will) be binned.

            • @[email protected]
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              18 months ago

              I was thinking about getting a landline again (US) simply because VoIP and cellular all have issues with latency I find jarring.

      • @[email protected]
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        58 months ago

        I know what you mean. You’ve already read a load of log files on behalf of an “engineer” who seems incapable of doing it themself. You’ve also eliminated DNS and NTP and laughed at suggestions relating to SFC /SCANNOW. Then you roll up your sleeves and plug into the Matrix …

    • Dizzy Devil Ducky
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      28 months ago

      For the past week and a half of a networking fundamentals class I just finished Tuesday, we were learning the basics of Wireshark. So far the biggest problem I’ve found with it is that I couldn’t find a version for Linux so I could use it on my laptop (couldn’t get it to work on wine either).

      • @[email protected]
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        38 months ago

        Which distro do you use? Ubuntu, Debian, Arch and Gentoo have packages and I’ve no doubt that most others do too. On Linux you should not have to go to random websites and download stuff and faff around - use the built in distribution packages. If you are not sure what you’ve got try this at a command prompt and read the output:

        $ cat /etc/os-release
        
        

        As a last resort, you can run tcpdump on nearly anything and dump to .pcap, transfer that and then open that in Wireshark. Note that modern Windows has a OpenSSH client and server available so getting files around via scp is a doddle. Windows can even do NFS too and there is of course Samba - but CIFS/SMB can be tricksy.

        • Dizzy Devil Ducky
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          18 months ago

          I swear I have selective male blindness because I found it in the package manager for my distro after doing a quick search command.

  • @genie
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    638 months ago

    I’ll try to keep this to lesser known apps:

    • Catima (saves barcodes for gift cards, gym memberships, etc so you don’t have to worry about the physical card)

    • Cofi (nice timer for active guidance through coffee brewing recipes)

    • 10,000 Sentences (a language practicing app that doesn’t have a mildly threatening owl 😉)

    • OSMAnd+ Mapillary, Overlay Maps, and 3D Features (seriously, the best. I only use Google maps to get around traffic these days since, unfortunately, Magic Earth doesn’t work very well in my area)

    • Obtanium (as a gateway to lesser known software, no shipping to an app store required!)

    • RethinkDNS (an absolutely amazing piece of software that gives you fine-grained control of the domains your apps are talking to. A bit of a battery sync but it’s been a game changer for me. On my GrapheneOS setup I use it in the Google sandbox to reduce the amount of data scraping servers my Google apps can talk to)

    • Stefano Prenna
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      138 months ago

      Cofi seems quite nice! I’ve already installed it as it seems much better than me using the standard Android stopwatch! Thank you for sharing!

    • @MaddestMax
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      108 months ago

      10,000 Sentences is new to me!! I’ll add it to the list of apps that I’ll eventually use to learn a new language. 😏

  • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼
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    8 months ago
    • LibreWolf, a privacy-optimized fork of Firefox
    • Mull, hardened Firefox for Android.
    • EteSync with self-hosted Etebase, an end-to-end encrypted solution for syncing calendars and contacts.
    • Molly, a hardened Signal fork for Android.
    • Accrescent, a secure, alternative app store for Android. Still in an early stage of development though.
    • UnifiedPush, a privacy-friendly notification system.
    • LibRedirect, a browser extension that automatically redirects you to private frontends for privacy invasive websites.
    • movie-web, a web app that let’s you watch any movie/tv show for free. I highly recommend it.
    • Seal, an amazing Android app for downloading videos. YTDLnis is an alternative.
    • Cobalt downloader, a website that let’s you download basically everything imaginable from the internet. All kinds of posts, photos and videos from various social media platforms and many other websites.
    • Linkwarden, a bookmark manager that can be self-hosted. Also check out Omnivore and wallabag.
    • ArchiveBox, a self-hosted app for archiving websites.
    • Tube Archivist, a self-hosted app for archiving YouTube videos/playlists/channels.

    (I love downloading and archiving stuff lol)

    • @[email protected]
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      68 months ago

      Rclone is awesome! It lets you mount cloud storage to directories. It even supports encrypting any backend, so you can use cloud storage privately.

  • @[email protected]
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    8 months ago

    Gadgetbridge lets you connect and get data from supported smart or fitness watch without manufacturers app. Completely local.

  • observantTrapezium
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    268 months ago

    Borg for backup. I’m really surprised it’s not more widely known. It’s an incredible piece of software.

    Also, not really lesser known software, but a lesser known feature of file systems including the ones we use in FOSS operating systems: extended file attributes - useful to add metadata to files without modifying them.

    • Leraje
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      58 months ago

      As an add-on (sort of) to Borg, I was told about Vorta yesterday and installed it to run scheduled, encrypted backups of my local machine to an external drive, but you can also ssh to a remote server if you wish. Works like a dream.

      • RBG
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        28 months ago

        Borg, Vorta, Star Trek is everywhere. Why did they name these for the evil guys? Could have named it “The Sisko”, everyone know he is infallable.

      • @mea_rah
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        58 months ago

        There’s also Rustic. It uses the same repository format as restic. It already has some pretty neat features and since latest release a ton of built-in backends.

    • @[email protected]
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      18 months ago

      I use Kopia because it’s cross platform (don’t know much about Borg so perhaps if is too). Works really well with little interaction.

  • @[email protected]
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    248 months ago

    Paperless has taken me from various stacks of important documents strewn around my apartment, to having all of these things nicely organised and searchable.

  • mFat
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    8 months ago

    Shotcut helped me get rid of the heavy, bloated Premiere Pro.

  • @[email protected]
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    228 months ago
    • RiMusic basically saves me about 6 bucks a month from spotify subscription lol
    • Droid-Ify much better interface to F-Droid
    • Grayjay newpipe but with much better ui, worth nothing is developed by louis rousmann
    • NixOS not necessarily improve my daily life but i’ve been having a really good time trying it recently
      • @[email protected]
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        108 months ago

        Actually you’re kinda right, their own license doesn’t allow commercial redistribution (kinda similar with CC:NC) which make them not open source. I personally have no problems with that though.

      • isthereanyseal
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        08 months ago

        It is open source. But the license is not foss at the moment. They expresed their desire to make something that send revenue to creators

        • chebra
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          48 months ago

          @isthereanydeal therefore it’s not open source. See for something to be called “open source” it needs a bit more than just for the code to be readable. The only people who define open source as source readable are the people who don’t want to create open source software.

          • isthereanyseal
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            08 months ago

            There’s a clear difference between open source and free open source software. It is open source but the licence is not “free”. Not entirely at least

            • chebra
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              -18 months ago

              @isthereanydeal Nope. That distinction only appeared when big companies kinda became afraid of open source software, so they wanted to redefine the term, create some confusion, corrupt it…

                • chebra
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                  08 months ago

                  @heyoni I’m commenting from mastodon, I don’t even see any upvotes. Someone just started downvoting me because they ran out of arguments 🤷‍♂️

          • @[email protected]
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            08 months ago

            Open source is when the source code is available.

            Free software is when the source is available and the license lets you exercise your 4 freedoms.

            • chebra
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              -18 months ago

              @n0x0n You are wrong though: https://opensource.org/osd

              > Introduction
              > Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code.

              Literally the first sentence.

              The definition you are using is being spread by the likes of Meta and Amazon.

                • chebra
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                  -18 months ago

                  @n0x0n Providing an authoritative source which directly contradicts your statement, that does not make any sense to you? I’m sorry then.