Chris Were's recommended apps and websites
A list of useful apps, games and web services. Items listed here are free and open source unless specified otherwise.
- Apps
- Games
- Web apps (open source)
- Web apps (closed source)
- Online resources
- How-tos and fixes
- Mastodon and fediverse tools
Apps
Apps listed in this section are done so with Linux users in mind. Some may be available for other platforms but not all.
- Atom - Code editor: lots of useful features for coding, electron-based, available as a Snap.
- Audacity - Audio editor: looks ugly but has lots of features and isn't too difficult to use.
- Draw.io - A simple drawing and chart making program, available as an AppImage.
- Etcher - Burn IMG/ISO files to CD or USB, available as an AppImage.
- Firefox - My day-to-day browser of choice.
- GIMP - My photo and image editor of choice.
- Inkscape - Design and edit vector graphics (e.g. SVG and PDF files).
- Kdenlive - Video editor: reasonably advanced and full-featured, available as an AppImage.
- KeePassXC - One of the best password managers around. Available as an AppImage and as a Snap.
- Krita - A really full featured photo and image editor, available as an AppImage.
- LibreOffice - My office utils of choice, available as a Snap, Flatpak or AppImage.
- OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) - Screen recorder and livestreaming software.
- OpenShot - Video editor: fine for basic video editing, available as an AppImage.
- Peek - A simple app for recording small segments of your screen, available as an AppImage.
- SimpleScreenRecorder - Screen recorder: not as full-featured as OBS but a useful recorder nevertheless.
- RSS Guard - Nice, simple RSS reader available as an AppImage.
- Waterfox - A respin of FireFox with some ethical, privacy and technical tweaks.
Games
- Chromium BSU - A fast paced, arcade-style, top-scrolling space shooter.
- Freedoom - A free and open source FPS game based on the Doom engine.
- Minetest - A free, open source voxel game engine and game, fun to build stuff in. Available as a Snap.
- OpenArena - A community-produced deathmatch FPS based on GPL idTech3 technology.
- OpenMW - An open source engine for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Original game files required.
- OpenTTD - Transport Tycoon Deluxe as imagined by FOSS.
- Red Eclipse - A fun Arena shooter, available as an AppImage.
- Widelands - A Settlers-esq strategy open source strategy game.
- Xonotic - Free and fast arena shooter.
Web apps (open source)
- dpaste - A free and open source alternative to Pastebin that works without JavaScript.
- Draw.io - Same as the app version but available online.
- Hastebin - A free and open source alternative to Pastebin.
- HTMLhouse - A quick and easy webpage creation tool for people who like to code in HTML.
- Framapic - A free and open source image hosting service.
- Jitsi Meet - Video chat and conferencing.
- MultiTwitch - View multiple Twitch streams side-by-side, great for watching multiplayer streams.
- Neocities - Build simple websites with HTML (like this one).
- OpenStreetMap - FOSS's answer to Google Maps.
- Piskel - A pixel art image editor.
- PrivateBin - An open source Pastebin alternative with privacy enhancements.
- Reep.io - Peer-to-peer file tranfer through your browser, uses BitTorrent technology.
- SearX - Highly customisable, privacy respecting search engine front-end.
- Twitch stream RSS generator - Generates a RSS feed for your Twitch channel.
- Wordpress.com / Wordpress.org - One of the world most popular website building tools.
Web apps (closed source)
- Blogtrottr - Delivers updates from RSS feeds to your email inbox.
- MailForSpam - Receive email at a temporary address. Use it when signing up to certain websites to avoid spam.
- Temp Mail - Receive email at a temporary address. Use it when signing up to certain websites to avoid spam.
- TweetDelete.net - Lets you automatically delete Twitter posts that are older than a specified age.
Online resources
- Ambient Mixer - Generate background audio to create your perfect environment using creative commons samples.
- DaFont - Large collection of fonts, searchable by licence.
- Font Squirrel - Another large collection of fonts, searchable by licence.
- FreePD - A large library of public domain music.
- Incompetech - A large library of creative commons music.
- Pixabay - A large library of free images.
- PLiXS - Another large library of public domain images.
How-tos and fixes
Mastodon and fediverse tools