What open source programs do you recommend for Windows? (Windows exclusive or not)

I am and all my life have been a Linux user, I have nothing against Windows or MacOS, I just like Linux, and lately I have been experimenting with Windows in a virtual machine and I don’t really know much open source software there apart from the one that is cross-platform like Firefox or Joplin.

At the moment I know:

Flow Launcher: It’s a typical rofi style launcher, although I’m not a TWM user I like to just press super and type the first letters of the program I’m looking for to open it.

Lively Wallpaper: A program to have animated wallpapers, in the style of Wallpaper Engine.

Edit: I want to clarify that I read all the comments, I only respond to some because many times I have nothing to contribute to many of them because I don’t know what to comment. Thanks to all of you for providing your lists of programs, I will be sure to try as many as I can because they are great, at least I know what to install if I use Windows one day!

GullibleOyster,

Shotcut is a great easy to learn video editor I have used a lot.

GreenMario,
  1. GIMP (Image editor)
  2. putty (Secure shell/terminal emulator)
  3. WinSCP (Secure FTP client)
  4. QBittorrent (guess.)
  5. 7zip (All in one compressed archive manager)
  6. Firefox
  7. Notepad++ (text editor with syntax highlights)
  8. Handbrake (Video transcoder)
  9. VLC (all in one video player)

These are my top must have installed. There are others but they’re situational

Let’s not forget the various console emulators that are open source as well. All the good ones are.

hogofwar,

I use Kitty instead of Putty recently, though I don’t know if the difference is worth it.

jjakc,
@jjakc@lemthony.com avatar

I just use Powershell, much easier imo

grandel,

That’s a good list!

I use the same, except I use LibreWolf (privacy focused fork of FF) and VS Code instead of Firefox and Notepad++

cityboundforest,
@cityboundforest@beehaw.org avatar

Vs code

I would actually recommend VSCodium; it’s the same product but without the Microsoft telemetry.

HaggierRapscallier,

Does it lose any MS connected features? Other than surveillance.

GreenMario,

Yeah VS Code definitely if ya doing programming. I’m just editing config/ini files once in a while so N++ is just right for me.

otter,
@otter@lemmy.ca avatar

Some of these are cross platform but:

7zip

Autohotkey

Bitwarden

Calibre

Draw.io

Handbrake

Speedcrunch

WinHTTrack

WinSCP

cityboundforest,
@cityboundforest@beehaw.org avatar

Seconding AHK, Bitwarden, and Calibre

Virual,

I prefer nanazip to 7zip because it’s just forked 7zip that’s been updated for modern windows. They’re working on a dark mode too.

otter,
@otter@lemmy.ca avatar

Good to know!

AWittyUsername,

PowerToys

TheMadnessKing,

My list:

  • winget
  • CopyQ
  • InageGlass
  • ShareX
  • BitWarden
vim_b,

PowerToys: productivity utilities like window pinning, window management, accented character typing assistant, color picker, text extractor, etc.

thehellrocc,

Seconding this. It has every feature you know Windows needs but it still doesn’t have (likely because of the need for testing or being aimed at power users).

AnonStoleMyPants,

You forgot the best thing. Window management, aka Fanzy Zones. You can set areas to your monitor and snap windows to those instead of just left / right side of monitor. Completely customizable.

ChiefSinner,

On most of my fresh installs, i usually install Tinywall, 7zip, and then a different browser like Firefox and chromium based browsers (like mull/brave)

ChiefSinner,

tinywall.pados.hu

www.7-zip.org

mullvad.net/en/download/browser/windows

brave.com

0x00cl,

I prefer simplewall over tinywall. I can’t remember what I didn’t like about tinywall though.

cawifre,

I’m scratching my head trying to figure out why the built-in firewall is undesirable. It isn’t that I can’t speculate on some possible reasons, I just didn’t realize there were so many 3rd party alternatives.

MayonnaiseArch,
@MayonnaiseArch@beehaw.org avatar

I think they both use the built in firewall, they just have a sane interface over it. And notifications

NeryK,
@NeryK@sh.itjust.works avatar

Here are some that I found very useful over the years.

zeemyst,

WinMerge, the best diffing tool out there.

learnbyexample, (edited )
@learnbyexample@programming.dev avatar

Check out github.com/auctors/free-lunch (list of free Windows software)

See also www.nirsoft.net (freeware, not open source)

lunicoDee,

See also www.nirsoft.net (freeware, not open source)

I’d say free(as in beer)ware

Nioxic,

Playnite for launching games

It will open up anything. Battlenet games, steam games, emulated games… you name it. Supports themes too!

www.playnite.link

mo_ztt,
@mo_ztt@lemmy.world avatar

Disclaimer, haven’t used Windows in years, but back in the day when I did, I swore by cygwin to give me a sane environment to interact in. That and Firefox + GIMP + Libreoffice usually gave me a pretty happy day to day interaction.

520,

Nowadays I would swap out cygwin for WSL; the latter gives you a full Linux environment.

klangcola,

Git Bash also works quite well without WSL (but I think it just uses Cygwin under the hood)

520,

Bash also has a native Windows port these days, but it is far from a full posix environment.

Redo11,

Alternative to lively, screen play

murtaza64,

I’ve been enjoying wezterm as a terminal emulator replacement for windows terminal. It offers nerdy fine grained customizability and an emoji/nerd font character picker. For most purposes WT seems to be fine though.

hackris,

Adding to all the awesome software already mentioned here, WinCompose! You can have a compose key, for typing accented characters wothout changin your keyboard layout, for example.

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