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!

thejevans,

BloatyNosy

Universal Debloater and PC Manager for the most up-to-date version of the Redmond OS (Windows 11)

github.com/builtbybel/BloatyNosy

sleek

an open-source (FOSS) todo manager based on the todo.txt syntax

github.com/ransome1/sleek

WinDirStat

a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for various versions of Microsoft Windows

github.com/windirstat/windirstat

MacType

Better font rendering for Windows

github.com/snowie2000/mactype

VelociCatTurd,

In my experience, windirstat is inferior to other similar software. It’s mostly fine but it can be very, very slow to get you results. Though honestly I don’t know if the alternatives like space sniffer or Wiztree are open source.

thejevans,

They’re both closed source.

Klaymore,
@Klaymore@sh.itjust.works avatar

FileLight from KDE also works on Windows

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

I dont get mactype there simply is no explanation what it does?

thejevans,

Yeah, the documentation is very sparse. I think it was originally all in Simplified Chinese, but some things have been translated to English. Basically it gives you tools to fix subpixel font rendering issues on windows. Using a rotated monitor? An OLED monitor? A TV? All of these are examples of screens that don’t have standard subpixel layouts, so fonts tend to have weird color fringing as a result. MacType allows for a lot of tweaks to how fonts are rendered, but I tend to just switch to grayscale rendering, which works well.

This reddit thread walks through the process with some specific configs and they have pictures to show how it changes things.

reddit.com/…/better_text_rendering_for_oled_displ…

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

WizTree may not be FOSS (only free software) but its MFT referencing feature speeds up disk scans by 20-40x, which is far too valuable.

aRubes,
@aRubes@sloth.run avatar

@Xirup

🪟Windows only:
QuickLook
clavier-plus
Cryptsync
Notepad3
shareX
PhotoDemon
eartrumpet
ImageGlass
MSEdge Redirect

🪟+​:tux:​ Also on Linux:
Copyq
SMPlayer
Strawberry

#WinFOSS

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

For Edge it helps using BCU and then also removing the exe using a good OS like Linux and pluggin in the drive.

thecam,
@thecam@lemmy.world avatar

Privatezilla: Harden your Windows privacy and security

AccurstDemon,

FreeFileSync a FOSS backup and folder synchronizer, a must have.

FreeFileSync is a folder comparison and synchronization software that creates and manages backup copies of all your important files. Instead of copying every file every time, FreeFileSync determines the differences between a source and a target folder and transfers only the minimum amount of data needed. FreeFileSync is Open Source software, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

nix,
@nix@merv.news avatar

Is this different than syncthing in an important ways?

AccurstDemon, (edited )

Yes, Syncthing needs 2 diferents devices to sync, FreeFileSync syncronize whatever you want within 1 device, for example between 2 Disks or from a network disk to your computer disk.

Syncthing works great if there are 2 devices turned on and connected to a LAN or Internet, and FreeFileSync is totally disconected from the internet and only needs 1 device on (the one that execute it)

I use both, Syncthing to autosync all my devices and FreeFileSync to backup all those files to various disconected hard drives

nix,
@nix@merv.news avatar

Oh nice thats really useful ill try it thanks

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.

d3Xt3r,

Xoblite: Blackbox/Fluxbox-style WM/shell for Windows.

Open Shell: Brings back the classic start menu and other classic Explorer.exe features

Notepad2e: A lightweight and portable alternative to Notepad++

AutoHotkey: Probably the best GUI automation tool out there, this is the tool that I miss the most in the Linux world.

peregus,

Notepad2e: A lightweight and portable alternative to Notepad++ Nice! Why do you prefer it at Notepad++?

d3Xt3r,

Because it’s lightweight and portable. :)

Notepad2e is just a small exe file which doesn’t require installation. This allows me to run it on my work PC or random work VMs without filling out any paperwork. And on my personal machines, I can replace the OG Notepad with this by renaming notepad.exe in the Windows folder, so when I press Win+R -> and type “notepad”, it fires up Notepad2e. It launches just as quickly as the original Notepad, and doesn’t use much RAM either, and provides most of the features that I’d commonly use in Notepad++, such as text transformations, syntax highlighting, large file support and live monitoring (which makes is handy for viewing logs). With this, I don’t really have a need for Notepad++ - if I want more features, say I’m working on a proper coding project or something, I’d use a proper IDE like VSCode, but otherwise, Notepad2e satisfies most of my text editing needs.

peregus,

I like your point of view! Thanks!

klangcola,

There’s also Kate, the KDE Advanced Text Editor. It’s available from the Windows store, and works amazingly well on Windows, fast snappy and (almost?) just as featurefull as on Linux. I use it side by side with Notepad++

agrammatic,

Greenshot (GPLv3) is a powerful screenshot tool with its own basic image editor.

uninvitedguest,
@uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca avatar

I used greenshot for a time but in the end ShareX won out for me.

charliegrahamm,

Pretty sure Greenshot is now abandonware too.

Matth78,

I don’t think it is. You need to go on their GitHub to see that there is some development and to get last releases from march : https://github.com/greenshot/greenshot/releases

Yet I prefer ShareX

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

Qclip

Bulk crap uninstaller

Vlc

Irfanview (is it proprietary?)

Gimp, Krita, Inkscape, KDEnLive, Blender, OBS

Nonfree: XNViewMP, Startisback++,

db0,
@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Irfanview is proprietary yes

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

Damn, it blew my mind that both Irfanview and XNView are proprietary, so there seems to be no actually maintained FOSS image viewer and light editor especially for Linux. Gwenview is a mediocre alternative but really smooth, maybe it should get all the features and replace these programs.

Bahais_Mexicali,
@Bahais_Mexicali@mastodon.social avatar

@Pantherina @db0 i was going to say https://www.darktable.org/about/ but i think this thread is about Windoze programs. Upppsss, sorry.

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

Darktable doesnt run on Winbloats? Also its a raw editing tool right?

Bahais_Mexicali,
@Bahais_Mexicali@mastodon.social avatar

@Pantherina

This might be of more help...

https://www.darktable.org/about/features/

or

https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/4.0/en/darktable_user_manual.pdf

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

Nice links, thanks! But Darktable is for raw. Maybe thats some crazy lossless rabbithole I have to go in, but I was talking about plain old JPEG editing, conversion, color adaption, quick cutting etc.

Tried Darktable and that other one and both were very unintuitive.

Plus, XNView also works as an Image viewer. XNConvert is also great for batch processing.

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

+1 for XNViewMP, the GOAT program. It is the only proper program that can batch convert WEBPs with their timestamps and metadata preserved, among hundreds of other functions it can do.

INHALE_VEGETABLES,

Can anyone recommend me something that falls somewhere between Paint and GIMP?

<3

DearAll,
@DearAll@beehaw.org avatar

Krita!

INHALE_VEGETABLES,

Downloaded! Thanks heaps I’ll try it out

s20,

On Windows, Paint(dot)net. On Linux, Pinta!

eighthourlunch,
@eighthourlunch@kbin.social avatar

Krita is amazing.

andrew1412,
@andrew1412@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

You can use photopea as a webapp using ublock

8orange8,

PhotoDemon is close to what you’re asking for. It has the basic functionality the average user needs yet is still lightweight and fast to start.

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!

sonalder,

This isn’t a FOSS apps list but a Free (as free beer) software list for Windows with a bunch of cool FOSS apps alternativeto.net/list/29653/my-windows-setup/

Crozekiel,

Wild, you are like from the alternate universe where Linux is dominant and nerds play around in windows. Are things better where you are from? :P

transientpunk,
@transientpunk@sh.itjust.works avatar

Being around the Steam Deck forums when it initially launched felt otherworldly. A super popular device launched with Linux as a first class citizen, and Windows users were desperate for drivers that improved unstable usability. It was surreal.

zikk_transport2,

Lmao I remember. I’ve been there too! 🔥

Xirup,
@Xirup@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Of course! In this universe everybody uses linux phones and they are actually usable (and repairable)!

csm10495,
@csm10495@sh.itjust.works avatar

Well Android is Linux based… so maybe this is a similar universe.

anguo,

AltSnap github.com/RamonUnch/AltSnap

Xirup,
@Xirup@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Oof, just actually installed AltDrag, I can’t live without being able to grab my windows with the super key from anywhere (although in this case the alt).

Thanks for letting me know that there is a fork still maintained.

anguo,

You can also change it to use the super key, (which I did too).

meiko60,
@meiko60@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

winget

SteveDinn,
@SteveDinn@lemmy.ca avatar

puTTY, my favourite terminal program for windows.

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