What is Digg?110 Comments
- chrono13, on 10/12/2007, -2/+48"Why would anyone use VLC over Media Player Classic?"
VLC's interface is not as good as MPC's in my opinion, however VLC handles more formats and has many features that MPC does not.
Why would anyone use just one, when they can have both? - gharding, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27And people who suggest GIMP over Photoshop don't do any serious design work. And Gaim is neat, but man, GTK sucks on Windows.
- growler1, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29If you dig those apps and have some spare cash this Christmas, why not visit the home page and donate to the people who spend their time and expertise on your favorites?
I'm way too dumb to contribute code to an open source project, but I'll be throwing some dollars to mozilla(FF and TBird) and the authors of Abiword. - clawlor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24++ digg
true hacker spirit, even from a non hacker. Contribute to the community, and everyone benefits.
The rest of you can digg me down, I don't mind. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+24Actually, if you go to their download link and click the forum post for the beta version, you would find the windows compatible exe.
noob - johnthedebs, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16"TrueCrypt does not support Full Disk Encryption"
What exactly do you mean? It can encrypt every last bit on a drive.
"Antivirus is a waste of CPU cycles and memory"
If you're gonna argue against ClamWin, at least understand how it works. It doesn't run in the background actively monitoring (in fact, it can't). And antivirus software can be very useful both for those who use computers and don't know how to avoid viruses, as well as those people that need to help the others. I think that makes up a pretty big majority. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18What the hell is a live?
- haxx4, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16"I actually hate GAIM with a passion. It is slow, buggy, and eats up RAM. It doesn't support the cool stuff from any of the networks it emulates."
While there are a lot of protocol-specific features that GAIM does not implement, I would argue that it is much faster and cleaner than most other IM clients. - tagawa, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13It depends on the user - for me, GIMP is better.
It may lose in a battle of features but for my admittedly non-professional needs it does everything Photoshop used to do for me. On top of that, it's open-source which I value highly, can run from USB as a portable app and I can install it on several PCs without worrying about licenses.
Again, this is just based on my personal situation and I understand it may be different for others. Whichever, you can't say one is better than the other but you can say it's good to have the choice. - johnthedebs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12"10. Gnucleus
Replaces LimeWire, BearShare, etc.
Sure, LimeWire and BearShare are free, but why not just get the same basic software without all of the spyware?"
Uhhh... LimeWire is open source too. - peterpatch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Awesome list. I didn't even know half of that stuff existed! I actually spent money on some software that keynotes does for me better and it's free. Cool!
- Simon80, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9TC:E is not open source, it says so right in their FAQ..
- snlildude87, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13"9. GIMPShop
http://www.gimpshop.net/
Replaces Adobe Photoshop"
Tell me you're joking. - evilpig, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Frostwire is a freeware version of Limewire. http://www.frostwire.com
- matthall28, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10uhh why is Handbrake on that list? They haven't released it for windows yet, to the best of my knowledge
- TrancePhreak, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13I actually hate GAIM with a passion. It is slow, buggy, and eats up RAM. It doesn't support the cool stuff from any of the networks it emulates.
Audacity is a life saver. No way I'm spending money on a program I use once a year to edit some random sound file for something. - krark, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8The Open CD kind of does this already, but I think this list is more well-rounded.
The Open CD Project: http://www.theopencd.org/ - Roger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7How good is ClamWin compared with AVG?
EDIT:
Never mind: "Please note that ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an on-access real-time scanner. You need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware." - noksagt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8"Why would anyone use VLC over Media Player Classic?"
VLC can also stream media to other machines running VLC:
www.engadget.com/2005/11/29/how-to-stream-almost-anything-using-vlc/ - PueSi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Same here, tried Azureus or whatever and hated it. uTorrent is kind of well...perfect.
- fjc8, on 10/12/2007, -9/+14I don't let ideology get in the way of my computing experience.
@johnthedebs
Full-disk encryption including the operating system, with pre-boot authentication, as in that available from commercial products like DriveCrypt Plus Pack or PGP Whole Disk. The entire operating system is encrypted automatically.
And antivirus is still a waste of CPU cycles; I simply do not download
@greatblackowl
"Though I do agree with some of your comments, I'll have to disagree with the "podcasts are not essential" one. While that is true, Audacity is much more powerful than being limited to podcasts."
I was not referring to Audacity when I said that podcasts are not essential. Audacity is a useful tool. Podcasts are definitely not essential.
@TrancePhreak
I do not find Gaim to be slow compared to the official clients for the protocols (Yahoo, AIM, MSN). At 28MB memory usage isn't horrible. AIM 5.5 had a window handle leak with DeadAIM (it'd leak 2 handles every time you switched windows/tabs). I don't miss most of the "cool" stuff, although Yahoo games were entertaining (for a few weeks).
@gharding
I agree that Gtk sucks on Windows, but it works well enough. I prefer the Gtk faux-Windows look to a themable client like Trillian.
Software I do use:
1. Opera
Faster than Firefox, no need to download extensions. Has very good built-in RSS support that I prefer to Firefox's.
2. Outlook
I've got more Outlook licenses than Outlook installations, and it works great. It syncs with all my devices without any extra time spent setting anything up or downloading any software other than the device/OS manufacturer's software. It's got all the features I need.
3. MS Office
I love the UI of Office 2007.
4. Gaim
I haven't found a version that's really stable for my configuration, but it's clean and simple.
5. uTorrent
Much, much faster than any Python BitTorrent client.
6. Fireworks
I find it much easier to do the simple graphics tasks that I need to do, and it supports Photoshop plugins.
7. Any DirectShow-compatible player -- I use Zoom Player and Windows Media Center
VLC Media Player does not use DirectShow, so you miss out on the pluggable codecs available with a player -- such as CoreAVC and ffdshow.
8. iTunes
iTunes works. It syncs with my iPod, which I have mainly because it integrates with my car. If I wanted to listen to podcasts, it has a functioning podcast client.
9. Pen and paper
This old-fasioned technology is great for taking notes. The batteries never run out and there are no distractions in sight.
10. FileZilla
I tried to find a more featured FTP client that wasn't buggy and wasn't designed for warez kiddies; I failed.
11. mIRC
It works. I've used it for years. It's got an easy scripting language and tons of scripts.
12. DriveCrypt Plus Pack
Full-disk encryption on my laptop, starting at boot.
13. Notepad++
As good as commercial text editors I've looked at.
14. ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005 (via Visual Studio 2005)
I can't stand PHP and MySQL. - Roger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@chrono13:
ffdshow+MPC plays everything in my experience. Plus ffdshow has lots of useful video filters. - CRasH180, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6This is a very good list of open source applications. I knew about most of them already. However, I like that fact that this site describes the application in detail of why it is a replacement for a retail software.
Very good post! - pixelmixer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7When it comes to torrent software I dont believe the the "Its Free" argument matters all that much.. I have yet to come across a single Torrent App that is not free.
- noksagt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I regularly donate money to open source projects. Here is a list of donation links:
http://arc.nucapt.northwestern.edu/F/OSS - geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Putty is open source - MIT license
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/licence.html - PueSi, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8Avast! is a much better free solution.
- stalefries, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Despite what you think, self-promotion probably won't get you very far in the digg community.
Plus, you included Adobe Reader on your list, which, for one, is not FOSS in any way, and two, is widely heralded as sucking.
In fact, many of those apps (if not all, I haven't heard of/checked out all of them yet) are not FOSS. Maybe should learn what Free Open Source Software means first. - etrek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Oh, yeah I would also add 7-zip to the mix..
- pixelmixer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6try using uTorrent... i've used all of those you suggest and they dont seem to even compare to uTorrent.
Also... bittorrent IS uTorrent... it IS Azureus... and it IS Xtorrent... dont say bittorrent sucks because whenever your use a torrent program you are using bittorrent.... maybe just not the actual software.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent - reddevil3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I had never heard of PDFCreator before. It's awesome!
- CeeJayDK, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Reworking the GUI nightmare that is GIMP into something simpler and easier to use was a great idea if you ask me.
Now Photoshop may be better , but GIMPshop is free and if you don't need all the features Photoshop provides then it's worth checking out.
And while Media Player Classic + FFDshow + Haali Media Splitter may be the best way to view video on your PC , VLC has its advantages.
VLC f.x. can view anything without messing with codecs (because it has it's codecs builtin) so if you suspect some of your codecs to be messes up , it's great for verifying that. Also if a video is damaged or incomplete (you might still be downloading it) most players including MPC can't view it , while VLC is extremely resilient to error and will play the file even if it's badly damaged.
So if nothing else works , VLC will still play it.
So keep using MPC for your normal viewing but keep VLC handy for those troublesome videos or for previewing video as you download them. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yes, definitely 7-zip.
What about Paint.NET? For users who don't need that many advanced features, Paint.NET is one of the best OS softwares that I have installed.
Notepad2 is simple and good to use. I like it much better than Notepad++. - Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2now you just need a list of opensource games for windows
weve seen enough open source windows lists of awesomness - drilldown, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Fantastic Christmas list!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+14The person who made this list isn't the smartest person out there.... Handbrake is for MAC, not Windows.
- geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Interesting, I just tried PDFCreator and it works just like the nag/adware product "PDF995".. Has the same minor bugs, it's very similar. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they ripped off the PDCreator code.
- xenonlight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@Roger
ffdshow+ Haali Mediasplitter + zplayer will do it all and pretty cleanly, but ffdshow can be coupled with pretty much any player that is willing to hand off the decoding - Tetraca, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5GIMP isn't that good, and GIMPshop seems to just be GIMP with a grey window under it(hardly an improvement). Although Pixel isn't open source, it beats out the GIMP IMHO, and it's not that expensive when you set it up to Photoshop or Fireworks.
- Archon810, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2actually, Microsoft OneNote (the one that comes with the Office) is way better although not free.
- pixelmixer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5why does that suggest "Hacker spirit"?... The hacker spirit is much different from the "Open Source spirit".... I agree that the effort is most definitely promoting the "Open Source spirit", therefore I wont digg you down.
- OSS programmer - joshwalderbach, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Handbrake: "A Windows port is being worked on." Not quite ready to make it to a "30 Essential" list.
- Naga10, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@pixelmaker: I'm saying the actual program bittorrent sucks. As a protocol for file transfer, torrents are better than EVERYTHING.
Also, if you actually read what I said, I said I use Xtorrent. I can't use uTorrent, since I'm on OS X, can I? - KillerJ59J, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2stephenwq: They even say that the Windows version doesn't have CSS and they also said they NEVER plan to add it. Learn to read and use AnyDVD, DVD Shrink or DVD Decrypter.
- smoreorless, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Buy Cheap Computer Software - http://astore.amazon.com/buycheapcomputersoftware-20
- driya2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i downloaded gorilla.bas. it's awesome!
- atawmic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=234#234
- Xilon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"10. Gnucleus
http://www.gnucleus.com/Gnucleus/
Replaces LimeWire, BearShare, etc."
Wouldn't Shareaza be better? www.shareaza.com, not really open source but neither is TC: E
I didn't know Handbrake was multiplatform... good to see.
25. Notepad2
A great text editor, nice, slim, fast! But for something more powerful Notepad++ has to be the way to go on Windows. - pyrates, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Stuff I don't like on that list:
GimpShop - I remember this. The people who made gimp got pissed off at the author because they made it look like adobe photoshop. I don't see why they would. It would make it more popular then for people who were use to photoshop's interface. But photoshop has far more features then gimpshop has. It's more for amateurs then serious photoshop users.
VLC - media player classic plus direct show codecs = teh win
Audacity - nice program but needs a way better interface then it currently has, plus it crashes quite a bit for me. Adobe's equivalent is great.
X-Chat 2: oh so ur trying to say its better then mirc? mirc has a great user interface, is very stable, and is very scriptable. I see nothing like this on any other platform out there.
GnuCash - I don't really get how u can say it has a great user interface. I think it is terrible. And so do many other people. Don't try to tell me it's just me.
You know for me, here is how I measure open source software. If I could only buy it and not get it for free, would I? Firefox, thunderbird, and open source. Juice sure. But not alot of others. I wish open source people would stop giving the excuse "but it's open source!". It's getting tiring and doesn't help your cause. -
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