r/freesoftware • u/Fact_or_Bollocks • 9h ago
Discussion Looking for an Office 365 clone type
I use Only Office ATM, but it's very CPU intensive, anything else?
r/freesoftware • u/happyxpenguin • Jul 02 '26
Morning all,
Due to language which caused confusion amongst reporters, posters and commenters. I've revised Rule 7 to be a bit more specific in what is and isn't allowed. Essentially what it boils down to is this:
Did AI explain a code snippet to you? Allowed.
Did AI write code for you? Not allowed.
This subreddit does NOT allow software created by Generative AI and Vibe-coded software. Why? Please read our wiki page (https://www.reddit.com/r/freesoftware/wiki/generative-ai)
Allowed:
- Write documentation
- Debug software (Analysis/Explanation Only)
- Analyze codebase
Not Allowed:
- AI Assistance beyond what is mentioned above
- All or part of the application being generated by AI
r/freesoftware • u/happyxpenguin • Jun 16 '26
Effective immediately, new software submissions will receive a reply from AutoMod asking for the following information:
Post authors who fail to respond to the comments attached to their posts will have their posts removed.
This should help alleviate some mod work and streamline things a bit instead of needing to manually go into each repository and verify license and AI use and then manually approving/removing.
Questions? Drop 'em in the comments.
r/freesoftware • u/Fact_or_Bollocks • 9h ago
I use Only Office ATM, but it's very CPU intensive, anything else?
r/freesoftware • u/TheGameBoy95 • 2d ago
Hello everyone!
I'm the developer of Street Medics, an independent open-source project I'm building in my spare time with a simple goal: help people who need medical assistance connect with nearby volunteer medics, particularly during protests and demonstrations.
With upcoming demonstrations and public gatherings, I'm looking for people willing to test the app, report bugs, and help me make it genuinely useful and reliable in real-world situations.
I'm developing this project on my own, without funding or a marketing budget. To be transparent, what I need most right now is testers, honest feedback, and people who believe that free, privacy-conscious tools can make a difference.
The app currently offers:
Street Medics is free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license. Both the client and server code are publicly available, so anyone can inspect how the project works instead of simply taking my word for it.
🌐 Official website: https://street-medics.xpertise.quest
I understand that installing an app related to protests and demonstrations can raise legitimate privacy concerns. That's one of the reasons I've deliberately avoided the usual commercial tracking and data collection practices.
Street Medics does not require a user account or personal profile to send an SOS. The app contains no advertising SDKs or third-party analytics tools designed to track users. There are no ads, commercial profiling, or data sales.
To be precise, this doesn't mean that no data is transmitted. Here's how it works:
The infrastructure runs on a server I manage myself. The goal is to process only the information necessary to coordinate assistance, without turning users into commercially exploitable profiles.
The privacy policy and source code repositories are accessible through the website, so you can review the project and make up your own mind.
The app is currently distributed through Google Play closed testing. Google requires me to manually authorize each tester's Google account before they can install it.
Here's how to join:
1. Visit https://street-medics.xpertise.quest.
2. Click the beta testing registration button and enter the Gmail address associated with your Google Play account.
3. I'll review your registration and manually add your email address to the authorized testers list.
4. I'll send you the official installation link by email once your account has been approved.
5. Open the link on your Android device to access the app through Google Play.
Your email address is required for beta access. It will only be used to manage access to the test and send you the installation link, not for advertising or newsletters.
Since approvals are handled manually, there may be a delay before you receive the link. Thanks for your patience!
I don't have the financial resources to promote Street Medics on a large scale. But an emergency response tool is only useful if it's sufficiently tested, known, and reliable when someone actually needs help.
Every bit of feedback matters
r/freesoftware • u/sanxchep • 4d ago
Anyone else still miss Google's Picasa photo viewer?
I did, so I built Licasa, an open-source image viewer and editor for Linux inspired by that experience. I wanted something focused on the everyday stuff: open a photo, look at it properly, make a quick edit, and carry on.
What it does today:
It's free and open source under the BSD 2-Clause license. Current builds are for 64-bit Intel/AMD Linux, with Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 44 and Arch packages, plus AppImage and Snap options.
Source: https://github.com/sanxchep/licasa
Downloads: https://github.com/sanxchep/licasa/releases
I'd love feedback from people who miss Picasa too, or just want a straightforward Linux photo viewer. What part of that viewing experience do you miss most? And if you try Licasa, I'd be interested in how it handles the photos and formats you actually use. Bug reports and contributions are welcome.
r/freesoftware • u/Francesco-Shin • 6d ago
Anyone can open a PR. That used to be open source’s superpower. Now it’s becoming its biggest headache.
Low-quality AI-generated PRs are flooding projects, and volunteer maintainers are paying the price.
Here are a few practical ways to keep AI slop under control.
r/freesoftware • u/f_r_d • 6d ago
The champions of the new KDE Goals for the 2026-2028 cycle will be answering your questions live!
KDE for Enterprise and Deployments: Ask David Edmundson, Kevin Ottens, Neal Gompa, and Kai Uwe Broulik about how they plan to make KDE a viable choice for businesses and public institutions.
Better documentation: Check in with Nate Graham, Thiago Masato Costa Sueto, and Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss about improving KDE's documentation.
Next Generation Styling for KDE: Find out how Arjen Hiemstra, Akseli Lahtinen, and Andy Betts are working to implement a unified styling system.
Leave your questions in the comments or in the KDE Forum post!
The champions will answer them live on on Youtube and Peertube on October 29 at at 17:00 UTC.
r/freesoftware • u/k1k1kik • 6d ago
in short: i can't find a safe link to download a very old drawing program. it's called "OpenCanvas 1.1"
please note that i am specifically looking for version 1.1. let me describe it in more detail:
as far as i know, this program was popular in fairly niche circles 15–20 years ago, since it was the last free version of OpenCanvas. it's pretty easy to use, and i guess it had some kind of multiplayer feature (?) which doesn't really interest me
absolutely all sources that provide a download link are flagged on VirusTotal
i checked wistinga - the first two links don't work, and the last one, labeled “original,” is unsafe
i checked flat2d - both links, the English version and the French version, simply don't work
as far as i remember, the other websites cite these two sources specifically, so the problem remains the same
yesterday i went through almost the entire blog of my favorite Korean artist, who has definitely been using this program for about 9 or 10 years. and when i found a link to her personal archive of brushes and the program itself, i thought a miracle had happened, but unfortunately, VirusTotal found as many as 20 malware warnings here, which, I think, was a record D:
deviantart - that site was my last hope, but even there it was out of date
anyway, my very last hope now is to find people with their own personal archives who may have used, or are still using this program and can safely share it with me. i swear, if this program were paid, I would buy it, but the thing is, it’s actually free, though it hasn’t been supported by the developers for a long time, and all the archives seem to be infected
please let me know if i'm posting in the right place, and if not, please tell me where i can take my problem. i'd really appreciate any feedback, whether it's your memories or knowledge of the program, or, as i'm really hoping, a working and secure download link or file.
i also apologize for my poor English, it's not my first language.
r/freesoftware • u/mlzog • 7d ago
I’ve been following the discussions around ArtCraft lately, and I feel like a lot of people are completely missing the bigger picture here: people are massively underestimating how disruptive the ArtCraft experiment is for the free software world.
Even if Adobe eventually manages to weaponize their legal team and legally block the project, the open-source genie is already out of the bottle. The code that has been written will remain publicly available for everyone to fork, build upon, or integrate, regardless of whether the official ArtCraft project survives or dies.
Let’s look at the worst-case scenario:
"Illegal" UI elements? Fine. If a court decides the layout or graphics are too similar to Adobe's proprietary interface, the free software community will simply change the skin. The core engine, the underlying tools, and most importantly, the native file compatibility (like .psd or .ai) will still remain intact.
Copyrighted code issues? If a judge strikes down a specific portion of the source code, it can always be rewritten from scratch in a way that is fully clean-room compliant and legally acceptable.
The real race right now is time. We just have to hope that the project reaches near-functional parity with Adobe's software before any major legal roadblocks hit. If ArtCraft manages to get close enough to the original suite before the lawyers step in, there won't be a judge in the world capable of stopping the momentum of the community.
In my humble opinion, whoever launched this initiative deserves a massive thank you from all of us. I don't care if people want to dismiss it as "AI-slop" or just an automated experiment; the long-term impact this could have on breaking corporate monopolies is real, and it's exactly what the free software ecosystem needed.
What do you guys think? Is ArtCraft a game-changer, or am I being too optimistic?
r/freesoftware • u/Gabi0123 • 10d ago
I follow Huberman's Foundational Fitness week: three lifting days, three cardio days (long, medium, brief) and one rest day. I wanted apps that did exactly what I needed and nothing else, so I built two and released both under GPL-3.0.
PlateClimb -- lifting tracker
Source: https://github.com/likwiid/plateclimb
BaseMile -- heart rate running app
Source: https://github.com/likwiid/basemile
Both are React Native / Expo, run entirely on-device, and collect zero data. Built them because every app I tried either paywalled the features I actually needed or required creating an account to log a single workout.
Happy to answer questions about the stack or the licence choice (went with GPL over MIT so forks stay open).
r/freesoftware • u/Shoddy_Feed_4248 • 10d ago
Hey everyone!
I built StatusDrop (WAstatus) because WhatsApp aggressively compresses Status videos, often making even high-quality uploads look blurry.
StatusDrop processes videos with FFmpeg, optimizes them for WhatsApp Status, splits longer videos, and delivers the finished clips through WhatsApp.
What's new:
- Android app: Built with Flutter/Kotlin. Video compression happens locally on your phone.
- Web version: Cloud-based FFmpeg processing.
- Video quality: 1080p (29-second clips) or 720p (59-second clips).
- No account required: Uses a temporary activation code for WhatsApp delivery.
Tech stack: Flutter, Kotlin, Node.js, Express, FFmpeg, Cloudflare R2, Azure and Baileys.
The HD posting workflow was developed through real-device testing. Results can vary with WhatsApp updates. Delivery uses the unofficial Baileys library, which also carries account restriction risks.
- GitHub: https://github.com/Shamanthnp1/WAstatus
The project is licensed under GNU AGPL-3.0-or-later.
I'm a solo developer and would appreciate code reviews, suggestions, or contributions. Feedback is welcome!
r/freesoftware • u/Wootery • 11d ago
r/freesoftware • u/Mobile-Device3263 • 11d ago
Hello, I've been searching for a note-taking app that has a good typing experience, like a document editor, but also lets me draw on the page with a drawing tablet (because I prefer to type but can't be bothered to learn how to type every mathematical symbol like ∀ or Greek letter). Every FOSS note-taking program I've come across is either a glorified Markdown editor and thus lacks the ability to just draw on pages (some allow you to embed hand-drawn images, but that's a clunky workaround), or it goes all in on drawing and only has clunky typing support, like only allowing you to insert text boxes somewhere. I've also tried LibreOffice, but the drawing tool there is very bad. I hope someone can suggest a program or plugin.
r/freesoftware • u/marincolars123 • 12d ago
Hey everyone,
I made YtToPdf, a native macOS app that takes a YouTube link and gives you a clean, readable transcript you can export as a PDF, TXT, Markdown or SRT.
GitHub: https://github.com/MarinoBaric/YtToPdf
**How it works**
- Uses the video's own captions when they exist (manual first, auto second) and cleans them up into real sentences and paragraphs. No more repeated rolling-caption fragments or [Music] tags.
- If a video has no captions, it downloads just the audio and transcribes it locally with whisper.cpp.
- Everything runs on your Mac. No account, no analytics, no API keys, no subscription.
**Things I'm proud of**
- PDF export with an editorial layout, clickable timestamps and page headers.
- A "Speech Fingerprint" on every PDF: a pattern generated from when words are spoken across the video, so no two documents look the same.
- Searchable history, so you can reopen old transcripts instantly.
**Tech:** Swift 6, SwiftUI with Liquid Glass, SwiftData, Core Text for the PDF layout, plus yt-dlp, FFmpeg and whisper.cpp under the hood.
Heads up: it's source-only for now (not notarized), so you build it yourself with Xcode. It needs macOS 27 and an Apple silicon Mac. There's an install script that makes it pretty quick.
**I'd really like your feedback:**
- Would you actually use something like this? What for?
- Anything you'd add or change, in the app or the PDF design?
- Is building from source a dealbreaker, or is it fine for a tool like this?
MIT licensed, issues and PRs welcome. Thanks for checking it out!
r/freesoftware • u/FranzKafka22-6 • 15d ago
Hi everyone!
I'm working on an early-stage project that will need movie and TV-show subtitles, and I'm researching reliable sources before moving forward.
I'm looking for free subtitle sources or APIs that developers can use, ideally with:
\- A large collection of movie and TV-show subtitles across multiple languages.
\- Search by movie title, year, or IMDb/TMDB ID.
\- API access, if available.
\- Clear terms that permit use within an app.
\- Free usage limits suitable for a small project.
I'm not looking to bypass restrictions or misuse anyone's service. I want to understand which sources are genuinely available for permitted use.
Which sources or APIs would you recommend, and are there any licensing restrictions developers should know about?
Thanks for your help!
r/freesoftware • u/ihateyou103 • 20d ago
How can I contribute to open source projects when I don't fully trust the code in the project? Are there standard approaches? Do people usually just download the project to their local laptops?
r/freesoftware • u/chlankboot • 22d ago
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
Oryx is a (very) fast, keyboard-first Markdown editor and reader. It also edits code and opens EPUB ebooks and CBZ comics.
Instead of relying on webviews, Oryx uses a custom vector rendering pipeline: so now browser and no electron. It draws typography, code highlighting, and math directly to the screen. The workflow is modal and built for keyboard-driven navigation. It stays fast and lightweight on memory, even with heavy files. It doesn't rely on GPU acceleration and is optimized to run smoothly on virtually any (older) hardware.
Version 1.2.1 brings tighter rendering passes, stability fixes, and small UI polishes based on community feedback. On the roadmap for v1.3.0 focus mode, multi-pdf export and more stability on big files.
Please share your comments and if you find Oryx useful, please star it on GitHub so it can reach other. Thanks!
Code & Downloads: GitHub: https://github.com/wmahfoudh/oryx
Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/wmahfoudh/oryxOryx
r/freesoftware • u/Feeling-Tower4924 • 22d ago
[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]
r/freesoftware • u/Feeling-Tower4924 • 23d ago
That idea is what led me to build vrok, a free and open source command line tool that turns a file, a folder or a local development server into a temporary public link.
The problem
Sending a large video or a folder of files usually means waiting for an upload, hitting a size limit, and leaving a copy on someone else's server. Showing a teammate an app running on localhost usually means creating an account with a tunnelling service and configuring an auth token first.
How vrok works
You run a single command, such as vrok video.mp4, vrok photos or vrok localhost:3000, and you get a public HTTPS link that is copied to your clipboard.
Nothing is uploaded. The recipient downloads directly from your machine, and the link stops working as soon as you stop sharing it. The person on the other end does not need to install anything. They simply open the link in a browser.
What it offers
No account, no configuration and no file size limit.
Password protection, expiring links and one time download links.
In browser previews for video, images and PDFs, and full folders downloadable as a single zip.
Resumable downloads with a SHA-256 checksum for verification.
Local development servers shared with hot reload still working.
Support for macOS, Linux, Windows and FreeBSD.
Where it fits
vrok is a lightweight alternative to tools like ngrok and localtunnel for sharing a local app, and to services like WeTransfer and Google Drive for sending large files. It is designed for the everyday moment of "take a look at this", not for permanent hosting.
The project is MIT licensed and available on GitHub. I would genuinely value feedback from anyone who tries it, especially on what would make it part of your daily workflow.
Website: https://alijabbar034.github.io/vrok/
Source code: https://github.com/AliJabbar034/vrok
r/freesoftware • u/Intrepid_Comedian148 • 24d ago
On win11 i tried KeepAwake but the issue is it interferes with other connected bluetooth audio devices bcz how it works it sends a very high frequency (non audible to human) sine wave to all bluetooth audio devices , but i only want to send that to a specific devices which i can't do in KeepAwake , also i didn't found anything for Linux(gnome). I would prefer a gui app rather than dealing with the terminal.
r/freesoftware • u/DPD- • 25d ago
I like Zoxide too much that I missed it in the file manager. So I wrote a Nemo extension to allow changing location querying Zoxide.
When you select a location in the dialog its score is incremented, but there is no way, for now, to reach new locations: you must add them via Zoxide itself. So I was thinking to display, after Zoxide results, the results of fd, but I am still pondering over it.
r/freesoftware • u/Complete-Mousse-4367 • 25d ago
Hi, I'm new to Dragora GNU/Linux-libre. Could someone explain how to install text editors like Emacs or Vis, or browsers like IceCat?
r/freesoftware • u/Open_Beautiful_8688 • 26d ago
I switch from Microsoftoffice to Libreoffice and I am generally happy with it but Libreoffice Impress does not have collapsible sections/chapters, you can make named sections but they cannot be collapse.
I have looked into other popular free options like Google slides, softmaker freeoffice presentations and Apache OpenOffice Impress but they don't have the feature of the collapsible sections. I am trying to move away from Microsoft so I don't want to use the online version of PowerPoint.
I am currently using WPS Presentation even though I don't want to. It works surprisingly nice, Similar to PowerPoint it has collapsible sections but it tries to keep pushing you to buy a WPS Cloud subscription, constantly tries to run in the background whenever Iam using libreoffice and even when I use different applications to open certain file types. I have tried to turn off file type detection and Cloud Service but it continues doing it.
If anyone knows any alternatives please do tell!!
(or how to make wps feel less like malware)
r/freesoftware • u/ZahraOsama • 26d ago
r/freesoftware • u/Minute_Teaching6339 • 27d ago
Hey r/freesoftware 👋
Sharing a new open-source project a friend built called InkDoc.
It is a cross-platform desktop tool (and local REST API) designed to convert messy everyday documents into clean Markdown entirely offline, without third-party cloud services or telemetry.
The repo is MIT licensed:
https://github.com/AbdoslamB/InkDoc
Why he built it:
Most online converters want you to upload sensitive files to their servers, while lightweight CLI scripts often completely mangle tables, multi-column layouts, and scanned pages.
How it is put together:
- Microsoft MarkItDown handles Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and HTML.
- IBM Docling handles complex PDFs (reading order layout analysis, OCR, and table extraction).
- Markit handles EPUBs, Jupyter notebooks, and similar formats.
- Everything runs on your own hardware (Windows, macOS, Linux).
- Includes both a drag-and-drop desktop UI and a headless mode with a localhost REST API for scripting.
It just hit v1.1.0. He is actively looking for community feedback on edge-case files, performance bottlenecks, and general feature requests.
Contributions and issues are welcome on GitHub, or feel free to leave your thoughts here!