5 Open Source Apps I'd Install Even On Windows

So obviously I'm a big proponent of free and open source software, but I'm a realist. I understand sometimes people have to run proprietary software. For example, some people are forced to use a proprietary operating system like Windows because of school or work, because of software compatibility issues they have with proprietary software that they're forced to run because of school and or work. So I get it. But here are five free and open source programs that I install everywhere, regardless of operating system, whether I'm on a Linux machine or a Windows machine, these five open source programs I install on every single machine. So the very first free and open source program I would install, even on Windows, is the Brave browser. Brave is free and open source. The great thing about the Brave browser is that it's not just that it's open source. It also has good security and privacy settings out of the box. It's got built in ad block out of the box. It does a lot of things right. In many ways, it's the perfect web browser. It's quite minimal by design. It is designed to be a web browser, and it's a web browser that is designed to be a web browser. There's not a lot of extra cruft in it that a lot of modern browsers try to throw in their browsers these days. These days, it's just a normal kind of web browser. One of the extensions I always get asked about is my new tab screen. This is an extension called Tabless. Tabless, you'll find it in the Chrome extension store. And Brave is a Chrome based browser. So you can install all of your Chrome extensions. They work just fine in Brave. But the Brave browser, I love it. And the great thing about free and open source software is we have dozens of free and open source browsers. And we have a lot of really, really good free and open source browsers. If you want to try something that's not Brave, Firefox is still around. These days, I don't run Firefox anymore. I was a Firefox at one point. It's just kind of been running the ground because of the people that run the Mozilla Foundation and the people that run the company. They're more of a political organization now rather than a software development company. And because of that, Firefox, to me, seems kind of lacking. And it's not just me. Most people, Firefox has less than 2% of desktop market share these days. And this is very sad because at one point, it was the most popular browser on the planet, oddly enough. That's how badly that company has been run. But Brave is my go-to these days for a web browser. I'm going to install that on any machine, Linux, Mac, Windows, whatever, mobile, my Android phone. I run Brave on my Android phone because especially security, privacy settings, the ad block and everything. Brave is like the perfect mobile browser. The next application I install on virtually every computer, whether it's my computer or in computers of other people, whether I'm installing Linux on a family or friend's computer, or if they've got a Windows machine and maybe they need a particular application that fits the bill. For example, VLC. If you're looking for a media player, VLC is fantastic. It's free and open source software, and it just works. It has all the multimedia codecs to play all of your audio formats, all your video formats. It works. Again, Linux, Mac, Windows, cross-platform. VLC is one of the first things I always install on every Linux machine. And on Windows, when I was a Windows user, VLC was my media player. I did not use Windows media player. That thing is garbage in comparison to VLC. The next application I install on every machine, Windows, Mac, Linux, it doesn't matter, is LibreOffice. LibreOffice is interesting because this started life. It's actually a fork of an older project that was called OpenOffice, which was also free and open source software. I was using OpenOffice 25 years ago on Windows when I was still a Windows user primarily on the desktop. And then once I switched to Linux, Linux, pretty much every Linux distribution shipped OpenOffice out of the box. That was their default Office suite. And I was already using it on Windows, which was great. So it made the transition really smooth from Windows because I was already using all of this fantastic free and open source software on Windows. I get to Linux, it's all there out of the box already installed for me on Linux. Of course, eventually OpenOffice kind of died. It changed hands from corporations to corporations. Licensing issues could have become a problem. So the open source community that developed OpenOffice, they all moved to a fork. They forked it, called it LibreOffice. And LibreOffice has been the continuation of the old OpenOffice for many, many years. But you've got a complete Office suite right now. This is the word processor, which is LibreOffice Writer, but you've got LibreOffice Calc, which is the spreadsheet program, which I often use. LibreOffice Impress is one I use all the time sometimes when I'm creating like presentation slideshows for some of the videos I do. So LibreOffice, one of the best, if not the best piece of free and open source software on the planet. It's one of the most popular. Literally hundreds of millions of people. As a matter of fact, the first three programs I Brave, VLC, and LibreOffice. Literally hundreds of millions of people around the world use those programs. And most of those people are not using Linux. They're running those programs on Windows. Next up, the fourth program I install on every single computer, especially for myself, but also for other people. Many people have the need for an image editor. And for me, GIMP is the program. So GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. You can think of this as our free and open source alternative to something like an Adobe Photoshop. And I have been using GIMP for 25 years. Again, this is another program I was using many years ago, well before I switched to Linux on the desktop. Fantastic free and open source program. This is what I use to create all the artwork for the channel. Every thumbnail that I create, channel headers, anything I do on this channel, I do it using GIMP. There is a thumbnail from a recent video. Here is a thumbnail from a recent video I do on my second channel, my financial channel, the DT Options channel. The GIMP program here is just fantastic, especially once you get to know how everything works. It's a little different in design than Adobe Photoshop. But once you learn the ins and outs of GIMP in many ways, you grow to love it much more so than an Adobe Photoshop. For me, GIMP is one of those programs I use on a practically daily basis. And again, it's also one of the most popular pieces of free and open source software on the planet. Millions of people run it. And most of those millions of people that run GIMP are probably running Windows. And then the fifth free and open source program that I install on every machine, and this is going to be a little bit of a different one, but even on a Windows machine, I would install Emacs. Yes, Emacs is cross-platform. You can install Emacs not just on Linux, but you can also install it on Mac. You can also install it on Windows. And many people do run Emacs on Windows. Surprisingly, I know that's probably going to shock some people that Emacs actually works well on Windows, but Emacs is kind of its own. It's almost its own. Well, it is its own environment as far as its own programming language, Emacs Lisp. It has its own interpreter, the Emacs Lisp interpreter. That's what Emacs basically is. It's an interpreter for the language. So it's basically almost like it's its own self-contained operating system anyway. Therefore, it runs just fine. No matter the operating system, Windows, Mac, Linux, doesn't matter. And this is my text editor of choice. It has been for many years, and because it's my text editor and because it works everywhere, it's cross-platform. This is one of the first things, if not the first thing, I install on every machine. Another honorable mention, Vim. Let me open my Bash RC here in Vim. But Vim is a terminal text editor, and this is also cross-platform. Many people don't realize Vim also works on Windows. So if you're a Vim or an Emacs user and you think, well, that's just for Linux nerds. No, it actually is for Mac nerds. It's also for Windows nerds as well. And if you want a GUI, a normal kind of text editor, take a look at Genie. Genie is a really nice plain text editor. It has some plugins. You can turn it into an IDE. And Genie is also cross-platform. So there you have it. Five programs that I install everywhere. Free and open source programs that I install on every machine, including Windows machine. We had Brave, VLC, LibreOffice, GIMP, and then Emacs. And we had some honorable mentions with Vim and Genie. I want to throw out one more honorable mention, because this is not a program that everybody will have a need for. But a lot of people these days have a need for video editors. And I use, on Linux, Kdenlive. Kdenlive is fantastic. For free and open source software, Kdenlive is amazing. And one of the cool things about Kdenlive is it does actually work pretty well on Windows. I have used Kdenlive on Windows machines recently. In the last couple of years, I installed it on a Windows laptop for somebody that needed some basic video editing. And it works. It works just fine on Windows. And I know I'm probably going to get a lot of comments in the comments section from people, well, GIMP's not really a replacement for Photoshop. Kdenlive's not really a replacement for DaVinci Resolve. Those programs are better. Yes, those proprietary programs that cost a lot of money in subscriptions, they may be better technically in some way. But guess what? GIMP and Kdenlive are damn good. And they're free, not just free as in cost, but also free as in freedom. I will gladly take those over the proprietary alternatives. And quite frankly, the other things I mentioned, Brave, VLC, LibreOffice, and Emacs. There's no proprietary alternative to those. You can't name a proprietary program that's better than those free and open source applications. Now, before I go, I need to thank a few special people. I need to thank the producers of this episode, Matt, Steve, George, Darloff, Lee, Mark, Methos, Arjan, PeaceArgentVidor, RealitiesForLess, Roland, Morgentuin, Abuntu, and Willie. These guys, they're my highest tiered patrons over on Patreon. Without these guys, this look at the five open source apps I'd install on Windows, including a few more than five, a few honorable mentions, this video would not have been possible without the producers of this episode. This video is also brought to you by each and every one of these fine ladies and gentlemen, all these names you're seeing on the screen right now. These are all my supporters over on Patreon because I don't have any corporate sponsors. I'm sponsored by you guys, the community. If you like my work and want to see more videos about Linux and free and open source software, including open source software that works on Windows, subscribe to DistroTube over on Patreon. Peace, guys.