this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
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[–] InvisibleShoe@lemmy.world 84 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Over 20 years, easy. I started my PC life as a Mac user, switched to Windows for gaming, then switched to Linux for freedom. VLC has followed me the whole way and been a must-install since the first time I used it.

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[–] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 60 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Steam? Though I'm not sure I'm loving it... 22 years now... But it worked back then, it still works now, and it hasn't lost itself to enshitification. It even followed me to linux.

[–] VivianRixia@piefed.social 46 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm loving their commitment to Proton, making gaming on Linux better than ever.

[–] KneeTitts@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

making gaming on Linux better than ever

Latest reports have linux up to 5%, almost double from 6 months ago

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The enshittification of Steam would really sting and significantly harm PC gaming as a whole.

As GabeN ages, I really worry about the day when he finally hands control of that company over, because as soon as ROI becomes their primary objective, it’s game over.

Prioritizing the experience and quality of the platform over profit maximization has actually earned them more money in the long run as they’ve slowly snowballed over all their competitors. I really hope the new stewards understand this and genuinely love gaming as a whole as it seems a lot of decision-makers at Valve currently do.

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[–] BurgerBaron@piefed.social 6 points 1 month ago

If I had a gripe to share it'd be (the gambling) and Community features feeling stuck in 2008.

[–] BozeKnoflook@lemmy.world 42 points 1 month ago (1 children)
  • vlc
  • vim
  • tmux
  • neomutt
  • FreeBSD / Linux
  • IntelliJ IDEA
  • Firefox
  • KDE's Dolphin
  • SwayWM
  • pass
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[–] kamayatu24@lemmy.world 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

VLC

7-Zip

Steam

FireFox

Everything else deteriorates beyond recognition over time.

[–] Jonnyprophet@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

VLC...

Legen (wait for it)..... dary.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)
  • 7zip
  • Firefox
  • LibreOffice
  • Various Linux distros, but mostly Ubuntu variants and Raspbian
  • Cura
  • OpenVPN
  • Blender
  • Gimp
  • Windows - sorry everyone, it just works, but I stopped at 10.
  • VLC
  • Virtual Clone Drive
[–] RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Gimp. You're a much better person than me. I always found the gimp learning curve way too steep for me

[–] KneeTitts@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] zxqwas@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

For some 20 years VLC has been installed on my computers though streaming has made it less used than before.

Steam: not been enshittified yet. Also one of the great forces behind Linux gaming being more mainstream.

Does the Linux kernel count? It's been 12 years since I tilted at a faulty network driver on windows 7 and just uninstalled it and did not look back. There has been many different distributions since (now I use arch btw) but the kernel is the same.

[–] early_riser@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (9 children)

Vi/Vim. Is it intuitive? No. Is it user friendly? Heck no! What it is is everywhere. $20 Chinese travel routers? Yup. Wireless access points? It's there. If it has a shell you can log into, it almost certainly has it.

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[–] gointhefridge@lemmy.zip 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Winamp. It really kicks the llama’s ass.

[–] postman@literature.cafe 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] Staff@piefed.world 5 points 1 month ago

What was before? Wipes? 😄

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 15 points 1 month ago

VLC maybe 20 years. How long has it even been around?

GIMP 10+ years for sure.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

I have no fucking clue why this thing is still running. Why do we even make new gpus?

[–] areakode@riskeratspizza.com 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Don't worry. They stopped unless you have an order for 200,000 units. My GeForce 1650 has gotten me through some tough years. I sure hope I have the opportunity to affordably upgrade next decade.

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[–] fun_times@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

InkScape.

I don't fully know why but vector graphics just work for me in a way that pixel graphics don't. I love fiddling with vectors.

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[–] Fit_Series_573@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (4 children)

VLC for video MediaMonkey for audio

Neither have ever failed me unless the files themselves have errors, then that's beyond their control

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[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Many. The oldest and most popular ones are maybe

vi
bash
putty
Firefox
Notepad++
Irfanview
Vlc
OBS

[–] 0x0f@piefed.social 6 points 1 month ago (6 children)

IrfanView, haven't heard that one mentioned for a long time.

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[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Only ten years?

KDE, better then ever.

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

>= 33 years

  • Unix
  • C

>= 32 years

  • vi/vim
  • LaTeX
  • tar

>= 28 years

  • Emacs
  • awk, bash
  • C++

>= 26 years

  • Python & Numerical Python
  • screen and tmux
  • rsync
  • ssh
  • InkScape

>= 20 years

  • git
  • literate programming tools

>= 17 years

  • Thunderbird & forks
  • Debian & Ubuntu
  • GNOME

>= 15 years

  • MeeGo, Maemo, Sailfish & siblings
  • Lisps (Clojure, Guile, Racket)

>= 11 years

  • tiling WMs (i3)
  • Arch (as second system)

what I use know and will very, very likely still use in 10 years

  • Rust
  • Guix
  • Gollum wiki
  • Gemini protocol
[–] jackintosh@feddit.nl 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The most complex way to say “I use arch btw” I’ve ever seen

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[–] khannie@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Age of Empires 2, my true love xoxoxo

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[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Sumatra PDF Reader is no-frills and distraction free. Even on my ancient PC, it's fast as heck. I have rather rudely installed it on other people's PCs, because their slow all-singing all-dancing PDF readers drove me up the wall.

RawTherapee converts "RAW" files from digital cameras to friendlier image formats, and pretty often RawTherapee's edit is all I need. It's feature packed, it can do film simulations, image de-noising, tone-mapping, and now it has the ability to do some local adjustments, too. I have several "RAW" converters, including a commercial one, but I keep coming back to RawTherapee as the mainstay, the most productive for me.

I've got foobar2000 set up as a pretty plain-looking, non-distracting music player. It's got great library features, it has a wildly customizable interface, it's got a plugin architecture to extend its abilities in many ways. It has stayed on my PC for years because of its quiet competence, always serving without demanding my time or attention.

I used to keep my password file and other confidential stuff inside a TrueCrypt virtual volume. Now I use the successor, VeraCrypt. Both have always worked flawlessly; in fact, TrueCrypt is way smaller and I'm not aware of any security issues with it, it's just not actively developed anymore.

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[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

WinRAR. And I paid for it.

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[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

OurGroceries.

The year was 2010, and the iPhone was not yet available where I lived. I could have bought one, and I could have activated service with it, but I would never be able to use it at home or anywhere around home. So it would have been pointless. I wanted one. Android was cool, but it wasn't really what I wanted. Wife needed a new phone, and our carrier had a deal. Two Android phones for $100, and each came with a $20 Android Market (what Google Play Store was called then) gift card. So yeah, we took that deal. The phones were ass, but I was able to put CyanogenMod (now called Lineage) on them and make them a little better.

We wanted a grocery app, and we discovered an app called OurGroceries. Free with ads, or $5 to remove the little banner at the bottom. Even without paying, it offered synced grocery lists and even Web access. As in, my wife is at the store and I'm on the computer, I just hit the bookmark and add something to the list, she sees it in a second or two (provided she has signal or WiFi). We both paid. The app was useful and it was nice.

When I got an iPhone, I immediately paid the $5 again. They since changed it to where only ONE person on the sync account needs to pay. That is to say, if you and five family members all download it, all six of you get ads. But if ONE person connected to the sync account pays, the paid status syncs and nobody has ads. That said, I'm not mad because $10 of the $15 I've paid wasn't even mine to start with, it was on a gift card. It's been 16 years, and we still use it.

Is it the best grocery app? I think it still ranks highly. Personally I think the one in Paprika is a little better. Our first requirement is that it must support iPhone, Android (my wife still uses Android), and computer. Paprika checks those boxes — so does Google Keep, which is another good option (that is also free!). Apple has shopping list support in Notes, and our computers are Macs, so that works, but Apple Notes doesn't really work on Android. It actually does, I think, through the browser (since my wife has an Apple account, on the Mac and on her iPad), but it's not as robust if you actually have an iPhone. Any note taking app should work, but the sync won't be there.

So if you don't want to pay, Google Keep should be your first stop. If you don't like Google for privacy or whatever reason, you'll probably have to pay. OurGroceries is either a single developer or a small team, and they're independent, and deserve at least the $5 they're asking for a whole family to use their app indefinitely (as long as they keep the server up — I hope, should they ever decide to take their server down, they allow a self-hosted option). If you want more features, Paprika is definitely a solid choice, but you'll want to wait for a sale. Normally it's like $10 on phones and $20 on computers or something. But it's actually not a shopping list app. It's a recipe manager that has a shopping list and a pantry inventory. And a couple other things. (OurGroceries also has a recipe manager, but it's not great, it's really just another kind of shopping list that can be copied into an actual shopping list — you can have multiple.)

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)
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[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

VLC, notepad++

[–] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Darkstone (1999) - Good game for a Diablo clone.

Debian-flavored Linux - My only complaints are hardware compatibility-related, and that is primarily because Nvidia and Intel both suck Microsoft's floppy disk.

Krita, Gimp, Blender - Never needed another art program. Adobe can eat my paintbrush.

LibreOffice - I would literally have this over MSOffice any and every day of the week.

VLC - It just frickin' works. And it's good at its job. It plays anything!

[–] rammer@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 month ago

Linux, Firefox, Thunderbird, vi/vim, VLC, Mutt (only occasionally), Irssi

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 5 points 1 month ago

Well I haven't been using Newpipe for ten years... Maybe Skyrim...no, I haven't played that in years... Well it seems my list is gonna be short:

VLC GIMP 7zip

[–] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago

Most of 'em. Here are some highlights.

  • vi/vim. The one true text editor
  • thunderbird. Standard email client
  • musicbee. Absolutely the BEST audio player/organizer anywhere. Sadly, not available on Linux
  • potplayer. Just a simple, high quality video player
  • LibreOffice. Used to be almost as good as MS. Now it is far better.
  • FIrefox, sort of. I've lately switched to Waterfox, which is from the same code base as ff.
[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 5 points 1 month ago

I've used ls, cat, echo, cd, mkdir, mv, cp, rm, & ssh pretty much every day I've touched a computer since some time near the end of the twentieth century. Honorable mention to sudo, find, rename, ffmpeg, Gimp, & VLC. If you count ROMs for games, the list gets into the deeper past, though I don't use them as often. I guess I still need to get around a few Windows/DOS machines, so DIR and CD are probably the absolute oldest when at the keyboard.

[–] cabillaud@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)
[–] VivianRixia@piefed.social 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

AntennaPod on my android. An open source podcast player with no ads that has all the features I need to enjoy podcasts.

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[–] Libb@piefed.social 5 points 1 month ago (6 children)
  • Firefox (now using Waterfox), I started using when it was still Mosaic and no idea it would one day become Mozilla Firefox..
  • LibreOffice.
  • In a couple years, maybe three, I'll be on Mint for 10 years and, yep, I do like it. And I certainly love many GNU apps that came with my distro: they're lightweight, focused and so incredibly useful <3
  • I used to love Mac OS (previous to Linux, since the early 80s I had been an Apple user) and many small third party apps. But I moved away from Apple and have no desire to go back.
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