Tools That Just Work
In the past couple of days, I have written posts on Mastodon about Capy Reader, Antenna Pod, Hoopla, and Tusky—apps I use for RSS, podcasts, audiobooks, and Mastodon on my Android phone. I realized that all these apps have a few things in common, which give me real joy: they are all stable, straightforward to use, specialized to accomplish one task and do it well, non-intrusive, and mostly FOSS (free and open source). That made me realize that these are the virtues - which I collectively call “elegant” - that I have always settled for in software and gadgets. I support experimentation and trying new software, and I am always looking for something new. Still, for everyday use, I prefer dependable tools that don’t surprise me with 180-degree turn updates and always leave me satisfied. I know that’s too much responsibility to put on a piece of code. In this post, I aim to list all the software and apps that meet the criteria of being elegant and bring real joy (trust me I am not a follower of Marie Kondo) when I use them.
I will create this blog post as a live document, adding and removing items as I evolve. Obviously, these are not all the apps and software I use; there are many more for which I don’t have a joyful alternative, or I have to use them to get things done.
Antenna Pod: A FOSS app for following and listening to podcasts. Apart from being elegant, I like it because it doesn’t require a centralized account, doesn’t display ads, and works well with Android Auto.
Capy Reader: A FOSS app for following and reading blog posts through RSS. It also doesn’t require a centralized account, doesn’t show ads, and can import and export RSS subscription lists via an OPML file.
Cx File Explorer: It’s the best file explorer I have found for Android so far. It’s swift and ad-free, and besides managing local phone storage, I also use it to connect to remote servers over SFTP to transfer files to and from my phone.
Fennec F-Droid: It’s a web browser for Android which is based on the latest Mozilla Firefox release but has proprietary bits and telemetry removed. It’s been a couple of years since Fennec became my primary browser on my phone. Besides being more open-sourced and privacy-oriented, it is lightweight and very responsive.
Hoopla: An app for listening to audio books borrowed from a public library. Hoopla is not FOSS, and it does require an account, registered to the participating library from which you want to borrow the books. It is also ad-free and works very well with Android Auto. Besides streaming books over mobile data, you can also download them over WiFi to save bandwidth. However, it does require an active internet connection for authentication.
Linux Mint: This is an odd entry as Mint is not a software or an app, it’s an entire operating system based on Linux. For many years, Linux Mint has been my primary Linux distribution. It ran on my laptops, the desktops on which I did my PhD and postdoc, and even on my home server. If you want to try Linux, then go for Mint. It is super stable, user-friendly, and will work right out of the box, even on the latest hardware. I always go for an LTS (long term support) version based on Ubuntu.
MobaXterm: An enhanced terminal for Windows with X11 server, tabbed SSH client, network tools etc. MobaXterm is by far the best remote computing software for Windows. This is my default SSH app on Windows 10, and I am continuously amazed at how well it handles X11 forwarding over SSH.
Merlin Bird ID: Merlin Bird ID phone app help you to identify the birds you see or hear. There should be many more apps like Merlin to help us observe, understand, and appreciate our natural surroundings. It’s never a dull moment while using this app to identify the birds around me. I am not an avid birdwatcher, but when I am out hiking and camping and hear birds around me, I quickly pull out my phone to identify them. That gives me an altogether different perspective of my surroundings. I am not just looking at the scenery and listening to the wind and the leaves, but also a part of the wildlife.
ReadEra: An app for reading books, magazines, articles and documents that allows you to read books for free, without ads and without registration. I do not know whether it’s open-source software. However, it has both free and premium versions with varying features. It’s an excellent app for reading offline books in multiple formats, including
epub, which I prefer. Standard Books is my go-to place to get freely available public domain books. Even though I have a premium version of ReadEra and love using it, I have minimized screen reading in favor of audiobooks and paper books.Revolution IRC/Hex Chat/Weechat: Every now and then I like to chat on the good old IRC. I always liked chatting in open chat channels, going back to the days of Yahoo Messenger/Rooms. I was first introduced to IRC in 2010 and since then I have been quite active on it and I have tried multiple software for terminal, desktop, and phone. Currently, I use Revolution IRC on my phone, HexChat as a desktop client, and WeeChat on the terminal, especially when I use a remote machine, such as a Pubnix server.
Simplenote: A cross platform and ad free note taking app developed by Automatic, the same company that developed WordPress. It’s not FOSS and requires an account, but it lives upto it’s name of being simple and doing just one job that is taking notes. This is my scratch pad for quick, dirty notes, which I usually delete once they have served their purpose. Since the notes are uploaded to the cloud and are not encrypted at rest, I do not use them to write anything sensitive.
Standard Notes: Similar to Simplenote Standard Notes is also a cross platform and ad free note taking app. However, it has way more features than Simplenote. The primary feature that I use it for is end-to-end encryption. Encryption occurs on the local device before the data is sent to the cloud for synchronization with other devices. Because of this, the on-device and end-to-end encryption feature can be used to store sensitive information. However, you should always evaluate your threat model before entrusting an app with any sensitive data.
Sublime Text: A cross platform text editor that always works. Sublime is a product I should have paid for, but I never did; I always used the free evaluation version. I hardly ever use it for coding, but it is my go-to software for all the other types of text editing, including writing this blog post.
Tasks: A FOSS and ad free to-do list and reminder app. It’s the default app for my everyday to-do lists. It can be used without any centralized accounts, or lists can be synchronized across multiple devices via Tasks.org, DAVx5, CalDAV, and other methods. Now, I only use it as an offline app without any synchronization. Still, I have tried the DAVx5 method and it worked flawlessly.
Tusky: It is a FOSS and lightweight client for Mastodon. It supports all Mastodon features, such as photos, videos, lists, and custom emojis. You can choose between a dark, light, and black theme in Tusky. I have tried other Mastodon clients, but I keep coming back to Tusky for its elegance. It just always works.
WordWeb: My all time favorite dictionary app for Android and Windows. It runs offline, without any ads or accounts, and it’s very swift. For Linux, I have used a similar software called Artha.
I usually have a great time using these apps and software, and I hope they bring you joy and satisfaction as well. I know it’s weird to find happiness in the apps you use, but when you are constantly on your phone and computer. I think we should be mindful of the types of software and apps we use and how they affect our overall emotional and mental well-being. As I try to go away from attention grabbing and addictive apps like Facebook and Instagram or apps that constantly serve you ads even if you are reading a blog post or listening to a podcast or invading your privacy and extracting your data for targeted advertisements and manipulation these apps help me to enjoy things that I like without getting frustrated with all the nastiness of the other popular alternatives.
Feel free to write to me at rohit@rohitfarmer.com