Warez: Do you pirate software or just use FOSS?

In the past, most software I used was paid and proprietary and would have some sort of limitation that I would try to get around by any means possible. Sometimes that would be resetting the clock on my computer, disabling the internet, and other times downloading a patch.

But in the past few years I've stopped using those things and have focused only on free and open source software (FOSS) to fulfill my needs. I hardly have to worry about privacy problems or trying to lock down a program that calls home. I might be missing out on some things that commercial software delivers, but I'm hardly aware of what they are anymore. It seems like the trend is for commercial software providers to migrate toward online or service models that have the company doing all the computing. I'm opposed to that, since they can take away your service at any time.

What do you do?

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Except for games I use FOSS on my Linux desktop and on my Android phone. The FOSS alternative is often better than the proprietary software.
- What kind of FOSS software can you get for your android?
  
  F-Droid has tons of good apps!
  
  Any recommendation in general? some that you can call a must have in your phone?
  
  A few I like:
  StreetComplete, fun 'mini game' for helping fill out Open Street Map data
  Hacki, hacker news reader
  Mull, fork of Firefox with more privacy stuff enabled
  Simple Gallery
  Bitwarden
  Simple SMS
  Birday, birthday manager, nice for keeping track
  VLC
  Scrambled EXIF, gets rid of private EXIF data in your photos before sharing
  Auto Auto-Rotate, enabled auto-rotate automatically in specific apps
  Shelter, useful for setting up a work profile
  
  StreetComplete looks like a nice bit of fun! Good way to get me out of the house.
  
  TrackerControl is essential, imo. The f-droid version is the complete one, too, compared to the play store.
  Simple X (Simple Gallery, Simple File Manager, Simple Calendar, etc) are very good for the basic android functions. As for what else, that'll really depend on what you need. I like Librera for reading stuff
  
  https://github.com/LinuxCafeFederation/awesome-android
  
  I forgot about them. I didn't know they were FOSS. Is F-Droid primarily for nerds and programmers? Or do normies also use it? I stopped working on Android apps because I don't want my hobby to be subjected to the whims of Google's acceptance criteria. But maybe I could publish to F-Droid instead.
  
  I would say it's probably not that widely known outside of open source and privacy groups.
  
  Yeah it's pretty friendly many normal people use it ...
  
  There are all kinds of apps
  
  There are all kinds of apps there

163 comments