Awesome software that you might not know about

A collection of software that I think is good, interesting, or enjoyable. I try not to list things that are made by big corporations, or which are already well known. For example, I don't list Minecraft as a game although I think it's great because you likely already know about it. I have written more elaborately about my policy on recommending things.

⭐

"Awesome" is referring to a trend in the open source community to call compilations of interesting projects around a topic "awesome lists".

In the indieweb community, there is a bit of a trend of listing the default apps, or the apps that people use for a set of tasks. I tend to enjoy reading these as it gives a bit of insight into the person in a fun and quirky way. But a lot of them feature the same few hugely popular apps across the different tasks. Sometimes, there are one or two less well known apps which are the ones I find most special.

Moreover, most of the apps I use I don't feel particularly excited about. So that's why I have collected some lesser known software that I use, and which I think is genuinely awesome in some respect. They are not recommendation per se, but they are all pretty cool projects that you might find interesting.

Apps

In addition to the criteria laid out in my policy, I also don't want to recommend apps with unnecessary subscriptions. That is apps which do not have significant recurring costs that charge a subscription.

  • Close-up: A very simple and very fairly priced app that lets you take a selfie every day, and export videos of your selfies over a range of days.
  • Happy Cow: Vegan restaurants, or restaurants with vegan offerings near you. Has a very active review community, which has the advantage compared to other more mainstream platforms of the reviews specifically targeting the vegan food. So you will no longer find a restaurant with excellent non-vegan food, but poor vegan options. In my experience, it has a much more complete index of vegan restaurants, and vegan options than mainstream platforms. The clear highlighting of entirely vegan restaurants is useful when you're going out as a group and want to gently nudge people in the right direction.
  • Signal (open source): All the useful stuff, none of the fluff. You likely already know about this app, but it's worth reminding you to use Signal if at all possible. With the username support they solved 1/3 of my problems with the app; the others being no good backup solution for iPhone (although it is possible to decrypt the local database on desktop), and no support for having multiple accounts on one phone making it a poor choice for work communications, or separating your contacts.
  • Voice tools: Useful for analyzing voice characteristics. Spectrum view: More advanced, but also more difficult to use.
  • Smiling Mind: Developed by a non-profit, smiling mind is a free meditation app that has expanded into being an all-round mental health app. Although simple, it's a good alternative to the for-profit apps.
  • Electricity Maps (partially open source): Visualizes electricity consumption & production, import & export, and breaks it down by region or country and by type and carbon intensity. It summarises it all by showing how carbon-intensive the electricity is in a given region.
  • Tailscale (partially open source): A zero config network layer based on Wireguard that connects all your devices in a mesh network. Can be used as a VPN, but calling it just a VPN does not do it justice. The free tier is more than enough for most people.
  • Marauder: An app that records your location history and saves it as a timeline. It claims to do so privately not sending any information to the cloud unless you explicitly allow it. I think I believe it. It can also show how long you have stayed at a location in a widget. The pathing between locations is quite poor in the free version, and I think has been completely disabled now. It promises to be better in the paid version, but I haven't tried that.
  • Zotero (open source): The open source research paper manager you need. If you do academic research you need one of these, and this is the free and open source one. The other ones do essentially the same, but costs a lot more. In the still relatively recent update, it got a facelift, so it's nice to look at now too. I also have a note about how to avoid paying for sync storage.

Utilities

Small programs that you either don't directly interact with, or at least don't open as an application, but rather use as a helper window. Most of them are Apple platform exclusive.

  • Data Jar: Persistent data between shortcut runs, syncs between all shortcuts enabled devices - enables much more advanced shortcut flows. - Time tracking, Workout app, Microsoft todo's day like reminders, smart suggestions, and more.
  • AltTab (open source): Brings Windows style alt-tabbing to macOS. I consider this essential functionality which is missing. (if you don't want to enable screen recording permissions, you may consider my fork which disables screen recording.)
  • noTunes (open source): A small utility that disables Apple Music, and can optionally replace the shortcuts launching Apple Music with another application.
  • Hidden Bar (open source): A small utility that lets you hide menu bar items.
  • Userscripts (open source): Run custom css and javascript in Safari.
  • PiPifier (open source): Forces picture-in-picture videos on websites which actively disable it. (useful on mobile devices where it's often disabled.)
  • Karabiner Elements (open source): A keyboard mapping utility that lets you remap and contextually remap the keyboard layout. It's not nearly as user friendly as it should be, but it's free and open source.
  • Jomo: A small utility that blocks certain apps and websites at certain times and during different focus modes. Since my workflow heavily involves focus modes, I can use Jomo to essentially enable different modes using the focus filters transforming a device from an entertainment device to a work device for example.
  • Apple Shortcuts: I retain that this app is one of the most underrated apps for iDevices, and a significant ecosystem benefit compared to the alternatives. I still haven't seen anyone take properly advantage of its capabilities on guide sites, and I believe it's because the power of the app is that you can create workflows that are so optimized for you that it barely makes sense to anyone else.

Games

In addition to the requirements specified previously, I also require that games respect my time which in practice means I tend to enjoy games with an ending, and games which are short (ideally less than 10 hours). I also tend to like games that are artistic in nature, and I have a soft spot for games with a strong visual style. I also like games to be cozy, and have low stakes if any stakes at all. Although I don't exclusively play cozy games. Desktop games get bonus points for not requiring a launcher, and for being available on Mac.

  • A Short Hike: One of my favorite games. With its beautiful art style, and quirky characters, it brings you on a no-stakes adventure where you can help people on the way, explore a small community, the island, and climb to the top of the mountain.
  • The Last Campfire: Beautiful voiceover. Touching theme although the symbolism can be a bit on the nose sometimes. Puzzles were very simple, but makes up for it by the charm of the characters.
  • Sky: Children of the light: The lessor known title from the creators of Journey. A multiplayer version with a similar vibe. I like to play it as a visitor to avoid falling in the trap of rerunning old maps to collect candles and engage with the micro transactions to buy cosmetics. The final map was too scary for me, so I didn't go far in that map. The early maps are more relaxing. I sometimes come back for the events.
  • Lego Builder's Journey: Visually stunning, innovative controls albeit clunky at times, but very touching story about rekindling your creativity as an adult minimally told through gameplay.
  • Unrailed: A chaotic local coop multiplayer game in which you gather resources to build the tracks as a train proceeds towards its destination. If the train runs out of tracks, you lose. It requires coordination and teamwork between the players to make the train reach its destination safely. Moving Out is a similar game but with lower stakes.
  • Islanders: A minimalist relaxing city builder puzzle game where you need to create synergies between different buildings and the environment to collect enough points to unlock the next level.
  • Kingdoms and Castles: A little fantasy city builder with a charming art style. The late game can become a bit stale as most of the challenge disappears. Updates have attempted to fix that, but I haven't felt the need to go back to game, as there is not enough variety to make subsequent play-throughs interesting. Yet still a fine game if you're okay with leaving it after a single play through.
  • Wildfrost: A pay-once rogue-like card game not dissimilar to Hearthstone, but with deeper mechanics that require more strategic planning.