▲ 6 r/freesoftware
Question
Based on the free software philosophy, should I reject all the devices with non free firmware that I use? For example my refrigerator or washing machine?
u/octoslamon — 19 hours ago
r/freesoftware
▲ 2 r/freesoftware
What would happen if the FSF published a GPLv4 license that basically mirrors the 2-clause BSD license?
What would happen if the FSF published a GPLv4 license that basically mirrors the 2-clause BSD license? How devastating would it be for all those GPLv2+ and GPLv3+ software projects?
u/tuxnine — 22 hours ago
I built an open-source tool to transfer large files directly between two PCs over an Ethernet cable with zero config (EtherTransfer)
Hey everyone,
Whenever I needed to move 100GB+ between two laptops or PCs, the usual options were annoying:
- Wi-Fi/SMB sharing is slow and frequently drops on large directory trees.
- Cloud storage takes hours and caps upload speeds.
- USB flash drives require copying everything twice.
- Direct Ethernet cables usually require configuring static IPs, subnet masks, or running a DHCP server.
I built EtherTransfer to make direct LAN transfers as plug-and-play as possible.
How it works:
Connect a standard Ethernet cable between two PCs (no crossover cable needed, modern NICs handle auto-MDIX).
Launch the app on both machines.
They discover each other automatically over link-local IPv4 (169.254.x.x) via UDP broadcasts.
Drag & drop files or entire folders and stream at full link speed (115MB/s on 1GbE, 1GB/s+ on 10GbE).
Key points:
- 100% offline — zero internet, zero cloud servers, zero telemetry.
- Preserves deep directory structures without needing to zip first.
- Cross-platform support for Windows (10/11) and Linux.
- Built with .NET 10 and Avalonia UI.
- MIT Licensed.
GitHub Repo & Downloads: https://github.com/divyviradiya2/ethertransfer
Live Website: https://divyviradiya2.github.io/ethertransfer/
Would love feedback on transfer stability, edge cases, or features you'd like to see added.
u/divyviradiya — 2 days ago
Edge-Drop v0.2.7: big performance improvements, Windows fixes, and a new home for the project.
Hey everyone,
I've just released Edge-Drop v0.2.7, and it's one of the biggest technical updates so far.
Highlights:
-Much better memory management with disk-backed storage for larger text, image thumbnail generation to keep GPU usage stable,.
-Fixed Windows fullscreen detection so the desktop isn't treated like a game.
-Self-healing launch at login that repairs stale startup entries.
-Universal drag and drop, offline rich link previews.
-New settings to tweak sensitivity and history behavior, and Persian language support.
One thing I'm especially happy about is how much smoother it feels day to day. Large clipboard items no longer balloon memory, and images are handled really cleanly.
Also, on a personal note This project actually started as something just built for myself. I wanted a tool that worked the way I had imagined. I decided to open source it and share it, and since then, it's grown to over, 1500+ downloads. As a solo CS student, that's honestly something I never expected., thanks to everyone who downloaded, tested, reported bugs, shared it, or bought me a coffee.
That support helped me get a permanent domain for the project, edgedrop.app.
It sounds small, but as a solo student building this open source project, it feels massive. If you want to try it or share feedback, I'd love to hear what you think.
GitHub: github.com/Deepender25/Edge-Drop
Microsoft Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9P3JMHN9M4NR
u/AdiArtist — 5 days ago
Got tired of uploading files to random online converters so i built this
So I got tired of uploading my videos/images to some random online converter every time just to change format or compress them. privacy is dead, files take forever, and half those sites are sus as fuck.
so i built AVI Core
it’s a simple python cli (ffmpeg under the hood) that also adds a native right-click option in windows explorer. just right-click the file → convert/compress. done.
no uploading. no waiting. no weird websites.
still early and kinda rough but it already does the job for me.
github: https://sahil524.github.io/AVI-Core/
lmk if it breaks or if you want something added. being real, feedback helps.
u/Dabster_568 — 6 days ago
▲ 7 r/freesoftware
Atari Video Music Digital Replica App?
Isn't there a FOSS that acts like the Atari Video Music?
u/Limp-Commercial9660 — 6 days ago
▲ 22 r/freesoftware
Free and open source dating apps?
Has anyone tried any open source dating apps? such as Duolicious (currently the most users), Alovoa, Compass, etc?
Facebook Dating is free, but isn’t open source.
Are there any others that I missed that you’ve tried? My opinion is that the userbase is still quite small for them to work well, but I guess Duolicious is getting there.
u/ChippingCoder — 9 days ago
BitScribe Digital Media Library Steward
Hi everyone!
I'm excited to announce the release of my new app, BitScribe Digital Media Library Steward.
What's BitScribe? It's a fully offline desktop tool built for cataloging, auditing, and understanding large audio/video collections, media libraries, and digital archives.
Version 1.5.0 is the first publicly released version. I built this using Google AI Studio, because I wanted to learn "Vibe Coding." Over the past two months, I've built dozens of revisions and spent hundreds of hours refining and testing to avoid "AI Slop." I'm pretty proud of the results, and I hope it'll help you wrangle your media library.
Note on AI and privacy: The app never transmits data of any kind to any server. All processing and data handling is 100% local and does not use any form of local AI model to perform its functions.
🚀 Core Features:
- Media Discovery Scan: Add your media folders to scan for all supported video and music formats. Ebooks and Audiobooks are not supported, FYI.
- Safe Data Routing: All local SQLite databases, logs, and sidecar tools are strictly routed to standard user app data directories (Application Support on macOS) to preserve code signing and prevent system security alerts. In portable versions, the database is created alongside the app.
- Offline Only: Fast local scanning with zero cloud dependencies. The app does not require internet access, AI or any other external stuff not included with the package. It never contacts any server (even to check for updates, which might be unwise, but we'll see what folks think), it never shares telemetry or contacts any server other than network shares you point it to (your Plex or Jellyfin server, for example).
- Native macOS & Windows Support: Pre-compiled .dmg (Apple Silicon) and .msi/.exe (Windows) installers. Linux versions coming soon.
Media Audit/Scan Features
- Stream Audit: In-depth media stream metadata extraction (codecs, bitrates, audio channels, color spaces, containers, frame rates, etc). This evaluates your videos against three tiers of compatibility: Legacy+, for older streaming devices; Modern+, for devices made in the last 5 or so years; and Bleeding Edge, for the codecs that only perform well on the newest hardware. This helps you decide whether you need to transcode a video so your server can direct play it without taxing the CPU.
- Quality Audit: Scour both video and music files to determine their quality levels and find files that are either bloated (too high a bitrate for a given resolution using a given codec) or starved (too low a bitrate for decent quality). This can help you decide to re-rip or find a better quality copy.
- Subtitle Audit: Checks all your video files to determine whether they have either embedded or sidecar subtitles included, and flags those that are either missing subs or use an older image based subtitle format that can trigger server-side transcoding.
- Duplication Scan: Heuristically scours your media library and looks for duplicate files wasting space. Pretty good at weeding out false positives, too!
- Metadata Audit: Scans the metadata headers of every supported file type, both video and music, to identify which files have metadata, which are missing metadata, and what that metadata is.
Cleanup & Reporting Features
- Title Cleanup: During a Discovery Scan, the system automatically parses file names to identify the actual title of videos or movies. If it's impossible from the file name, it reviews metadata. In libraries of over 25,000 items where either the filename or metadata have the correct parts, it's about 99% effective at identifying the real title correctly. The correct title is stored in the database and exported when you create reports.
- Multi-Format Export Engine: Synchronized reporting across CSV, HTML interactive dashboards, and formatted Excel Workbooks with metadata rules. It can also export JSON for use with other software. Excel workbooks and HTML reports are beautifully formatted. HTML formats are interactive, with filters by media type and metrics.
- Built-in Product Tour and Demo Data: When you first boot up BitScribe Steward, you'll be greated by Bitsy, our Digital Media Librarian. She'll guide you through the various features of the app via a series of slides, some of which contain animated demos of various features. If you ever need her again, you can launch the tour from any of the tabs and it'll automatically begin at the slides for that specific page!
📥 Links & Downloads:
Bug Reports, Feature Requests, etc.
I’d love to hear your feedback, bug reports, or feature requests for anything I may not have considered. This is my first app, so be gentle :).
Main Application Stack: Tauri v2, React 19, TypeScript, Rust, SQLite, ffprobe.
u/jasongw — 8 days ago
▲ 10 r/freesoftware
Small screenshot/record app
Hello :) i built a small screenshot app, you can take a screenshot and edit it in a simple editor
Recently, i add a record ( beta )
i make it to improve my skills
You can see a source in Github, and download stable version from here
if you found a issues, bug or you want to add a new feature. you can tell me:)
Thanks !
u/libreglow — 9 days ago
Windows voice typing has been broken for 3 years and Microsoft doesn't care, so I built my own
I built SpeakoFlow because I was done with Win+H dropping mid-sentence and needing internet to work. And I wasn't paying $144/year for Wispr Flow just to talk into a text box.
So I built a replacement. It started as just dictation but kind of spiraled.
The core: Press a hotkey, talk, text appears wherever your cursor is. VS Code, Discord, Word, browser, whatever. Runs locally using Whisper on your GPU or CPU. Nothing leaves your machine.
But it also does:
- A voice AI assistant with a floating panel. Ask by voice, get answers out loud.
- Screen vision. It sees what's on your screen and answers with that context.
- "Hey Flow" mode. Say the trigger phrase and instead of raw dictation, it writes a polished reply or email for you.
- Web search, personal memory, multiple voice profiles, translation, AI grammar cleanup.
I know that sounds like a lot. But day to day it's just: press hotkey, talk, done. Everything else is there when you want it.
The offline thing is real. Built-in assistant runs a local model on your hardware. No API key, no account, no internet. If you want something stronger, bring your own key or point it at Ollama. Your choice.
Free, MIT open source, no telemetry
Website: https://speakoflow.com
Source: https://github.com/AbhishekBarali/SpeakoFlow
If something sucks or crashes, Please tell me. Actively working on it.
u/MoodOdd9657 — 13 days ago
▲ 1 r/freesoftware
Help: Installing PyMacroRecorder on Mac (cd <PATH TO SOFTWARE FOLDER>)
Whenever I type and execute cd <PATH TO SOFTWARE FOLDER>, on the Python terminal, and press enter, all I get is the T of "TO" highlighted in red, and the text, SyntaxError: invalid syntax. How do I fix this? And the instructions on the website don't highlight anything about installing the app on Mac, so are there any differing specifics
u/Pardis4 — 9 days ago
▲ 45 r/freesoftware
[OS] Open source fuzzy launcher with Kindle theme
Hi there, I’m someone who has used Spotlight extensively;
However, I’ve noticed its performance has dropped recently, sometimes I can’t find the apps I’m looking for, and locating specific files and folders has become particularly difficult.
That’s why we developed Look - an open-source, that is completely FREE.
(Even though it's free, it has been signed with developer key and notarized.)
It has already surpassed 2,000 initial downloads, and we’ve received a great deal of feedback to help us improve during this development phase.
If you’re looking for a completely free replacement for Spotlight, I think Look could be a nice choice. 🙏
https://github.com/kunkka19xx/look
LICENSE: GPL-3.0 license
u/hxxx07 — 12 days ago
Does anyone else get annoyed by constant Alt-Tabbing when you have to copy multiple things from one place to another?
Like when you're filling out a form or moving 5 different fields from a browser into a document/config file, and you end up doing: Ctrl+C ➔ Alt+Tab ➔ Ctrl+V ➔ Alt+Tab... five times in a row.
I kept running into this frustration during work, so I decided to build a small Windows desktop tool called QPaste to fix it.
Basically, it adds a temporary "Queue Mode" to your clipboard when you hit F4. You can Ctrl+C multiple things sequentially in one go, switch over to your destination window, and just hit Ctrl+V multiple times. It automatically pastes everything in the exact order you copied it (First-In, First-Out). Once the queue clears out, your normal copy-paste behavior goes right back to default.
It’s completely open-source, lightweight, and built using Python & PyQt6 as an everyday tool. If you deal with form filling or repetitive data entry or even day-to-day tasks, check it out and let me know your thoughts or feedback! i would love to hear.
GitHub: https://github.com/chinthanasathyajithcs/qpaste
dropping a ⭐ star on the repo would mean a lot!
u/chinthanasath — 13 days ago
▲ 35 r/freesoftware
Who is educating "regular folks" about open source?
FOSS could be a great resource for non-geeks, for community, economic, and workforce development. But, most "regular folks" — including every business & civic leader I've talked to — don't know it exists or what it is. Most assume it's AI. This means they won't (a) consider it as a solution, (b) support its development, or (c) use it strategically, which is very different from strategy for closed, proprietary solutions. So, my question...
Are there any initiatives or organizations that are working to raise awareness of, inform or educate non-geeks about free software? I've researched Free Software Foundation, Linux Foundation, and Open Source Initiative. None seem to be doing anything or have anything more than background information. They're preaching to the converted.
Is anyone working to "cross the chasm" for FOSS?
u/zagadocious — 13 days ago
[FOSS] NeoDLP - Modern Video/Audio Downloader based on YT-DLP with Browser Integration
Hello, Everyone! 👋
I made NeoDLP - A modern cross-platform video/audio downloader with browser integration based on YT-DLP! And it just crossed 150K+ downloads!
You can think of it as: The Free 'IDM' for Media Downloads or The 'Seal' for Desktop. If you have ever used 'IDM' (on Windows) or the 'Seal' app (on Android), you will feel right at home!
NeoDLP offers many features & customization options to give you better control over your downloads, with a modern, easy-to-use user interface and seamless browser integration! Some highlighted features of NeoDLP are:
- Cross-Platform - NeoDLP works flawlessly on Windows, macOS, and Linux
- Zero Setup Hassle - NeoDLP comes with a fully configured yt-dlp environment out-of-the-box (with FFmpeg, JS Runtime, PO Token Server, Real-Time Log Viewer, and many more.) Just install NeoDLP, and you are good to go! (No extra setup or command-line knowledge required)
- Vast Site Support - Download from Thousands of Sites (YT, IG, FB, X, and other 2.5K+ sites)
- Browser Integration - One-click download directly from your browser (Requires NeoDLP Extension to be installed on your browser)
- NeoDLP Library - Manage your downloads with ease with NeoDLP Library
- Multiple Quality Options - Download from Quality Presets (up to 8K 60fps HDR) -OR- Combine the Video, Audio stream of your choice
- Multiple Formats - Download in MP4, WEBM, MKV, MP3, etc.
- Batch/Playlist Download - Download the full playlist in one go (or just the items you want)
- Multiple Embedding Options - Embed Multi-Lingual Subtitles, Thumbnail, and Metadata
- SponsorBlock Support - Remove sponsors and unwanted sections from videos
- Cookies Support - Download private/exclusive login-protected content by passing browser cookies
- Aria2 Integration - Download with aria2c as an external downloader for blazing fast downloads
- Custom Commands - Run custom YT-DLP command templates (for advanced users)
- NeoDLP Updates - You don't have to worry about updates; daily yt-dlp auto-update is already pre-configured, and you will be notified when a new version of NeoDLP drops!
Also, NeoDLP is absolutely Free to Use, Fully Open Sourced, Works 100% Locally, No Ads, Trackers or Login, and the best part: It's **Not Vibe-Coded** (So, you get quality software with regular updates)
So, if you often download videos from various sites, give NeoDLP a shot! And, feel free to drop your feedback and suggestions below! I would love to hear from you :)
Official Website | GitHub Project (FOSS - MIT License)
>Concerned? "Whether NeoDLP is safe to install or not...??" - Well, it absolutely is! But, just for the sake of proof, see the VirusTotal scan report: NeoDLP_0.4.4_x64-setup.exe
u/neosubhamoy — 14 days ago
▲ 6 r/freesoftware
Is Satsuki decoder pack legit??
I've been looking for a codec and came across this free 'Satsuki decoder pack' but i can barely find anything about it other than some sites to download it and one single french video on youtube. I think the ui is really cool and the whole thing seems pretty great but does anyone know if it's safe?
u/Nihei-Lesbians6996 — 14 days ago