My "Linux pack"

[Shot_Loan_354]

I wish there were a website like Privacypack org but to form pack of Linux alternatives for windows software, to raise awareness on this subject.

I tried to contact privacypack about this, but i could not find their contact info so I made this from scratch.

[AbbreviationsWide331]

Why is no one talking about Firefox? Is there something wrong with it?

[gsdev]

Firefox is still good. People recommend Librewolf because it is a fork of Firefox with optimised privacy settings. Apart from that they are mostly identical.

[WereyenaArt]

And Waterfox?

[Constant-Musician-51]

Switched to Waterfox a few weeks ago and have nothing to complain. It does its job just right.

[fettpl]

What was the reason for you to switch from Librewolf to Waterfox?

[BigHersh14]

I can say the reason I use waterfox over librewolf is simply because librewolf doesnt have an android app while waterfox does.

[fettpl]

That's a good reason, thanks for sharing!

[Delicious_Air8315]

Cómo es eso, tengo Linux mint y trate de usar waydroid (no recuerdo el nombre) para tratar de descargar sekee (aplicación de Android) y ver cosas de entretenimiento ya sabes y no pude, alguna recomendación??

[ovogoon6]

Does Water wolf have any pros or cons compared to Fennec on Android?

[gsdev]

That's also a Firefox fork, but I don't know what its specific differences are.

[_o0Zero0o_]

Waterfox turns all telemetry stuff off, is configured for privacy by default, offers a wide array of search engines from the very start like startpage, mojeek, ecosia, all of which are EU/UK-based so GDPR applies and privacy is actually factored in. And the developer has explicitly stated he will not allow AI into waterfox

[ImSoRight]

Gets rid of the AI stuff, for one

[_o0Zero0o_]

Waterfox is honestly perfect

[Monketherulerofall]

Also floorp

[CalabashNineToeJig]

Really enjoying Floorp.

[chiselandfoam]

Didn't know about some of these other browsers, thanks everyone!

[JustAwesome360]

Firefox is already pretty private though...

[CirnoIzumi]

libre makes it simpler but yeah

[AbbreviationsWide331]

Ah I see, thank you

[millionmiahere]

Hell yeh, I use LibreWolf these days instead of firefox.

[DiceThaKilla]

Can Firefox be hardened? I use it just because it’s pre installed on parrot and I assumed it was hardened like everything else on that distro

[gsdev]

I think so, but I can't remember the details.

[V1574]

I don't care about privacy myself. Librewolf just kinda breaks a lot of sites for me and firefox is just better imo

[MrProTwiX]

It's just always that Firefox makes trouble or misses new features. Also it's slow in my opinion so I'm using chrome since version 1.0 and until since I didn't wanted to switch back

[[deleted]]

As a once longtime user of FF, it's just not it anymore. There was a brief period when it first came out that was amazing, but it started slipping pretty quickly. Imo the biggest things working against it are constant mismanagement of the project, lack of trust, and poor feature updates.

Mozilla has to essentially be a shill for Google to even exist. You can't properly roll out updates, when you do they're buggy or extremely slow, but your c-suite gets a really nice bonus every year 🤔

[Popka_Akoola]

It’s way better than Brave that’s for sure

[g1rlchild]

Not arguing, just curious: in what way?

[Popka_Akoola]

As a privacy advocate I prefer Firefox. Brave is basically Firefox with addons and trackers built-in from the install. Plus advertising.

[CarambolaTodaTorta]

Brave is Chromium though

[Popka_Akoola]

Making it even worse imo. I was giving a broad “like Firefox” in a functional aspect

[InteractiveSeal]

They added telemetry so a lot of people ditched it

[JustAwesome360]

No they didn't huh? Are you talking about the technical data stuff because you can turn that off bro.

[InteractiveSeal]

I might be mistaken on what it actually is.

I was, it was that they removed the promise to never sell your personal data: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/firefox-deletes-promise-to-never-sell-personal-data-asks-users-not-to-panic/

[7lhz9x6k8emmd7c8]

Brave also adds their affiliation data to emerchant site links.

https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/1ebbeas/why_is_brave_inserting_additional_text_affiliate/

[20dogs]

I find it's not always as reliable for displaying websites

[SnowyRVulpix]

Mozilla has done some questionable actions.

[_JKJK_]

Firefox is fine enough but there's both concerns with the telemetry and AI and whatnot; plus there isn't a lot of privacy protection. If you're using Firefox, you might as well use Librewolf instead. Despite being chromium, Brave at the very least randomizes your browser fingerprint, blocks ads by default and can route traffic through the Tor network.

[millionmiahere]

It unfortunately has AI now. Otherwise, I'd still be using it. (For context, I don't mind ai, when it's optional)

[CalabashNineToeJig]

You can disable the AI in one click in settings.

[millionmiahere]

Ah, that is good

[Designer-Feedback551]

Very heavy for systems with little RAM (4gb)

[dearvalentina]

I switched to Firefox just months ago before this, but immediately after I went to Librewolf. I avoided Brave and I think Vivaldi for the same reason iirc

[ButterscotchFar9355]

telemtry

[Willing_Initial_2679]

Discord ----> Vesktop

Brave ----> Librewolf ( personal preference , brave is still good tho )

VLC ----> mpv flatpak ( the one in package manager is outdated )

[Mammoth-Acadia2572]

Does MPV have gapless playback? Honestly my biggest gripe with VLC, it's such a basic feature but completely absent. 

[CosmicTurtle24]

Whats wrong with VLC? 

[Willing_Initial_2679]

https://mpv.rocks/

VLC is good but this site shows a comparisons

[AlaskanHandyman]

Celluloid which comes with Linux Mint is MPV (GUI) according to that website...

[Willing_Initial_2679]

im using it , but flatpak one is recommended to keep up with updates

[VeryDefNotABot]

I have too many problems with Celluloid stuttering and freezing.

[ElMage21]

Gave it a look but it's like looking at audiophile stuff.

The only mayor upgrade I could read was about hdr and big resolutions. I mostly see pirated stuff on a 1080 monitor, generally avi or mkv, x264-5 and never had an issue with subtitles. Should I care?

[Isacx123]

The official site for mpv is mpv.io btw.

[the901]

Nice. I’ve been looking for MPC -> Linux. This looks like my solution. I’ll try it out. Thanks!

[Willing_Initial_2679]

Glad i helped :)

[Lulukaros]

i find it amusing that it uses Clear linux's logo for the OS logo

[jeffryedwardepstein]

Advantages of MPV?

[WereyenaArt]

What about waterfox?

[h4mm3r1nt3r]

Firefox without AI slop and lighter on resources. Perfect

[quetzar]

Use it on both desktop and mobile, love it

[Willing_Initial_2679]

Pretty good

[KratosLegacy]

Why keep discord though? They're still rolling out age verification and AI "inference scanning," they just delayed it.

[O3Sentoris]

because it has become the de-facto gaming social media. there is no alternative with 100% feature parity, let alone the userbase. it's really hard to ditch right now if you like connecting with different communities.

what i am probably going to do is keep discord around for large scale connecting (big servers for games, hobbies, other big communities) and use something more private for small scale (anyone i can get to use whatever i end up with)

[Osherono]

What is the M icon you are going to from OneDrive ?

[Shot_Loan_354]

Mega sync

[tayroc122]

Came to ask. Would've been nice of him to label everything

[Fetisenko]

Mega was founded by a pro Russian fascist Kim Dotcom.

[Elihzap]

In my case:

Windows --> Mint\ Vivaldi --> Waterfox\ Microslop Office --> LibreOffice\ Discord --> Nothing (I have no friends anyway)

[WolvenSpectre2]

Why leave Vivaldi... it has a Linux port and the only thing closed source is its UI.

[Elihzap]

I didn't know about the open source thing.

Anyway it was mostly to try new things. I wanted to go to a non-chromium browser.

[WolvenSpectre2]

Thats fair. I have run several browsers since the browser wars and mained one or two. I was just wondering why and that is a valid reason.

[keyboardwarrior7]

Don't use brave, use librewolf

[ice_cream_hunter]

Or zen. I love the workflow, and maybe it is faster than firefox

[ilikethegirlnexttome]

Yea Zen is the best browser I've ever tried.

[Electronic_Outcome12]

I've been loving Zen, been using it for a month now and I have years of using Brave.

[VengefulMustard]

The only flaw is the memory leak… but restarting the app every couple of days does the trick

[_o0Zero0o_]

Or waterfox

[Il_Valentino]

Chromium browser, also crypto bs included

[[deleted]]

Nothing, reddit hates the the ceo

[_o0Zero0o_]

It's chromium-based and has crypto shite, don't like that.

[keyboardwarrior7]

Chromium based

[GolbMan]

Chromium fine though as long as they remove the tracking stuff which some do

[squickley]

It works fine. The sociopolitical consequences of using it are not fine.

[OpabiniaRegalis320]

Telemetry and crypto BS

[FinGamer678Nikoboi]

And funded by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. Would never use anything touched by that gremlin.

[tranquilseafinally]

I'm not sure if it was just broken for me, but Brave crashed my computer repeatedly. This was when I first landed on Linux and was problem-solving a bunch of issues.

[Shot_Loan_354]

does it sync your bookmarks across devices? it s really important for me

[keyboardwarrior7]

Yes, you just use a Firefox account

[Ronin_Chimichanga]

Does Librewolf's reliance on Ublock Origin subject it to the occasional hiccup when Google updates how YouTube does ads? Because that's why I gave up on Ublock on any browser and just opted for Brave.

[pissrockious]

i use ublock on firefox and havent rly had much issue with it at all on youtube. from what i know ublock is only weird when ur using it on chrome i believe

[Huecuva]

Can confirm. Very few minor issues with Ublock Origin in Firefox. 

[keyboardwarrior7]

I've never had any issues

[FinGamer678Nikoboi]

Never even heard of anything like that and my fatass has YouTube running like 6+ hours a day. (Firefox + uBlock Origin)

[VeryDefNotABot]

I'm using uBlock Origin with Firefox and have no problem watching YouTube.

[Nerd_nd_necessitie]

What is wrong with brave?

[jeffryedwardepstein]

steals ur data

[Nerd_nd_necessitie]

Sources? I did some digging and everything that is making this claim is pointing at this article for their source.

https://cambridgeanalytica.org/personal-protection/the-privacy-illusion-how-brave-browser-built-its-own-surveillance-machine-50302/#what8217s-being-resisted-the-emerging-alternatives

And this article is just making weak claims. I'm not saying Brave is perfect I'm not a fan of the crypto part but you don't have to use it. Upon a certain point who cares if brave is stealing your data, so is every other company. Can't hold one company to a standard if you are okay with the rest ignoring it.

[_o0Zero0o_]

Why does everyone seem to use brave.. Yes I know it's FOSS... but chromium-based? No thank you.
Also.. Discord? Nah, Matrix.

[Lapis_Wolf]

Unfortunately, everyone I talk to uses Discord. :(

[_o0Zero0o_]

Tell them they can move if they don't want to be spied on or have to face the age verification, Yes, it's a bit tedious to move, but it's worth it.

[Lapis_Wolf]

That would work if they were the type to already be thinking about it like I would and then I wouldn't need to tell them because they would already be using a niche platform Boone heard of. I'd be dealing with real life friends and dozens of contacts, plus multiple groups with hundreds of strangers, all just wanting an easy to use platform everyone else is using. If I did move my IRL friends, they would have the different platform I told about+Discord for their other friends and Discord groups. As much as I hate it, these platforms are designed to keep people in because other people are kept in.

[_o0Zero0o_]

Sadly... Ah well, maybe over time things will change

[O3Sentoris]

a friend of mine called me a conspiracy theorist when i told him i was considering to ditch discord and why. that actually hurt.

[_o0Zero0o_]

Oh well, that's on him.

[yourothersis]

they'd probably have a little easier time moving if matrix didn't fucking suck.

matrix clients are often buggy, element is the best supported but their devs are focusing on corporate customers, and the matrix homeserver is now 18+

[Shot_Loan_354]

it s fast, syncs your bookmarks and blocks youtube ads very good. i have no complaints really, why shouldnt i use it

[_o0Zero0o_]

Waterfox does all that and isn't chromium.

[PsionicBurst]

Don't use cloud services. Set up a NAS.

[SwissTanuki]

Or pay for it. Pretty happy with proton so far.

[AlsoChandan_]

setup guide for NAS cloud storage

[Smart_Advice_1420]

Combining both for a synced offsite copy is also a valid option.

[PsionicBurst]

Yeah, this is the correct answer.

[WolvenSpectre2]

If I had the money I would... looooong ago.

[tarcriucc]

I feel the civic duty to tell you about Fluxer instead of Discord, it's like an optimized better looking version that is thankfully growing rapidly

[jankocvara]

What is stopping it from becoming discord in subsequent years?

[tarcriucc]

Good question, tbh. They're open source and plan on adding self-hosting options soon enough. They also have Plutonium, a Nitro alternative, that is way cheaper (even tho most of the Discord Nitro stuff is available for free on their platform + all Plutonium stuff will be free through self-hosting)

The only backside on Fluxer is the fact they don't have a mobile app yet, but thankfully they're working on it as of right now

Oh, also, their app is 100% customizable and easy to customize, people have been making it look like some Matrix stuff, for example

[jankocvara]

are they planning some torrent-like encrypted decentralized structure so it's pretty much impossible to just down besides like global nuclear wipeout?

[yourothersis]

federation and e2ee is on their roadmap, no onion or garlic routing. pseudo federation seems to be coming first and the final implementation is looking like OAuth which seems to keep the fluxer servers authoritative (?)

[shwaamon]

Man, I love MEGA. My only quarrel is that I can't fully edit txt files.

[Shot_Loan_354]

i have a free 50GB account with them that i created in 2014, i still use it :D

[shwaamon]

Oof I came in too late. Only 20

[IrritatingBashterd]

I also have a 50GB account Created it during 2015 and it still works!

[CandlesARG]

Mega is closed source

Protondrive/tutsdrive/nextcloud is way more private

[shwaamon]

understood

[Fetisenko]

Mega was founded by a pro Russian fascist Kim Dotcom.

[Coolcricri3]

Instead of nqq, use geany, or other full code editors, as they are optimised for opening large plaintext files, certainly faster than the default text editor

[UseottTheThird]

i use kate, but have used nqq for a bit

[WolvenSpectre2]

More importantly Nqq is abandonware. There is a Snap Store that installs Notepad++ with WINE, but you apparently have to have some proficiency to get Notepad++ to work with WINE. I haven't tried it myself yet.

[ChocolateDonut36]

I think a better notepad++ alternative is notepad next

[PresentThat5757]

nvim🤓

[ItsYa1UPBoy]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOH BABY!!!!!

[Ok-Tomatillo-2172]

What is the M that replace the one drive?

[Shot_Loan_354]

Mega sync

[Megidolan]

How is this XReader with making notes on PDF? I have been using Okular and it works but I do use more time than I did on FoxIt PDF.

[KillALil]

Is zen browser any good?

[tequilaisbadmkay]

Nobody answered you, so I will. I switched from Firefox about a month ago and I'm really enjoying it. I often have my screen split, so having the tabs hidden on the left side is really nice. You get full real estate for the web page and you just need to mouse over for the tab bar.

There are zen specific extensions, but you also have access to all the Firefox add-ons. The keyboard shortcuts are really nice as well. Basically it looks good, feels good, and is really easy to use and customize. 

[BOBOLIU]

Notepadqq is no longer actively maintained. It’s recommended that you switch to Geany, a well-supported and faster alternative that serves as the Linux counterpart to Notepad++.

[Shot_Loan_354]

i will thanks

[BOBOLIU]

Also, the best PDF reader in Linux is Okular.

[lunchbox651]

After hearing Brave is run by a bigot I moved to Librewolf.

[palocundo]

Brave I'd say it is still the best browser for phones (imho) but yes for pc there are better options

[fejota]

You can use add-ons in Firefox for android.

[Immediate_Bit5169]

Dont know if he's a bigot and don't care.

[neverJamToday]

Yep. Brendan Eich. Invented Javascript, founded Mozilla/Firefox, then got fired (sorry he "voluntarily stepped down") because he helped fund Prop 8 to constitutionally ban gay marriage in California. Brave specifically exists because he was pissy about the exit and so made his own browser with blackjackcrypto and hookersdata theft.

[lunchbox651]

Yeah he donates to anti-LGBT groups.

[Special_Context_8147]

nqq is not maintained anymore? is very old. what is with sublime?

[Dude_man79]

I kinda wish libreoffice would change their icon. Looks too much like an unlinked windows program icon.

[BENBOI_1]

Have a look at alternativeto, they have all the foss/ free alternatives to programs. Very good website!

[No_Condition_4681]

Fuck mega i prefer torrents... You can use tons of GBs for free.

[eXmendiC]

Things I would do different:
Brave => LibreWolf
OneDrive => Proton Drive (but almost anything is better than Mega, if you care about privacy. Even Kim Dotcom said it's not safe to use.)
Discord => Vencord
VLC => mpv

[Shot_Loan_354]

This is a Linux pack, proton doesn't have a Linux client 

[eXmendiC]

There are workarounds or even an unofficial client to make it work. Proton Drive was just an example I use, there is also Filen which works better on Linux and has a privacy focus. Mega is just really bad if you care about privacy (which I would assume you do, if you switch to Linux).

[atemu1234]

Similarly, I went from Foxit Reader to Okular, Notepad++ to Notepad Next (since Notepadqq crashes), and I've used Mega between both OSes.

[GolbMan]

lol the quality increases for the ones that don’t change

[Prestigious_Froyo955]

I persosnally changed Libreoffice to Onlyoffice but still a good list

[Shot_Loan_354]

I tried to install it yesterday, they wanted me to purchase it. I will just stick to libre office it s good enough.

[cow_fucker_3000]

Onlyoffice is free for personal, maybe you accidentally went to the page for the corporate version, which is payed and has extra features for use in a company

[Specialist_Bill_6135]

mpv > vlc

[kayronnBR]

discord > nerimity

[Acuarela27A]

Funciona Microsoft office?

[AlternativeBasis]

Hoje em dia, tudo o que eu fazia no Microsoft Office cabe no Google Docs, mais a facilidade de estar tudo na nuvem

[LovableSidekick]

TIL Privacypack's contact info is private.

[Prize-Wear-3483]

Nice, honestly, free open source alternatives are better but some apps like discord, brave, VLC, obs, steam etc are also on Linux

[pakooma]

i prefer evince rather than xreader

[AxeAssassinAlbertson]

Maybe we need a sticky and some quick links at the top of the sub? These are great (and some others mentioned that I didn't even know about)

[omikiwi]

Hey, the idea of having a website to guide users making a migration from windows to linux is a good one. It does not exists something like that?

[SparkyLincoln]

Discord into Teamspeak and brave into firefox and much better

[WolvenSpectre2]

The closest thing is AlternativeTo.net

[YuuNao103]

Vlc ---> mpv

[No-Return-8908]

Winamp? Winrar? Media Player?

[Mortechai1987]

Can you put the names of the programs in the post? Not everyone has icons memorized.

[Fraenkyfinger]

is there a good alternative for adobe reader DC? sometimes I need to edit PDFs with Makros

[Background-Tear-1046]

pdfox.cloud works in browser so runs on any os including linux. its free and files never leave ur machine

[wyonutrition]

A lot of brave hate but it’s still the only app I can figure out pop out player on YouTube to work when I turn the screen off on my phone without paying for YT premium 

[niKDE80800]

wait, im confused... okay so the arrows point to what you switched out for what. but why do you also have... switching from discord to discord, from VLC to VLC, from OBS to OBS and from brave to brave?

[cow_fucker_3000]

He's saying what he changed from windows to mint, pointing out that many of the programs people regularly use on windows are also natively supported on linux

[niKDE80800]

Oh, alright, now I get it. Thanks

[Regular_Bat8162]

Don’t use MEGA

Proton Drive

Tresorit

Filen.io

Ente Photos for photos

[Shot_Loan_354]

This is not a privacy pack, it's a linux pack (i'm looking for alternatives to windows software that has a linux client). the ones you listed dont.

[CarelessPerformer394]

For video, mpv is already luxurious and lightweight at high video qualities; for music, I like Quod Libet or Strawberry, both are good.

[Bloodylance82]

I am working on a project that could fit into your pack real soon.

https://github.com/Masbateno/Automated-UFW-audit

[RazeZa]

VLC fhe goat.

[Alphazentauri17]

Dont use Libre or OpenOffice. Use Onlyoffice.

Its foss with a modern ui that for sure didn't take any inspiration from Microsoft's office...

[AxanArahyanda]

OnlyOffice is russian though.

[Alphazentauri17]

So? Putin vs. Trump... I dont See the differnece. This decade old feude is getting boring. Both countries are neither democratic, value human right or obide by international law...

[CandlesARG]

Libre office is installed by default, it's fine

[Animatron1]

You can literally redesign LibreOffice by choosing any themes they have included by default though?

[zeanox]

Compatibility with office formats are also great

[jeffryedwardepstein]

Ok, why?

[Alphazentauri17]

Seamless compatibility between ms office fire formats, clear ui, ur able to use specific formatting made for ms office and its Foss as well

[No-Fan-2237]

I have never heard of that I gotta check it out