2023 App Defaults

A lot of blogs I follow seem to be posting their default applications they use and I figure I should share mine too.

📨 Mail Client: Thunderbird
📮 Mail Server: DreamHost as it is included for free with my hosting
📝 Notes: Leuchtturm1917 A5 Hardcover Dotgrid Notebook / Logseq for digital
✅ To-Do: Nextcloud Tasks
📷 Camera App: Open Camera
🟦 Photo Management: digiKam
📆 Calendar: Nextcloud Calendar for Server / Thunderbird and KOrganizer on Desktop / Simple Calendar on Android
📁 Cloud File Storage: Nextcloud running on TrueNAS Core
📖 RSS: Nextcloud News
🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Nextcloud Contacts for Server / KAddressBook and Thunderbird on Desktop / Simple Contacts on Android
🌐 Browser: Firefox / Vivaldi Note that Vivaldi is not entirely open source, the UI is completely proprietary.
💬 Chat: Signal / Discord Website (I’m not installing their spyware)
🔖 Bookmarks: Notebook / Omnivore
📑 Read It Later: Notebook / Omnivore
📜 Word Processing: I do everything in Markdown now so whatever text editor is available
📈 Spreadsheets: LibreOffice Calc / Almost never use
📊 Presentations: LibreOffice Impress / Almost never use
🛒 Shopping Lists: Paper and a Pen
🍴 Meal Planning: N/A / I need to get into this
💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: N/A / Planning to eventually get into this as well. I used to use Mint
📰 News: All via RSS
🔐 Password Management: Bitwarden
🧮 Text Editor: VSCodium / Kate
🖥️ Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma
🔎 Search: DuckDuckGo

I mostly use open source software and services. I self-host Nextcloud and that has taken the roll of syncing all my data between my desktop and phone as well as removing dependance on 3rd party cloud providers.

I’m a fan of keeping things you want to remember in a physical medium so I try to write my notes in a notebook before transferring long term notes to pages in Logseq.

I’m not a fan of office applications like word processors and spreadsheets so I rarely use them. Plain text is usually the better format. I used to Use LibreOffice more when I was in school and before I learned about Markdown.

If anyone has some suggestions for future good open source applications please let me know.

Other App Default Lists

• Robb Knight seems to be the one that started it. I’ve not read his blog yet.
• Wouter Groeneveld
• Kev Quirk
• Manuel Moreale Where I discovered this trend.