this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2025

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Privacy

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Recommend some open-source tools for privacy! (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/47032660

Discover Hidden Gems: Open-Source Software You Should Know About

We all love open-source software, but there are so many amazing projects out there that often go unnoticed. Let's change that! Share your favorite open-source software that you think more people should know about. Here’s how you can contribute:

Single Option Per Comment: Mention one open-source software per comment to be able to easily find the most popular software.

No Duplicates: Avoid duplicating software that has already been mentioned to ensure a wide variety of options.

Upvote What You Love: If you see a software that you also appreciate, upvote it to help others discover it more easily.

Check out last year's post for more inspiration: Last Year's Post

Let's create a comprehensive list of open-source software that everyone should know about!

I advise you to post any recommendations to the original post, I was just sharing it here so others can find it! I also wanna see those recs myself so that's the motive for posting this 😅

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[–] Stomata@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 days ago (2 children)

XMPP. It replaced WhatsApp in my family that signal failed to do.

[–] EngineerGaming@retrolemmy.com 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Conversations is a good client for mobile. Pretty much on par with Whatsapp in ease of use.

[–] Stomata@sh.itjust.works 2 points 23 hours ago

Yep pretty lightweight and simple with no extra bloat

[–] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 12 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I'm curious, I've never had the chance to really use Signal much, and I've never used an XMPP client before. What made you dislike Signal and use XMPP instead? I wish I could convince my iMessage loving mom to jump to anything else.

[–] EngineerGaming@retrolemmy.com 3 points 1 day ago

I prefer it because of resilience. A centralized service can be weakened, geoblocked or shut down by proposals like Chat Control. Decentralized protocols are much safer in such an environment, especially if there is variety in clients and servers.

[–] Stomata@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I had no issue with signal (except phone number verification) but according to my family members signal uses a lot of ram and battery. Non of them have Google play services. XMPP doesn't use that much resources and it's simple, no unnecessary bloat.

[–] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Sure all family members dont have play services...

Also bullshit that Signals drains ram or battery, i wouldnt notice and never heard this before.

[–] F04118F 8 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Maybe Signal drains battery when it can't use Google Play Services for notifications and falls back to keeping a connection alive to Signal servers instead?

[–] med@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I have signal installed direct using obtanium, with the background connector enabled. I've not yet had an issue with it.

[–] Stomata@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

Yeah thats the reason.

[–] 9fae7933d675e7765a6648b9d@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 days ago

Im running grapheneos with molly foss (signal fork). I tried both notification deamons, Websocket and Selfhosted UnifiedPush. Both dont drain my battery at all.

[–] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Then all messenger services would do that on their phone

[–] EngineerGaming@retrolemmy.com 1 points 1 day ago

Not necessarily. Some of them are able to use UnifiedPush so no need in a background service, and some of them (like Conversations) have background services whose battery use is negligeable.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I heard that before too. On calls, especially video calls

[–] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 7 points 3 days ago

Yeah because video calls just use battery.

Its like saying my car is draining gas when i use it heavily. It just uses more when you use it heavily.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You mean when streaming video bandwidth, bidirectionally across the radio?

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

And encrypted. Im not surprised just heard it as a complaint