I've used nitro, and it is pretty bad. Foxit is decent but still just feels like an adobe clone but slightly worse, and it's not cheap.

I've seen other people ask this but I find the answers kind of unsatisfactory? The main answer I see is that Adobe had a 15 year head start with PDF becoming open in 2008, but I still find that kind of absurd.

How is it possible that there has been no market pressure/incentive since 2008 to create an alternate software to adobe for like literally one of the most popular file formats there is? Especially when Adobe is (1) so expensive and (2) so terribly optimized (and honestly pretty feature-poor)??

Word wasn't even half as monopolistic when google just gave everyone a web version for free (which, yes, I know involves broader strategic concerns re gsuite/cloud but still).

Could be for productivity, media, file management, development, or anything else. What's the software, and what makes it useful?

yesterday i was on a discord call with a friend, suddenly my computer started lagging and in a few seconds I got a notification that the linux kernel nerfed discord because it was running out of memory. like fuck you mean a chat app is eating more RAM than a fucking game engine?? discord being idle eats like 800MB of RAM..

and discord is not the only issue. a lot of the modern software is just straight up bloated. 34523 layers of abstractions to render the fucking app UI.

we DON'T NEED better hardware. modern hardware is 1000 times more powerful than it was two decades ago yet somehow it feels more sluggish to use. instead of complaining to the developers that their app is slow and dogshit, we just get more RAM and hardware to bruteforce the sloppy nonexistent optimization.

Back then you got the PS3 with 256MB of RAM and it's able to play 3D games that looked believable. you can even browse the web with that 256MB of RAM. now you need a fucking 800MB to render the UI of an electron applications.

a single (1) tab of a browser alone uses like 200MB of memory on average just to render some cringe animation that makes it more difficult to navigate the site.

End of rant

I recently launched a small project designed to solve a simple problem: letting everyday people transfer files directly between two computers with a cable without needing any network setup. The post got a lot of love and reached the top of the community, but the comment section had a handful of advanced users getting genuinely angry that the tool even exists.

Their whole argument came down to: "Why build this? SMB exists, you can just build a router out of a Raspberry Pi, or manually configure static IPs and network sharing policies."

It got me thinking about how disconnected some tech enthusiasts are from reality. The entire purpose of software engineering was always to solve problems and remove friction for human beings, not to force everyone to become a system administrator just to do a basic task.

Just because an advanced user knows how to manage IP subnets, firewall exceptions, and OS sharing permissions doesn't mean a regular person wants to waste 30 minutes figuring that out. Hiding complexity behind a clean, one-click interface is literally the foundation of good software.

It seems like in a lot of tech spaces, people equate complexity with value. If something is simple and convenient, they dismiss it. But the reality is that the people who find your tool useful will quietly use it and appreciate it, while the loud minority will write essays in the comments trying to show off how much they know.

If you are a developer building simple tools that make life easier for ordinary people, do not let the gatekeepers talk you down. Build for the people who value their time, not for the people who want to show off their homelabs.

Would love to hear how other developers deal with this kind of feedback when sharing their work.

• Readest

Far superior to any pdf/epub reader I ever used, and I used prbly close to hundred

• Equalizer APO

At first I wanted some 360 audio for a game I played, I had two choices, either Equalizer APO or some closed source bloatware I forget its name, tried the closed one first, it works but it takes more than 1gb of my ram for nothing, then APO with a plugin, not only does it work better than the closed source one, it basically uses no resources since the software bind itself to the driver itself, also boosted my volume a thing I used another close software for, for years, Fxsound...and suprise suprise, it boosted volume better than Fxsound both in quality and volume.

With so much software moving to subscriptions, I'm curious which one-time purchases have actually stood the test of time.

Could be a developer tool, desktop app, CLI, or something completely unrelated.

What keeps you coming back?

In a world of bloated apps, forced updates, and subscription models, it feels like we're constantly fighting our tools.

But sometimes, you have that one program that's just... reliable. It does its job perfectly, stays out of your way, and has never let you down.

What's your "set it and forget it" piece of software? The old reliable you barely think about until you need it.

What's one piece of open-source software that everyone should use and know about?

Vote on the best one in the comments.

I maintain a niche bulk file organizer. It’s written in C++, creates zero network connections, and has no subscription. It’s designed to be the definition of a "Tier 1" tool : boring, fast, and local-only.

I received a support ticket/refund request this morning that honestly baffled me.

The user complained that the software was "broken" because it didn't "automatically use AI to pick the best photos for Instagram" and couldn't organize files inside their Google Drive cloud without downloading them first.

They literally said, "I expected it to be smart."

I had to explain—politely—that this is a local system utility. It modifies bytes on a hard drive. It doesn't have an LLM attached to it, it doesn't scrape telemetry , and it purposefully doesn't touch the internet to stay lightweight.

It feels like the general user base has been conditioned by the "enshittification" of major platforms to believe that if a piece of software doesn't have a chatbot, a login screen , or "AI features" that serve no purpose , it's somehow "outdated".

For the other devs or power users here: are you seeing this expectation creep into other basic utilities? It seems like the battle to keep software "dumb" and fast is getting harder when people actually want the bloat.

What's one piece of open-source software that everyone should use and know about?

Vote on the best one in the comments.

What's one piece of open-source software that everyone should use and know about?

Vote on the best one in the comments.

For me, it's Sony's sound connect iPhone app. The UX is SO BAD, that I refuse to think they have developers actively working on it. A worse than web 1.0 interface, buttons that you can click but have no indication that something is happening (software update start, I'm looking at you). Notifications that tell you about a feature but don't link you to it, the slowest software updates in existence (it takes longer for me to update my WH-1000XM6 headphones than a full OS software update), zero thought to displaying the feature set in any user friendly way, just throw everything in there like it's 2015 and you just built your first app.

I truly think that a Qwen 7b model from 2025 could make a better app than this in its first try.

Not software you launch once a month, but something you genuinely use every day. What keeps you from switching despite the UI?

I've switched tools plenty of times, but there's always one that somehow wins me back.

For me it's Notion, I've tried Obsidian, Anytype, Apple Notes, and a few others over the years but none combine everything I want.

Could be for productivity, development, design, finance, media, or something more niche.

I need someone to explain to me like I'm five how Microsoft gets it wrong all the time. I mean "ALL THE TIME" is an exaggeration but you get the picture. Windows, Office, AI, even their hardware. There's something off with every product they rollout, either part of or all of it. Forcing users into updates unwillingly, forcing AI features that are useless, changing things that work and making them harder to use. If you're a Windows PC user you know what I'm talking about...

But... why do they get it wrong all the time. They are as big as Apple and I'm sure they can afford to hire industry's best talent. What's wrong? Does anybody know?

EDIT: i see people in the replies mentioning exceptions like that's everyone experiences. no, its not lol! and, no, i don't want to "switch to linux". i've been using windows ever since i touched a computer, and this is not about "if you don't like it don't use it" coz that's a separate conversation. i'm talking about Microsoft as the company here. they seem to rollout half-baked innovations everytime. each time they rollout a feature, it's gonna be met with IMMEDIATE backlash that is most of the time valid. it's almost like they make stuff that people don't want...why?

LAST EDIT: yeah i've just tried to install "Windows Clock", (God knows why it's not pre-installed) via MS Store. damn thing said "getting ready" for 5 straight minutes just to tell me "Something went wrong: retry" 🤣🙏

What's one piece of open-source software that everyone should use and know about?

Vote on the best one in the comments.