Web browsers

So far, as far as major graphical web browsers go, there are 3 options:

1. Firefox - recommended; works

   Uses Gecko

   Web browsers based on Firefox:

   • Waterfox
   • LibreWolf
   • Tor - caution: designed around idea of high anonymity but causes specific type of traffic (which is heavily monitored) leading to false sense of security
2. Chrome - recommended; most people use this anyway, at least involuntarily in some Electron app

   Based on Chromium, uses Blink (which was forked from WebKit).

   Web browsers based on Chrome:

   • Vivaldi
   • Brave - cryptocurrency and privacy related controversies/issues (which resulted with very strong response from Brave team) - judge yourself: post
   • Opera
   • Edge
   • DuckDuckGo - not recommended - has severe privacy and security concerns (despite being advertised as privacy-focused)
3. Safari- only available on Apple hardware

   Based on WebKit

Terminal web browsers

• Lynx
• links - website is not secure; no secure first-party source code repository found
• elinks - website is not secure; git repo

Text editors

• micro
• nano
• vim
• vi

Terminal multiplexers

• byobu - recommended; pairs nicely with tmux on remote
• tmux - recommended; pairs nicely with byobu locally
• screen

Graphics editors

• GIMP
• Inkscape - vector graphics
• Krita
• KolourPaint
• Blender - 3D designer

Windows applications runners

• Steam - apart from games, some Windows apps runs fine via Steam (one can add them as "Other game")
• Lutris - supports integration with GOG, Epic Games Store, EA App, Ubisoft Connect
• Heroic Game Launcher - supports integration with GOG and Epic Games Store
• Bottles

Streaming and recording

• OBS Studio
• SimpleScreenRecorder

Image viewers

• Gwenview
• feh - extremely minimal (and lightweight)

Video players

• VLC
• ffplay (part of ffmpeg) - extremely minimal (and lightweight)

Document viewers

• Okular
• evince - extremely minimal (and lightweight)

Containerization

• Docker
• podman - reaction fork to Docker licence change concerns; offers unique value (unlike Docker, by default runs containers at user-level, lacks daemon)
• Kubernetes - provides scaling and availability features absent in Docker alone (supports Docker as one of the backends)

Infrastructure-as-a-code solutions

• Terraform (unlike Docker, by default runs containers at user-level, lacks daemon)
• OpenTofu - Linux Foundation managed fork of Terraform created in response to Terraform licence change concerns

Other

• Ansible - automation of provisioning, configuration management, application deployment and orchestration
• d2 (source code) converts text into diagrams

Last update: 2024-09-25