Resources

Educational resources and open licenses

Recommended software

I rely on free software every day. Described below are the services and tools I use most often.

Bitwarden : Self-hostable password manager
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
Replaces 1Password, Dashlane, and LastPass

Cryptomator : Client-side file encryption solution that works well with cloud storage
Licensing: GNU General Public License v3.0
Replaces Boxcryptor

Firefly III : Self-hosted personal finance manager
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
Replaces Mint and YNAB, albeit with a “fundamentally different” philosophy

FreshRSS : Self-hosted news aggregator
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
Replaces Feedly and Inoreader

GnuPG : Used by Keyoxide’s decentralized identity verification and mailbox.org’s encrypted inbox, “GnuPG is a complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880”
Licensing: GNU General Public License v2.0 or later
See also Git’s “Signing Your Work” and Keyoxide

Joplin : Note-taking and task management application with encryption and synchronization
Licensing: MIT (Expat) License
Replaces Google Keep and Microsoft OneNote

linkding : Simple bookmark tool that can automatically save bookmarked pages to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine
Licensing: MIT (Expat) License
See also ArchiveBox

Logseq : “Privacy-first” knowledge base for writing and organizing notes
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
Replaces Notion and Obsidian

mailbox.org : Secure mail service provider
Licensing: Based on Open-Xchange, Postfix, and other free software
Replaces Gmail and Outlook

Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird : Web browser (desktop and mobile) and email client that can also manage contacts, calendars, and feeds (desktop)
Licensing: Mozilla Public License 2.0
Firefox replaces Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, etc. while Thunderbird replaces eM Client, Mailbird, and Microsoft Outlook. See FairEmail for a mobile email client

Nextcloud : Self-hosted cloud storage and collaboration platform
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (server)
Replaces Google Drive and Microsoft 365 – CalDAV and CardDAV support also allow for synchronization of calendars and contacts, respectively

NocoDB : No-code database
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later
Replaces Airtable

ntfy : Self-hostable HTTP-based push notification service
Licensing: Apache License 2.0 and GNU General Public License v2.0
See also Gotify

Rclone : Cloud storage management tool (e.g., move files between different servers)
Licensing: MIT (Expat) License
Replaces a supported provider’s synchronization software (e.g., Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive)

Shiori : Self-hosted read-it-later application
Licensing: MIT (Expat) License
Replaces Instapaper and Pocket. See also wallabag, which I used until early December 2022

Signal : Secure instant messaging
Licensing: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (server, desktop) and GNU General Public License v3.0 (mobile)
Replaces text messages (SMS/MMS), Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and WhatsApp

Syncthing : Continuous file synchronization program
Licensing: Mozilla Public License 2.0
See also Syncthing-Fork (Android) and SyncTrayzor (Windows)