Free, as in Freedom, Software

Control your computing or it will control you.

I use, and support, free (as in freedom) software. Sometimes also referred to as libre software.
I think the word libre is used to help clarify the confusion of the difference between the usage of
the word "free" as in gratis or no price and free as in freedom; as well as the confusion between
"free" software and "open source" software. Learn more about free software at www.GNU.org

Below is a sampling of Free/Libre software:

• Free Software Foundation FSF addresses issues affecting us all.
• Folding@home A distributed computing project that anyone can use their computer
  to help perform real-world scientific research. Also, see the Wikipedia article on f@h for more info.
• LibreOffice "Office" sofware. Writer, spreadsheets, slides, database.
• Xournal++ Write with pen input.
• Joplin A notebook application.
  Some people like Obsidian better, but if I remember correctly, it doesn't have a Gnu license.
  There are also desktop wiki applications like Zim-Wiki. And if you really like trying new things
  you could try using Emacs with Org-mode. TreeSheets is an interesting program too.
• Anki "is a flashcard program that helps you spend more time on challenging material,
  and less on what you already know. There are two simple concepts behind Anki: active
  recall testing and spaced repetition. They are not known to most learners, despite
  being well-documented in scientific literature. It is multi-platform, running on
  Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Linux/FreeBSD. And it is considerably easier to use
  than SuperMemo." (Quoted because I copy/pasted
  selected sentences from the Anki website.)
• KMyMoney Keep track of your money.
• HomeBank Keep track of your money.
• GnuCash Keep track of your money some more, but this time with double entry accounting.
• Linux Mint One of many distributions (distro) of Linux.
• PCLinuxOS Also referred to as PCLOS, is a distro (version) of Linux that well on one of my
  computers many years ago. The pclos community even make their own monthly
  newsletter/magazine. It's published online. Look for it on their website on the left side.
• Puppy Linux A portable Linux operating system that can be used from a usb memory stick.
• GrapheneOS Replace Google Android with this Android Open Source Project (AOSP) based system.
  Check out this video regarding the future of GrapheneOS.
• NewPipe "The lightweight YouTube experience for Android"
  NewPipe can view YouTube without ads, play in the background, play with the screen off, and
  you can download videos or just the audio of videos.
• Firefox
• uBlock Origin This is the best ad blocker to use on Firefox and it can be added to Firefox on Android.
  (This extension still works on Firefox, but Chrome changed how so that you can't block
  all advertisements using Chrome.)
• OBS Studio Record and edit videos. Record anything on your screen.
• Signal A phone number has to be used to set up Signal (but it doesn't have to be your number).
• Jitsi and Jami are some other communication apps.
• Safecast Radiation monitoring and environmental sensors. Safecast was created by people using
  free/libre/open/maker concepts to make Geiger counters available to people around the world
  to record and report radiation levels after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
  meltdown that was caused by the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011.
• MikTex is an implementation of TeX/LaTeX and related programs for Windows, macOS and Linux.
  From LaTeX website: "LaTeX is a document preparation system for high-quality typesetting. It is most often
  used for medium-to-large technical or scientific documents but it can be used for almost any form of
  publishing. LaTeX is not a word processor! Instead, LaTeX encourages authors not to worry too much about
  the appearance of their documents but to concentrate on getting the right content."
  Here is an article about the original program TeX.

TOR = The Onion Router, sometimes referred to as the "dark web"

It's now spelled Tor, but it used to be all capital letters wich was an
abbreviation for The Onion Router. It's called the onion router because that description
is the basic concept of its design. (How it uses layers...like an onion.)

• The Tor Project Read about Tor and download the Tor Browser to get on the "dark web" and visit .onion sites.
• Tor Browser The Tor Browser is also available for phones.
• TailsOS Using this operating system offers better protections for using Tor than just the Tor Browser by itself.
• Orbot Is an app to use Tor on a phone. It can be used to allow other apps to connect
  over the internet through the Tor network.