App defaults
Inspired by @iamgregb's post.
- eMail: …is a complete mess (lol!). I use the Thunderbird fork Betterbird as my main eMail client (as well as for matrix chat and IRC and calendar) on my PC and laptop, and Thunderbird Mobile (formerly K-9) on my phone. In terms of hosting, personal email is through live.com (MS) and Gmail; email linked to my website and online, however, is through mailbox.org. I had considered the likes of Proton, but didn't want too many services linked to the same account, more on that later, Tuta, and Posteo (but ngl I don't remember why they were rejected).
- Calendar and to-dos: …is currently 99% on Google Calendar (again, BB for my desktop client). I've been in the middle of trying to figure out what to use instead for a good while. Personally, I'm a big fan of decentralised syncing (and realistically I'm never going to be accessing remotely, per se) so the plan, for to-dos at least, was sync using DecSync and Syncthing, with Tasks.org's Android app as a mobile client, and BB bridged using Radicale as a desktop client. Something, something, coudln't figure out Radicale properly at 4am when I last tried so don't really have a solid to-do list at the minute (yay for productivity!). Calendar is quite a bit trickier though as so much is stored on a shared calendar with family anyways (using Google Calendar), so even if I hosted my own calendar, or paid for it to be hosted, some ¾ would be emailed to Google anyways.
- Note-taking: Nvim & vimwiki on desktop, and Obsidian on mobile (probably not permanently); synced using Syncthing. What really appealed was an interface which supports the markdown I'm used to while getting out of my way lol. The ability to set up templates, etc., is rather handy, though I'm not all the way there yet.
- Web browsing: LibreWolf (a Firefox fork which removes all the shit you probably don't want and has some other privacy-respecting settings toggled) on desktop, and Firefox for Android on mobile. µBlockO for "spectrum-wide content blocking), floccus for syncing bookmarks, and Dark Reader for my eyes; Stylus for UserCSS & ViolentMonkey for UserJS; DeArrow & SponsorBlock to make YouTube a lil less painful.
- VPN: A more recent addition to the list (turned on nigh-all the time since c. 2025-11 iirc), thanks to SpaceHey ceasing operations in the UK: ProtonVPN. It was very much the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Till a couple months ago (maybe 2026-03) I was using Mullvad, but they don't allow for port forwarding (not great for
seeding torrentssharing Linux ISOs :p). Prior to that it was a free TunnelBear account that I'd had for missions. - Chat/instant messaging: Unfortunately, primarily WhatsApp, Discord and Snap, purely for the sake that that's what others are using and are reluctant to switch away from. If I were to pick, I'd rather some mix of matrix and mumble, if anything. If anyone can figure out how to actually export one's WA DB, I'd appreciate a pointer or two… please mail me.
- Music: VLC and YouTube Music. All the music I have locally is either ripped from a CD or bought from Bandcamp or Qobuz. It's synced to my phone using Syncthing, but I have an iPod Mini 2 (somewhere) which I'm planning on replacing the battery for, as well as installing an SD card (still need some decent IEMs, though).
- Film & TV: Jellyfin is my interface of choice, with rips from DVDs and BluRays (still hoping to get my hands on a UHD drive, though…) or, indeed, more exotic places. Never dabbled really with usenet, though. Don't personally have any subscriptions, but will leach off of family's :p
- Password management: I've been using Bitwarden since I stopped using Lastpass (so I'm sure that dates it lol) and have no real complaints. The latest UI updates (maybe going back several years, I'm not sure) are a trainwreck imo though, so I may be running an ancient build of the client on my laptop… The experience of using the latest on my desktop reminds me why though…
- Programming: Intellij IDEA. Yeah, idk why really. Free student(/graduate?) licence helped :p It was VSCode before that, and Kate before that, and, indeed, Visual Studio at some point before that (if you could call me messing around with Visual Basic programming). npp for the win though as best GUI editor for Windows (not that I use that).
And I dare say that's the end.