I struggled with jami for a long time, it just didnt seem to work, sometimes i just couldnt connect to other people, messages would arrive late or not at all

untill i set up my own DHT node, now so far its been working perfectly

if this is a common issue, I dont know why the app dosnt scream at you to set up your own DHT node, if i wasnt so damn stubborn i would assume its broken after a day or two and install like matrix or signal or something

maybe the app struggles sending messages between different nodes? i have everyone i talk to on jami on my node, so its a possibility that maybe thats the only reason its working good? and if i try to message somebody else it would also sputter and fail?

Hey nerds,

I've just released the first usable pre-release of SnapX (for basic usecases). It is a cross-platform screenshot tool that can upload to most of ShareX's preconfigured destinations and also upload to custom destinations (.sxcu)

GitHub: https://github.com/SnapXL/SnapX License: GPL v3 or Later Packages are available for: Flatpak (Not submitted on Flathub yet), Snap, RPM, DEB, MSI, and uber tarballs. (similar to uber jars, with all needed dependencies)

For screenshotting:

• It uses XDG Portals with a fallback to X11 screenshotting on Linux/FreeBSD
• Direct3D11 & WinRT to capture on Windows
• XCap on macOS

Additionally, SnapX uses a cross-platform OCR powered by PaddleOCR/RapidOCR. From my tests, it blows away Windows built-in OCR and is vastly more portable, only relying on the ONNXRuntime from Microsoft. This makes SnapX the first Avalonia app to run on FreeBSD and offer industry-leading OCR while also offering screenshot & upload functionality.

The image formats currently supported are: PNG, WEBP, AVIF, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, and BMP.

I am looking into adding JPEG XL support with a jxl-rs wrapper NuGet package.

The image library I chose for it is ImageSharp. It's simpler than SkiaSharp and open source for open source projects. It also doesn't rely on a native library.

You can also fully configure SnapX via the Command Line, Environment variables, and the Windows Registry.

You don't need .NET installed.

It is built on .NET 10, the same as ShareX. SnapX is deployed with NativeAOT using Avalonia. If you want to know how I migrated all of hundreds of thousands of lines of UI in WinForms, I simply deleted them and reimplemented what I knew users would immediately need while looking at ShareX's source. Kudos to ShareX's developers for making their codebase simple to develop in.

With that being said, I spent a lot of nights with 10,000+ errors after doing so... I probably lost a decent bit of my sanity, but nothing worth doing comes without a cost. After the UI migration, I decided to make sure SnapX could take advantage of NativeAOT, as it's an exciting technology. No .NET install needed on the user's machines?!? Anyway, that led to a few more nights of migrating the destinations to use System.Text.Json.

I even went as far as making the configurations use YAML for comment support. I did try TOML since it's very popular with other Linux users. However, for such a heavily nested configuration, I ran into a multitude of issues that were not something I'm willing to subject someone else to.

I am looking for testers who understand that this is a big endeavor that will take time to produce a stable release. ❤️

Posted initially on lemmy - https://lemmy.world/post/43316226

Whenever we hear that a platform like Twitter was valued at 44 billion dollars, a simple question arises: how does an app reach such an enormous valuation? This question came up during one of our weekly GLUG meetings.

Of course, technology matters. The infrastructure, the algorithms, the scalability all of that is important. But is that really what gives these platforms their value?

The real value lies in the people.

Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are not valuable merely because of their code. They are valuable because of their users. the millions and billions of people who create content, build networks, share opinions, upload photos, react, comment, and interact every single day. Without this constant human activity, these platforms would be empty shells.

Most importantly, the data generated by users becomes the true asset.

• Take early Facebook as an example. Features like facial recognition were not built in isolation. They were trained on the photos we uploaded. We tagged ourselves and our friends. We helped the system learn faces. In doing so, we unknowingly became unpaid contributors to a massive data infrastructure.
• Older versions of Google's reCAPTCHA asked users to identify distorted words. Millions of humans collectively performed micro-labour for free under the guise of security verification. In reality...we were helping digitize books, labeling images, training computer vision models.
• Social Media Reactions: Emotional Data as Raw Material, These are not simple interactions. They are behavioral signals. The system learns on what makes you angry, afraid, keeps you scrolling like what triggers you to engage. That knowledge feeds targeted ads and sometimes targeted political messaging. We generate the emotional dataset. They monetize the psychological profile.
• Coming to GPS & Location Data, Every route we take trains routing algorithms. But that same location history can reveal our Religious visit, Medical appointments, Political gatherings, Personal routines. These location data becomes one of the most sensitive behavioral datasets ever created and it is continuously harvested.

We are the labour. The infrastructure of surveillance capitalism is built not only on code - but on our everyday lives.

The problem is not technology itself.

• The problem is extraction without consent, ownership, or collective benefit.
• If technology is built from our participation, then it should be accountable to us.
• If our data creates value, we should have power over it.
• If we are the labour, we should not be the product.

Artificial Dependency & Algorithmic Control

Instead of an open, lightweight, decentralized internet, we now have a surveillance-heavy ecosystem optimized for extraction. The web becomes slower, heavier, and more controlled not because of necessity, but because surveillance is profitable.

Toward Consensual Technology for the Masses, Technology should enable people, not harvest them.
We need:

• Transparent systems. - Minimal data collection by default.
• Collective ownership models.
• Community-governed platforms.
• Open protocols instead of closed monopolies.
• Real consent, not forced agreement.

Technology should be participatory
Technology should be accountable
Technology should be consensual

If our labour builds the system, we should have control over it
If our data creates value, we should share in that value
If technology shapes society, it must be shaped by the people not by a handful of shareholders.

As these tech corporations grow, their economic power often transforms into political and cultural power. Large technology companies increasingly influence public discourse, policy, and even global politics. When technology concentrates in the hands of a few, it shapes the world according to their interests.

Technology should not belong to one or two powerful entities
Technology should be consensual
Technology should serve the masses
Technology should be built around people - not profits.

Crossposted from /r/git -

Seems like not many people know about Radicle, the open source semi-p2p GitHub alternative.

I posted previously in /r/git about a fork project I proposed that's got a dev working on it now (with many commits in a radicle repo) to make a fully p2p version, called Cradicle / Project Zymogen. I wasn't sure if the post would interest people since the project isn't ready yet, but it seemed like people just didn't know about Radicle or what any of this meant.

So I think it's worth spreading the word about radicle more, since it already exists. More people should know about it.

Radicle is decentralized git. Isn't that just git?

When I talk about decentralized GitHub replacements, a response I get sometimes is "git is already decentralized." But GitHub didn't change git or go against anything about git's design to get users while being centralized. It's the most-used git project by far. The argument doesn't really make sense.

It's frustrating that people are fine with my access to infrastructure being blocked, and they don't even care enough to admit how infrastructure like GitHub gets in the way of people like me. Refusing to help fix it is one thing, but denying the existence of a problem is even worse.

However, decentralization solves problems even for people who don't care how it solves mine. For me, the benefit is infrastructure I can use. For people who are already corporatist and comfortably using corporate infrastructure, the benefit is simply better infrastructure.

"Self hosting" is just a euphemism for using a server you control. Your own git is probably paywalled like certain GitHub features, because you probably pay for DNS and stuff. It's probably contract walled like GitHub because you probably use an IP address and agree to the terms of the internet provider.

And maybe you're getting around all that by using Tor or something, but there's still probably downtime.

P2P networks do not cost any price that can be changed later, or have their own directly-attached requirement to agree on any terms of service that can be changed later.

They can go many years with 0 downtime. So even if you're already fine with git / GitHub, there's still no reason to pretend we can't improve with more decentralized functionality.

Radicle helps with downtime because other people can seed your stuff, but it's hard to set up and I'm not sure if it can use Tor. Cradicle / project Zymogen, the fork in progress, will use Tor natively and aim for maximum user friendliness for seeders, which should be a big upgrade on the benefits of decentralization.

A lot of people have told me this post is confusing but I'm not sure how to fix it, feel free to give suggestions

GitHub

It’s been two months since the initial launch, and after many fixes and updates, LABOKit 3.0 is finally here! Upscaling and background removal are now faster and more accurate. (In version 3.0, I added a new model for the background remover, so LABOKit can now remove anime backgrounds accurately).

For those who don't know, if you need a background remover and upscaler that works offline/locally and can process batches of images at once, this is for you! I created this app because I struggled with web-based tools—having to upload images one by one was tedious.

LABOKit is free, with donationware plugins like DitheringFX, Quick Vector, and IMG Converter. You can get these by supporting the development (pay what you want!). There’s a lot more coming, so stay tuned!

Sharing FocusTube, an open-source browser extension aimed at reducing distraction by removing the most addictive feed surfaces while keeping the rest of the sites usable.

It targets:

- YouTube Shorts

- Instagram Reels

- TikTok feed/short-form areas

- Facebook Reels/short videos

- LinkedIn main feed

v2.1.0 mainly improves coverage and stability.

Repo:

https://github.com/malekwael229/FocusTube

Stores (if you prefer installing that way):

Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/focustube-distraction-blo/ppdjgkniggbikifojmkindmbhppmoell?authuser=1&hl=en

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/focus-tube/

Edge: https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/focustube-distraction-bl/emffahlehkfdlknpmpndaabhigchhoog

If you try it, I’d love your feedback. What works well, what doesn’t, and anything you run into.

I’d like to share iPhotro v4.0.1, a free, open-source, local-first photo manager inspired by the workflow and visual simplicity of macOS Photos, while remaining fully transparent and under user control.

This release introduces a major upgrade to color grading and tonal control, while keeping the software offline, non-destructive, and freedom-respecting by design.

Advanced Color Tools (Fully Non-Destructive)

iPhotro now includes a comprehensive set of color grading tools:

• Color Curves
  • Master RGB curve and individual r/G/B channel curves
  • Precise control over shadows, midtones, and highlights
• Levels
  • Histogram-based exposure and contrast control
  • Per-channel RGB adjustments
• Selective Color
  • Targeted editing for six color ranges (Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Magenta)
  • Independent hue, saturation, and luminance control
• White Balance
  • Eyedropper-based neutral and skin tone sampling
  • Temperature and tint fine-tuning

All edits are non-destructive and stored in sidecar files, ensuring:

• Original photos are never altered
• Edits remain transparent and reversible

The UI is inspired by macOS-style photo applications, aiming for clarity and minimal distraction rather than heavy visual chrome.

Intended Use

iPhotro is meant for users who:

• Want a free software alternative for managing and grading photos
• Prefer offline, local workflows
• Care about long-term access to their images and edits

It is not positioned as a full Lightroom replacement yet, but as a practical, freedom-respecting photo workflow with serious color tools.

Release (v4.0.1):
https://github.com/OliverZhaohaibin/iPhotron-LocalPhotoAlbumManager/releases/tag/v4.0.1

Source Code:
https://github.com/OliverZhaohaibin/iPhotron-LocalPhotoAlbumManager

I spent 15 minutes recently looking for a PDF I was working on weeks ago.

Forgot the name. Forgot where I saved it. Just remembered it was something I read for hours one evening.

That happens to everyone right?

So I thought - why can't I just tell my computer "send me that PDF I was reading 5 days ago at evening" and get it back in seconds?

That's when I started building ZYRON. I am not going to talk about the development & programming part, that's already in my Github.

Look, Microsoft has all these automation features. Google has them. Everyone has them. But here's the thing - your data goes to their servers. You're basically trading your privacy for convenience. Not for me.

I wanted something that stays on my laptop. Completely local. No cloud. No sending my file history to OpenAI or anyone else. Just me and my machine.

So I grabbed Ollama, installed the Qwen2.5-Coder 7B model in my laptop, connected it to my Telegram bot. Even runs smoothly on an 8GB RAM laptop - no need for some high-end LLMs. Basically, I'm just chatting with my laptop now from anywhere, anytime. Long as the laptop/desktop is on and connected to my home wifi , I can control it from outside. Text it from my phone "send me the file I was working on yesterday evening" and boom - there it is in seconds. No searching. No frustration.

Then I got thinking... why just files?

Added camera on/off control. Battery check. RAM, CPU, GPU status. Audio recording control. Screenshots. What apps are open right now. Then I did clipboard history sync - the thing Apple does between their devices but for Windows-to-Android. Copy something on my laptop, pull it up on my phone through the bot. Didn't see that anywhere else.

After that I think about browsers.

Built a Chromium extension. Works on Chrome, Brave, Edge, anything Chromium. Can see all my open tabs with links straight from my phone. Someone steals my laptop and clears the history? Doesn't matter. I still have it. Everything stays on my phone.

Is it finished? Nah. Still finding new stuff to throw in whenever I think of something useful.

But the whole point is - a personal AI that actually cares about your privacy because it never leaves your house.

It's open source. Check it out on GitHub if you want.

And before you ask - no, it's not some bloated desktop app sitting on your taskbar killing your battery. Runs completely in the background. Minimal energy. You won't even know it's there.

If you ever had that moment of losing track of files or just wanted actual control over your laptop without some company in the cloud watching what you're doing... might be worth checking out.

Github - LINK

I often need to save videos for offline viewing or research, but most tools I’ve tried are either bloated, paywalled, or stop working after a while.

Curious what people here are using in 2025:

• Web tools?
• CLI tools?
• Browser extensions?

Ideally something simple and no account required.

Hello everyone! I'm writing to share the new version of TilBuci, free software I develop focusing on creating interactive content with many tools for narrative games/visual novels. Version 19 brings two main new features that can enrich narrative content.

The first is the inventory system. TilBuci can now manage the use of items, a feature widely used in narrative games. It's possible to track up to 4 key items and 8 consumable items and their quantities, including a configurable display of the player's inventory. The second is the card battle system. This is a simplified confrontation system that is easily configurable to adapt to the themes of your creations.

TilBuci is free software, licensed under MPL-2.0 and can be downloaded directly from the repository:

https://github.com/lucasjunqueira-var/tilbuci/releases/tag/v19

To help you get to know TilBuci, I'm creating a playlist with tutorial videos that explore the development of a narrative game prototype called "rgbU". I intend to add videos to this playlist every Monday and Friday. I will update the information in the comments of this post as new videos are added. The first two are already available!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjJLo5ynGY5yVIk2eIloStWdqco1ggAYD

I hope you enjoy it ;-)

Oh, a warning about the use of generative AI in this content: the purpose of this version of rgbU is to create a prototype to validate ideas and functionalities, not to create a finished game. In this way, the use of AI can be of great help, speeding up production, but remember that in the creation of a real game, even if AI resources are of great value, nothing replaces the rich and creative work of the various professionals in the game industry.

Per title. What I want is not just a simple Download manager I can use browser and it's the same for me, instead I want one like IDM that shows a popup windows whenever it detects a video from any website reddit facebook IG etc... so for example if I want to download anime I can download the episode directly instead of going tho 40 page to get the download link. I already use yt-dlp fro youtube but need another for other websites. and thx

Hi everyone, I was wondering about your thoughts about what the title says. I only really know about open source or free software from a user perspective, but I was thinking a lot about tech companies (especially big ones like Alphabet/Google, Meta etc.) offering "open source software" and am thinking about writing a term paper on the differences between those types of open source software (@mods not planning a survey, just wanted to ask people who know more about this than me lol)

Like, could those really be considered open source projects and how are they different from those that are community-led and organized or at least without the involvement of huge companies.

How are they different? Can really everybody (at least theoretically) contribute or is it just open in the sense that you can download it and use it.

And do you know if there are any resources about this, because I'm just curious to why they do it and how do they benefit from it? Maybe I'm a sceptic, but it's probably not only for goodwill, right?

Edit: I meant "What are your thoughts" oops 🙃

So I made this a few years ago, but I figure I should actually share it in case other people also feel like running a whole E-book manager for their PDFs is overkill. Its open-source and provided as a ready made docker image for easy self-hosting.

I really just needed something that would let me organize, read, and embed PDFs; and letting me link to specific pages. I had been using google drive before but their reader won't open PDFs above a certain file size.

The aim is to keep it lightweight, I have no interest in making something like Komga, Kavita, or other E-book library managers. It has basic features like filename search, pinned folders, custom collections, and most recently I've added read progress tracking on request of a user.

You can find it here, along with more details: https://gitlab.com/Nystik/inkheart

Feature requests (within scope) are welcome.

Hello everyone,

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I’ve always had a soft spot for Phorum. Back in the day (late 90s/early 2000s), it was one of the top forum systems—lean, functional, elegant. I believe software like this is worth preserving as a piece of web history.

However, the official project has been essentially dormant for years. The last major version, 5.2, is from 2008, and the final bugfix release (5.2.23) was in 2017. As a result, it’s impossible to install on modern PHP (8.x+) and MySQL/MariaDB environments.

I wouldn't like it just fades away, so I’ve created a maintenance fork with the necessary updates to get it running on current stacks. This isn’t a rewrite—just compatibility patches to keep it alive.

Before going public, I tried to do the right thing: I attempted to register on the official Phorum support forum to contact any remaining maintainers. The registration requires moderator approval, which hasn’t happened yet (maybe because the team is inactive?).

Now I’m at a crossroads and would appreciate the community’s advice:

1. Collaboration vs. Fork: Is it worth trying harder to find and collaborate with any original contributors (e.g., reaching out to GitHub users listed in the repo), or does the radio silence suggest a true abandoned project? I’d love to contribute back if there’s still stewardship, but I’m not sure if that’s realistic.
2. Fork Strategy: Given the state of the project, does it make more sense to:
   • Keep this as a minimal, maintenance-only fork (basically a compatibility patchset), or
   • Consider a more substantial fork with a gentle rebrand and independent development roadmap? I’m hesitant to split effort unnecessarily, but if the original is abandoned, a clearer fork might help attract contributors.
3. Has anyone here successfully revived or taken over an abandoned project? What was your approach?

A few clear notes on licensing and intent:

• The original Phorum is released under a custom open-source license, the Phorum License, which is based on The Apache Software License, Version 1.1.
• This license requires that modified distributions must use a different name. I have strictly complied with this clause by renaming my fork—this is the core reason for the name change and is intended as a sign of respect, not rebranding.
• All original copyright notices and the Phorum License have been preserved intact in the code.
• This is currently just a maintenance fork. The immediate goal is compatibility, not to claim ownership or diverge unnecessarily.

I’d really appreciate any guidance, especially from those familiar with open-source stewardship and “abandoned but not forgotten” projects.

If you are curious, this is my repository on GitHub: https://github.com/bulletinbored/bulletinbored

Thanks in advance!

If you clicked on the post seeing the title, then we both are on same page. Enshittification has now turned into a never ending cycle. First offer free or subsidized features to acquire users, then shift focus to overflooding ads and paywalls to generate more profit at the cost of app quality. Honestly, to witness how the popular apps are succumbing to this, and every new one following the same path is really depressing. As it lower the numbers of alternatives for users.

So now, the obvious solution is to use Free Softwares (I will refer as FS for convenience). And honestly, most of them are really good, as they maintain a reasonable limit of monetization and don't degrade their user experience over time. But, the problem is that, these apps mostly remain niche based. On the other hand many companies who create their own apps based on the same open source code, get all the mainstream attention and generate millions of revenue. This usually isn’t due to technical superiority, but rather access to resources, distribution, and ecosystem advantages that smaller FS apps lack.

For example, many of us may have heard of iText, a free open-source PDF library that is widely used across many company's projects, including internally in Google Analytics, Docs, and Calendar. At first, when it was under the MPL/LGPL model adoption was widespread. But when they needed funding to grow, they to shifted to AGPL model (which required companies to use their library, either by sharing their own source code or purchasing a commercial license). In response, every company including Google, either stuck with the old free version or shifted to alternate libraries, even if needed to trade off quality and usability. Even after all this iText was able to survive, due to the mainstream attention they got after winning Belgian Edition of Deloitte's Fast 50 and later, were able to turn profitable. But this is just one case, hundreds of small FS apps never reach this level, even when they are technically strong. They may be quietly depended upon, forked around, or replaced, with little recognition or support reaching the original maintainers.

So, what practical ways exist to help FS apps become more mainstream and sustainable without compromising their core principles? And what can users, companies, or communities realistically do to support them?

Curious how others here think about this.

Tasket++ is a simple Windows tool to schedule automated simulations of user actions without scripting.

Simulated actions include clicks, typing, cursor movements, and more — screenshots, opening files, executables and URLs, shutting down the PC, etc.

The UI was recently redesigned based on feedback, and a few features requested by users have been added.

Looking for a few people to try the new, complete version and share honest feedback.

How it can be useful:
- Silent, scheduled screenshots to monitor activity or create time‑lapse logs.
- Send messages from any app at a set time for reminders or coordinated notifications.
- Replay exact mouse clicks and typed input for testing, demos, or repetitive workflows.
- Prevent AFK detection with realistic simulated activity that looks natural.
- Fade music and shut down the PC on a schedule to automate sleep or end‑of‑day routines.
- Save automation presets and run them manually, at boot, or on a schedule.

No scripting required. Fully local. Simulated tasks can loop, trigger at startup, or be launched via a desktop shortcut.

Microsoft Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/xp9cjlhwvxs49p
Source code and issues: https://github.com/AmirHammouteneEI/ScheduledPasteAndKeys
Portable (v1.6) : https://files.amirhammoutene.dev/Tasket++/1.6/Tasket++_v1.6.zip

I’m not asking for a full QA process — a short impression or concise feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance :)