I figure we all have our patterns. My stuff is pretty basic:
  • Brave browser
  • VS Code
  • Slack
  • Signal
  • Polar/Docker Desktop
On the command line:
  • git
  • psql
  • node repl
  • ssh/scp
hbu?
Ubuntu:
  • FF
  • Mullvad Browser
  • Vmware workstation
  • Signal
  • CherryTree (A Hierarchical Note Taking Application, featuring Rich Text and Syntax Highlighting)
  • Thunderbird (email)
  • tmux + zsh with https://ohmyz.sh/
  • VS Code
  • IntelliJ
  • Sparrow (for coinjoin)
  • Electrum
  • Bitwarden (FF extension)
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I mostly use Webapps, and bookmarked this amazing link: https://niket-agrawal.github.io/Tips_misc/2_privacy
for applications on desktop I use
  • KeePass, Brave, Notepad++, Sublime, Python, R, Joplin
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Thanks for posting this.
I have this "Untrack Yourself - basic privacy guide" link bookmarked.
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Mac: Safari Firefox Sparrow 1Password/Bitwarden Obsidian Terminal
Windows: Firefox VPN client Inteleviewer (for fiat mining job)
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Mostly:
Firefox / LIbrewolf xterm inkscape bitwig
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Impervious Obsidian VMware Horizon Client (for work) Proton
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Nice! How goes it with Impervious?
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Its alright, I dont ask much from a browser, and I dont use any of its other functionalities.....
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Obsidian Firefox Spotify Steam Telegram Outlook and WebEx (for work 😞)
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Brave Browser Discord Obsidian Proton VPN Signal Skiff Mail
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wow skiff looks neat. how'd you hear about it?
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I heard about Skiff when I was reading an article about degooglelization, so i try it & i like it
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Obsidian, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, LibreWolf, Proton VPN, PDF Expert, Numi (numi.app) - basically a mini spreadsheet tool.
PDF Expert is one of the reasons I’m having a hard time switching to Linux (I work with PDFs a lot and haven’t seen a Linux PDF editor that I like).
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Emacs, Firefox, Logseq, JetBrains stack are the main ones. MSFT Office suite for work things.
Interesting to note a number of Obsidian users here!
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GUI:
  • Firefox
  • Libre Office
  • Signal
Terminal:
  • Tmux
  • NeoVim
  • Git
  • NeoMutt
  • SSH
  • Rsync
  • Docker
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Windows: brave browser Steam
Ubuntu: Sparrow Brave Keepass Ssh
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  • firefox
  • bitcoin core
  • plex
  • qbittorent
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  • brave browser
  • git
  • notepad++
  • jupyter lab
  • R studio
  • steam
  • spotify
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fyi: chatGPT is great at coming up with the proper regex search for notepad++. That is by far the most value I have gotten out that directly that I am aware of.
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cool, I gotta try that out. My regex process is going to regex101.com and toying around with examples till I get something that works
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Data scientist?
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Yep. But part time only. Full time job is teaching
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Gui:
CLI:
  • sbcl (for when SLIME would take too long to startup)
  • ssh
  • mpv
  • yt-dlp (almost entirely for downloading music from YouTube)
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1337! I almost got into emacs when I was progamming in lisp but I got lazy.
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I think it took me a few months of using just Emacs to get comfortable with it. Two things helped in the process:
  • I printed a cheatsheet and taped it next to my monitor; and
  • I read tutorials whenever I couldn't figure out how to do something.
A side benefit to learning Emacs is that some of the key combinations are also used in Bash (e.g. C-/ for undo).
I would say that learning to use Emacs is like learning to ride a bicycle, but a bicycle can't act as your entire userland.
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My first ever programming mentor was a big emacs guy. A lot of our work involved several computers so we'd ssh around a lot and I was always jealous of him never losing his editing experience.
a bicycle can't act as your entire userland.
This. I want to be this crazy.
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A lot of our work involved several computers so we'd ssh around a lot and I was always jealous of him never losing his editing experience.
I wind up doing a bunch of editing in a browser, but I hadn't considered trying to do all that into Emacs. I should spend some time with this interactive REST client, since the system I'm working with also has a REST API.
a bicycle can't act as your entire userland.
This. I want to be this crazy.
Well shoot, half of my projects are at least that crazy. I guess I'm already half-way there.
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What are you doing in Lisp?
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Anything and everything, but most are ideas at the moment. Here's a cross-section:
I've started working on a Nostr library (very rough and non-functional at the moment). I plan to use this to make at least two things: a command-and-control library, and a browser/publisher to browse/post hypertext documents on Nostr relays (it's complicated).
I made a half-joke, half-serious password manager in Common Lisp. It's only somewhat useful, since many websites still have insane password requirements.
For my music project, I need some specialized music software, and I think Gsharp is the best candidate for that. I've looked at the source code for several music composition programs, and Gsharp appears to be at a sweet spot in terms of features and ease of modification. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with recent versions of CLIM, so I'd have to learn CLIM to fix it.
I've done some very preliminary work to put ECL inside of Quake 1 in order to make Quake moddable at runtime. I will probably abandon this project, because Quake is rather limited (e.g. it really doesn't want you to change the map after it's been loaded). So I've been thinking about a new engine that would use skiplists and an advanced 3d raycasting renderer.
I've been thinking about a compiler that would accept Common Lisp and output an FPGA bitstream. The compiler would be a constraint solver, because it would allocate resources inside an FPGA for performance and security. Once that works, I would feed it into itself so that it could run bare-metal on an FPGA, and be used to program other FPGAs on the same board -- essentially a computer made of just a bunch of FPGAs. Imagine a web browser running bare-metal inside one FPGA and the entire network stack running bare-metal in another FPGA connected to an RJ45 port. This is not a simple project, but it would make an entirely new class of computers possible.
I've got a bunch of notes on a portable security system for Common Lisp. It would provide a genuine capabilities system, using a specialized REPL that replaces symbols according to a rule set. The goal is to incorporate this system into a Lisp OS (e.g. Mezzano) to make it a secure multi-user OS. But this could also be used to run untrusted code in a secure way.

I have very little time to work on my projects, so most are stuck in the design phase. I need to start using PTO to focus on my projects, since (a) my current job is somewhat of a dead-end, and (b) a few of my projects could actually be useful to others.
I have considered paying someone else to work on my projects for me, but my income is not high enough to pay even for part-time work. Maybe I should pitch one of my project ideas to YCombinator and use VC money to pay for a programmer to work on my ideas. But, that would involve a lot of paperwork, which I really hate.
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  • keet
  • signal
  • sparrow
  • element
  • librewolf
Command line specific:
  • docker
  • tmux
  • git
  • nvim
  • magic-wormhole
  • ripgrep
  • bat
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My stuff is pretty basic too:
  • Konsole
  • Emacs
  • Brave
  • Calibre (for epubs)
  • Okular (for PDFs) On the console, it is more difficult to summarize but most of the time:
  • vim
  • git
  • docker
  • netstat
  • swapon (I have memory problems)
  • top (also for memory problems)
  • and a lot more but it depends on the day.
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Another emacs guy! I'm jealous
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Haha, got converted with evil to get vim-like behavior
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Top 3
  • Chrome
  • Steam
  • Discord
Others
  • Spotify
  • OBS
  • Capcut
  • VS Code
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I only have eight APPs on my laptop, all are my most used 👀
  • Mullvad VPN
  • Firefox, Mullvad, Tor
  • Slack for work
  • Standard Notes for daily thoughts
  • Typora for writing
  • Cleanshot X for screenshots
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  • Firefox
  • Mullvad VPN
  • Sparrow
  • KeepassXC
  • qBittorrent
  • VeraCrypt
  • Telegram
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  • Brave
  • VS Code
  • KeePass 2
  • Windows Terminal
  • Obsidian
  • Proton Drive + VPN
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  • Brave Browser
  • Da Vinci Resolve
  • Pages
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Firefox Chrome Sublime Signal Telegram Terminal Wasabi Fusion-360
So many things that used to be desktop are more convenient to do on the web
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It’s true, browsers have improved a lot. If I’m not living inside an application I’d much rather it just be a tab
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Yes, I like the unified interface for features like search, copy & paste, and the ability to copy the URL and open multiple tabs.
I like that SN works so well on mobile web and I don't have to install yet another app that takes at least 200 MB of storage, needs to be updated 3 times a week or it will stop working, and I have to copy the link and open the same thread in a browser to do a simple ctrl+F text search, as is the case e.g. with Reddit.
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  • Brave Browser
  • VS Code
  • Discord
  • Slack (for work)
  • Spotify
  • Signal
  • Libre Office
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Stacker News 😂 Telegram
... and I think that's all.
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I'm curious, which browser do you use
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Darthium
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for notes, I use emacs (doom-emacs configuration), for deft + org-mode almost exclusively. I'd love to use emacs exclusively, but haven't learned to be that hardcore yet.
vscode for dayjob where I'm newish to ruby, typescript before
Gnucash for business operations
calibre for books, but I don't use a lot of ebooks these days :(
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Sparrow.
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Winamp Brave ProtonVPN client
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Essentially, the applications that everybody uses:
  • Browser
  • Email client
  • Text editor
I use frequently use many others, but less frequently than these 3, they are always running.
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Which email client do you use? I mostly stick to the browser these days but I could probably use an upgrade
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I tend to prefer native email clients, they allow me to have a local copy of my messages and it is much easier (and safer) to handle encrypted content. Nowadays I use Thunderbird, it just works, but I'm open to better alternatives, if they exist.
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xfce4-terminal, Google Chrome, Firefox
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I will say VLC and Brave
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I use Brave browser. I'm their Brand Ambassador. If you looking for a partnership with Stacker News, let me know @k00b
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Why do you use a browser with a shitcoin built-in?
Use Ungoogle Chromium or LibreWolf instead.
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Cannot Believe LibreWolf was this Far Down the List..
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I don't use the shitcoin part. You can disable it entirely and then I don't have worry about installing extensions for privacy stuff.
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I didn't know. Cool!
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I wonder that too. The token attached to the browser doesn't sit right with me. I wonder why so many people use it here? Maybe because it is Chrome but not Chrome (Google version). I use a privacy tweaked Firefox. Is LibreWolf even better than that? I also use Orion browser from Kagi on my Mac.
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No one mention LibreWolf browser. Weird.
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just turn off the rewards and it is a decent are browser!
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No. I will just not install/use that browser. It has a shitcoin built-in, if the devs support a shitcoin it's a huge redflag for me.
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You can turn off the token nonsense and otherwise it's a privacy focused chrome browser.
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Recently I found open source youtube private client, that makes u watch utube privately. Import manually your subscriptions and no Google needed. Freetubeapp.io
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I use it too, works, but the UI/UX is really, really bad, like most open-source softwares.
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Haven't heard of it but will definitely check it out now
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Windows Task Manager. Not even kidding 😵‍💫
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I don't understand
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It’s easily the most used application on my PC because I’m constantly having to check what’s eating my resources.
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most used is probably Plover, use that all the time for all kinds of typing!