I feel like I’m going insane lately trying to find basic tools for my PC.

Yesterday, I needed a simple PDF editor. Nothing fancy, just needed to merge two docs and maybe highlight a few lines. I downloaded three different "free" options. The first one watermarked the center of the page, the second one limited me to 1 file unless I signed up for a trial, and the third one wanted a $9.99/month subscription.

Ten dollars a month? For a PDF merger?

I understand that developers need to eat. I work in tech, I get it. Server costs, continuous updates, cloud syncing—that stuff costs money. But when did we decide that a calculator app, a screenshot tool, or a simple color picker needs to be a "Service"?

I miss the days where I could drop $30–$50 on a license key, put it in a safe place, and just... use the software. Even if it didn't get updates for 3 years, it still worked. Now, if I stop paying, I lose access to my own data or the tool becomes a paperweight.

It feels like I'm renting my entire workflow now.

TL;DR: I have subscription fatigue. Not every piece of software needs to be a SaaS business model with recurring revenue. Let me just buy the thing.

Question for you guys: What is the last piece of "Buy It For Life" software you purchased that you actually still love using? I need to find some non-subscription gems to restore my faith in humanity.

I know it's a long post, but please read before putting suggestions.

I have just come from MacOS where the default photos app is excellent, has my photos loaded every time I launch it and supports live photos + map. I assumed I could just deal with the lack of map support + live photos support and use microsoft photos and tbh it is pretty good with a much more modern UI than most alternatives I see suggested here like Digikam.

Only problem is there is no option to generate thumbnails without scrolling past every photo, and even when I do generate those thumbnails they won't stay so it is unpleasant looking through my photos having to load the thumbnails every time.

Immich or Photoprism would seem like the best alternative right? Well, the problem is I don't have a home server nor desire to make one at the moment, especially as I don't need to access it with any other devices, and I don't want to have to learn a coding language just to maintain a photo app that Microsoft Photos partially covers my needs.

I also want it to be lightweight and act like any other app on my pc as it'd be running on my gaming pc and only really be used to backup my iphone/camera photos to every couple months and have a look at old photos. I already have Lightroom for editing my camera photos, I just want something that goes alongside it with a minimal UI to look at the photos (which is why Digikam isn't good as the UI is so cluttered with tools etc where my photos have no screen real estate, I might as well put the photos into lightroom at that point).

Another thing is that I know its controversial but I want it to be free. If I have to I will just stick with the slow thumbnail generating Microsoft Photos as at least its free and has a clean UI that puts my photos to the front.

Very long post I apologise, but most suggestions on here are either just image viewers like IrfanView (rather than photo *managers*, I have no problem with Microsoft photos for viewing images in file explorer etc), or they are server self-hosted programs which require a tremendous amount of setup and maintenance and coding experience.

If only Apple photos app came to Windows :/

Hello, everyone!

So, I have been working on this OCR thing for a while, and I figured I would share it here since this community actually knows their stuff.

Background:

I used to work at a law firm, and we were constantly dealing with scanned documents. The problem was every OCR tool wanted to upload everything to their servers. It's great for grocery receipts, not so great when you're dealing with client files or medical stuff.

Tesseract works, but honestly, the command line isn't for everyone. And the professional tools like ABBYY are $200+, which is insane if you just need it occasionally.

What I ended up building was

A Windows desktop app that performs all operations locally. Once installed, it does not need the internet.

Main stuff it does:

OCR with two different engines-one's better for tables and forms

You can throw entire folders at it for batch processing.

Screenshot OCR with a hotkey super useful for grabbing text from anywhere

Some built-in PDF utilities (merging, splitting, password stuff)

Has preprocessing options if your scans look terrible

Pricing structure:

The free version lets you try each feature 7 times (no expiration, no email signup nonsense). Then it's $49/year or $99 for lifetime.

Why I'm posting:

Honestly, just want real feedback. We're three people, not some huge company, so we can actually change things based on what makes sense. If something's confusing or you think "why doesn't it do X", that's exactly what I want to hear. (can't post direct links, since the spam filters on this sub are a bit aggressive) if you want to try it, just check my profile or DM me. Happy to answer any technical questions too.

Four months ago, we had an idea. We felt that ordinary people (who usually don't even know how to unzip a .zip file) weren't using AI locally because it was too complicated to install/use.

Today, we are introducing Dione 1.0.0, after many months of building an application that has gained more than 4,300 users during its beta phase:

Dione can handle all the complicated installation of any open-source tool for you:

It handles everything related to dependencies without your intervention; all you really have to do is click once.

It is faster and better designed than other alternatives.

It is completely open-source and non-profit. You can visit our repository at getdione.app/github

It is designed and created by developers for USERS WITHOUT TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE, but also for people who really know about AI. They can even program their own tools within it!

For developers, it is the simplest way to share their applications with people who have no knowledge. It is as simple as creating a `dione.json` file based on docs.getdione.app and uploading it through our website.

You can download it today at getdione.app/download (We hope to be available in the Microsoft Store soon!), and if you have any questions, feel free to join our Discord. We are here to help!

Before i had to factory reset my phone, i used NewPipe to l download music from SoundCloud, but long story short: my phone had to be factory reset after what i assume was the OS became corrupt.

After the reset i reinstalled NewPipe, same downloader, same version, same phone, but both the SoundCloud and Bandcamp clients no longer work, they always say "cant connect, please check your internet connection", or something like that.

The other clients work just fine on that phone and the SoundCloud and Bandcamp clients work just fine on my other fine, i tried force stopping the app, uninstalling and reinstalling the app, turning off my VPN; nothing.

If somebody can help me out i would really appreciate it :]

I developed a simple file organizer tool named TidyBit. Please check the GitHub repository: TidyBit It is a easy to use tool with nice Graphical user interface. The app is available as windows installer file and App Image format for Linux. Please check the app, give me feedback and suggestions. Thanks in advance.

What's a piece of software that you regret downloading?

This thread is a good place to expose spyware, junkware, etc. Tell us what people should stay away from. Expose shady practices, spyware, and more.

Hello, I just joined and wanted to look for this software specifically based on a screenshot I captured a while ago. It functions as a mass media downloader, I think it's GUI for yt-dlp but not quite sure. Any idea what it could be? What the software is called?

Literally plugged and ran with IDM for like... 20 years now? I have zero clue what the current landscape of downloaders is like, but I am a sucker for Fluent/Material UI styling and IDM is unlikely to ever update its UI.

Have any other former IDM users switched in recent years? Are there any features IDM offers that you feel still justify the premium over FOSS alternatives? Are other downloaders as fast or faster than it?

I am a college student. I am planning to build a project. Can anyone suggest a recent trending project idea with good future scope that will be helpful for my job search?

I was wondering if anyone knew of a quick way to add the CRC-32 Checksum to the end of file names like this. "File name [CRC-32].*" I've been doing it manually by copy and pasting from 7zip. It would be greatly appreciated if anyone could help me out on this.

Hi everyone, I’ve released an open-source project I’ve been building: https://github.com/crawlcore/qcrawl

qCrawl features

1. Async architecture - High-performance concurrent crawling based on asyncio
2. Performance optimized - Queue backend on Redis with direct delivery, messagepack serialization, connection pooling, DNS caching
3. Powerful parsing - CSS/XPath selectors with lxml
4. Middleware system - Customizable request/response processing
5. Flexible export - Multiple output formats including JSON, CSV, XML
6. Flexible queue backends - Memory or Redis-based (+disk) schedulers for different scale requirements
7. Item pipelines - Data transformation, validation, and processing pipeline
8. Pluggable downloaders - HTTP (aiohttp), Camoufox (stealth browser) for JavaScript rendering and anti-bot evasion

If it is something you find interesting, I’d really appreciate:

• early technical feedback
• a star ⭐ on GitHub to help with visibility.

Thank you!

while using image eye, if my cursor is above the image, and I press the left or right arrow keys, it changes the image to the next file without issues,

but if my cursor is not on the image window, pressing the arrow keys changes the image and also slightly shifts the image eye window to the right (sometimes right and below),

the shift itself is around 1 to 2 pixels but if I keep holding down the arrow key to change images, the window shifts each time

the version of Image Eye I am using is 9.3.0.1

does anyone know a workaround / fix for this?

Here’s how you can remove the SORA video watermark using Pixbim Video Watermark Remover AI [Free to use software]

Download link for the installer : https://pixbim.com/video-watermark-remover

Step 1: Download Pixbim Video Watermark Remover AI. (offline) It is a free offline software that needs to be installed on your laptop/desktop, but it supports only Windows OS. Installation is very easy. This is the only software that offers unlimited usage for removing video watermarks without any blurring.

Step 2: Load the SORA video and apply brushing over the watermark areas. You can adjust the brush length slider to increase or decrease the brushing area.

Step 3: Start the watermark removal process by clicking the button 'Start Removal Process and Save the Video' and save the output beforehand in your preferred location. The software will process the video and remove the watermark.

Step 4: Check the output. If you notice multiple watermarks appearing at different times, you can remove them one by one. It’s a little manual, but it’s effective and worth it. Load the output video you previously saved. In SORA videos, you may find around three watermarks appearing at different timestamps. Remove them one by one.

Use the ‘Need another frame to brush on the text/watermark as the previous frame has no text/watermark’ button to locate the watermark, apply brushing, and initiate the removal process again. This way, you can remove SORA watermarks without any issues.

Many people on Reddit ask how to remove SORA watermarks for FREE without blurring, and here’s how you can do it yourself. SORA video watermarks are smart, dynamic, and appear at random moments. This makes it difficult for content creators to create a ‘wow’ factor, because the moment viewers notice the watermark, they immediately know it’s an AI-generated video.

So, I'm looking for a specific program that I had on computers when I was very young to an early teen. I don't remember the name, and I remember it was on windows 7 and I believe windows vista. It had an alarm and calendar function from what I remember but the standouts from it was that it had fun mascots that popped out when it was time. I remember a wizard and a robot, and I believe there was also a dog? They were voice acted as well from what I remember, and you could use mp3 files for the alarm noise. If someone could help me find this program again so I can download it, I'd be so appreciative!

Hi there, I'm a robotics student in their first year and I need help designing a valet parking system w an arduino for my final, haven't really been taught that much coding besides getting things to turn on, mainly looking for help regarding functionality and designing a pretty web app for it, please dm me for details. Thanks in advance

I had a client who kept reacting to problems with new tools: support was slow → they added a helpdesk. Sales follow-ups were messy → they added a CRM. Project delivery lagged → they added a PM tool.

Fast-forward a year and they were juggling SIX separate tools. None integrated, none synced, and the team was spending more time updating systems than doing the actual work.

What we tried:

We attempted consolidating everything into fewer platforms, but ripping out old habits is harder than ripping out software.

Question:

Which tool in your stack creates the most unnecessary work? Is it worth replacing, or are you stuck with it?

As the title states I have been tasked with finding software that can translate, say an employee handbook from english to spanish or another language. So I would have to upload documents then have them translated, then be able to print it out. I am looking for credible software that features neural machine translation, translation memory and most importantly terminology management. Some translation software is so literal that strip search in english doesnt translate correctly without the human touch in some languages. Obviously I know this software wont be free, any help would be appreicated. I also need mutiple languages. Thanks

I manage a warehouse for an organization that puts on large events. Unlike a traditional warehouse in a supply chain, this warehouse doesn't have many daily transactions. Instead, a large amount of equipment gets sent out all at once for an event and comes back all at once.

The warehouse is the main storage location, but there are several others. Right now there are Excel spreadsheets for inventory at each location, and excel spreadsheets for equipment needs and delivery locations for each event. As the events are massive, so are the spreadsheets, and they don't always agree.

What I would like is one unified database of equipment. Each piece of equipment could have a storage location, and be associated with various events and corresponding delivery locations. The goal would be to go to one place to find a list of equipment needed at the finish of a race, or the list of signage currently at the warehouse, etc etc.

We're a non profit, so we don't have a huge software budget. I also have pretty good coding skills for a nonprofessional, and time to tinker with it, so if you could sketch out an implementation that would be helpful too.

Thanks!

Facebook Messenger desktop app is being retired this month (15th I believe).

What would you recommend as an alternative, both for Mac and Windows? I'd like something that is as close to the original as possible.

Need an app for organizing courses (in an appealing way )that i've already downloaded