Lots of good suggestions already commented. I browse subs and communities, browse fdroid regularly and have a scroll through sourceforge/ git*/ alternativeto/ linux distro repositories now and again
One time i was really bored and just sorted projects on gitlab and github by stars and scrolled page after page finding many interesting projects. Then finding one thing makes you think of another which you can go look in to
Slashdot, hacker news feeds and some communities here. I dont really try to keep up with commercial tech since most of it is bundled with DRM or spyware with exceptions such as the steamdeck.
I’m only interested FOSS stuff myself. I subscribe to some security and privacy communities here in addition to some technology ones. If the news is big enough we’ll hear about it one way or another.
Discoverability happens organically out of need. Eg search “split pdfs linux” and I’ll get a cli tool for it.
On android (though I wish I was using a true gnu/Linux phone…) I open Neo store every once in a while and peruse the explore tab, sorting by most recently updated. Neo store is a better f-droid client (a source for open source android apps)
For desktop Linux, i guess you could do the same, (though for some reason i haven’t) and peruse the free sofyware marketplace that comes with your linux distro. I also used to google articles about top 10 new open source apps for ubuntu 2023, or similar google searches. I also used to read a bunch of Linux, open source, and linux hardware related sub-reddits that I’ve been slowly trying to replace with Lemmy communities, right now I subscribe to:
C/f-droid
C/hardware
C/homelab
C/Linux
C/linuxhardware
C/opensource
If anyone has anymore I should subscribe to, suggest away!
I also browse YouTube which in the past has suggested videos of people reviewing new open source apps or software. Though those video suggestions have gotten worse as YouTube’s algorithms have gotten worse in the last few years.
Also in the past I’d peruse alternativeto.net to see if there’s anything better in the open source world for proprietary software, or even alternatives to existing open source software I use.
I also try to get along with a small amount of software and I also mainly stick with default configurations. It is a great feeling when setting up a new PC or a device that there is little need to install a bunch of software and mess with a lot of configurations just to get my learned workflow up and running. Therefore there also isn’t really a need to follow new software releases.
I use Wireguard VPN with DuckDNS. No need to buy a domain, I just made a name for local use like nextcloud.rudee.com. Even though domains are not expensive (can be 10-20$ a year, but there are also free otions like rudeenextcloud.duckdns.org). You might need reversy proxy like Nginx Proxy Manager unless you want to type IP:PORT
You might try Tailscale or Wire Guard. Either can be used to create a mesh VPN that can include any device you want. Connect your devices to the VPN then you just access it like it is on your local network. Of the two I use Tailscale. Dead simple to setup on pretty much any device.
I looked into Nextcloud, but that requires paying for a domain
Depending on what installation method you choose to go with, you don’t need a domain. It’s just very much helpful to have one. Especially if you decide to have it public facing. Plus domains are cheap. A bigger issue for us self hosters is dealing with dynamic IPs. Most of the time you can buy a static IP from your ISP, but if that is not an option, most domain providers provide a way to deal with variable IP addresses.
And yes, Tailscale does ignore dynamic IP addresses. I think Wire Guard does as well as Tailscale is built on Wire Guard.
Adding to this, Tailscale’s clients are open source and there’s a community-developed open source control server component called Headscale that can replace the Tailscale’s central server if and when needed. I tested it recently and it seemed to work fine.
Oh thank you so much for posting this. When Brodie Robertson covered this on his YT channel, I was so upset at how the fiasco with SimpleMobileTools played out, but also so glad somebody took over the mantle. Cheers!
The “simple” suite of apps was bought by zippoapps, a company that buys popular apps and adds incredibly aggressive monetization that is basically just trying to scam users. You know those “free trials” that cost like 300€ per week once the trial is up so you forget to cancel and pay a bunch of money for an app you don’t want? Yeah that.
If I recall correctly, the whole suite was sold to a company that has a history of acquiring existing tools just to park them in maintenance mode and fill them with ads.
I use SSH with port fowarding to securely access my services running on my server to anywhere I have internet. Its easy to setup, just expose any device running a ssh server like openssh to the internet, probably on a port that isnt 22, and with key only authentication.
Then on whatever device you want to get your services on you can do like
Where 8022 is the port of the ssh server exposed to the internet (default is 22), 8010 is the port its gonna bind to on the device you are using the client (it will bind to 127.0.0.1 by default), 192.168.75.111:80 is the address/hostname and the port of where your services are on your local network, and user@serverspublicip is your username and the ip address of where your ssh server is.
You can also use ssh to make a SOCKS proxy in your network like this
This will make a socks proxy into your network on your device at 127.0.0.1:1080. All of this can also be done on just about any mobile phone running android by using termux.
opensource
Hot
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.