r/software • u/Aggravating_Spot3388 • Jul 28 '26
Discussion What's one piece of software you've never found a better replacement for?
Could be a developer tool, desktop app, CLI, or something completely unrelated.
What keeps you coming back?
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Jul 28 '26
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u/Zestyclose_Zone_9789 Jul 29 '26
Came here to say just that. I have a Mac now, which I use in parallel to the PC, and the lack of Total Commander is painful.
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u/w00keee Jul 29 '26
there’s an open source clone called Double Commander which works on Mac / Windows / Linux
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u/Bfox135 Jul 28 '26
7-Zip
I know winrar is the Popular one, but 7-zip has and does just work perfectly every single time with the most minimal interface.
It does 1 thing and 1 thing extremely well.
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u/mrmonz79 Jul 29 '26
I think people recommend Nanazip recently. Just saying, if you are happy with 7-Zip i am good.
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u/Bfox135 Jul 29 '26
Oh man haven't heard of Nanazip in a hot second!
wasn't that just a 7-Zip fork?3
Jul 28 '26
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u/Bfox135 Jul 28 '26
Oh yeah tones of people do, the memes kind of double as free advertisement for it.
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u/Beginning-Junket8979 Aug 02 '26
I just wish windows would natively decompress and extract a .tar.gz.
There's really no good technical reason it can't. Gzip format is used to compress http payloads over the wire so every browser, including Microsofts, already supports it.
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u/unholy182000 Jul 28 '26
Notepad++ just the best. Was using it on windows now using it on ubuntu.
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u/bankrut Jul 28 '26
Everything keeps coming back to VLC. It just plays every single file you throw at it without complaining, and I haven't found a reason to switch in ten years.
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u/Kenfloslice Jul 28 '26
I came here to say the same thing! I remember trying to play DVDs and downloaded video files on Windows XP back in 2005 before I discovered VLC. It's worth it for the peace of mind you mentioned: I haven't found a media file yet that it can't handle.
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u/Dangerzone369 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Honestly though how often are you playing a niche codec in daily life to make that your main for absolutely everything?
VLC isn't the best for image quality it just plays every codec - and that's nice to have.
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u/bankrut Jul 28 '26
It’s very rare these days, but I’ve been using VLC for a good 15 years and I always have it installed
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u/f700es Jul 28 '26
AutoCAD. For 2D drafting it IS the king. Sure some other programs might have a trick or 2 better but overall it's the best.
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u/Pablouchka Jul 28 '26
Winamp 2.95 Yes I feel old now.
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u/vertigoflow Jul 29 '26
Every time I get a new computer I try to find a good replacement. Every time I’m back to whipping the llama’s ass a month later.
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u/Worried-Researcher-7 Jul 28 '26
Directory Opus
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u/WizardEtsat Jul 28 '26
So true. Can't do my job without it. Working with files on fileservers, Directory Opus is the way to go!
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u/MarcusOrlyius Jul 28 '26
Visual Studio.
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u/HellfireHD Jul 28 '26
This! I have tried so many other IDEs and I always come back to Visual Studio. Started with it back in 1995 and while I agree that it has issues, it has continually improved over the years. It is the single piece of software that has kept me from permanently switching to Linux or macOS.
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u/sega0001 Jul 28 '26
I switched to linux a few month ago. And i really miss Visual studio.
Some day i have to try to see if it runs using wine
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u/flowsium Jul 28 '26
IrfanView
Unfortunately Windows only. Would prefer a Linux Version of it
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u/arar55 Jul 29 '26
This works well. Free, too: https://www.xnview.com/en/
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u/likwidoxigen Jul 31 '26
Omg yes how could I not mention this. I've tried so many but keep going back
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u/RagnarHUN666 Jul 28 '26
Brave browser especially Brave Origin, was browser hopping a lot but in the end I always came back to Brave, and the last time even purchased Brave Origin... this browser is just the "GOAT" of browsers.
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u/SohilAhmed07 Jul 29 '26
7zip, VLC, VSCode not just as a code editor but a notepad, log, csv, bat files, and everything thats not proprietary required to have a software file editor
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u/SnooDonuts6494 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
The GIMP. Free image editor. I've been using it since the late 90s, and still use it occasionally.
Edited: typo
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u/Shadetree_Sam Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Microsoft Office, IDrive, VLC, Audacity, Beyond Compare, Revo Uninstaller, and Microsoft Visual Studio. Still looking for a really good hex editor.
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u/DMAX85747 Jul 28 '26
VLC
TreeSize
Notepad++
7-Zip
Beyond Compare
123 Renamer
Putty
Adobe products before they became bloatware
Wireshark
Rufus
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u/magicmulder Jul 28 '26
TOAD for Oracle. Started out in 2000 with 6.x, been using it ever since. Nothing else comes close.
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u/likwidoxigen Jul 31 '26
I wish we still had licenses for this. Absolutely unbeatable
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u/magicmulder Jul 31 '26
We have exactly one license for me, the others use SQL Developer and don’t get what the TOAD hype is about. Well they only rarely need to work on the database itself…
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u/Dangerzone369 Jul 28 '26
I absolutely love Music who doesn't-so I went on a journey and found the best player. It's a purchase but no need to upgrade later if a new release appears in a few year because it's always supported.
Honestly am shocked I used things like FooBar or whatever before as it's night and day. A good player also makes you want to own Music I feel and download high bit rate from places like Qobuz etc and enjoy putting a collection together instead of barely enjoying streaming bit rates where the artist makes nothing on it.
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u/0sse Jul 28 '26
Maybe I'm just confused, but did you mention the name anywhere?
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u/Dangerzone369 Jul 28 '26
Oop! 'HQPlayer' by Signalyst is the best DSP on earth
There is unlimited free trial for 30 mins so you can have a listen.
I'm not associated in any way to this BTW.
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u/Devek11 Jul 28 '26
Midi mixer, it does exactly what I need, but it’s not being developed anymore and the bugs are making it lowkey unusable so I’m trying to vibe code a replacement
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u/karrtojal Jul 29 '26
For me: VLC, Winamp, TotalCommander, Notepad++, Brave, Thunderbird, Dataprius, Gimp.
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u/wynand1004 Aug 01 '26
Diablo II
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u/Imraith-Nimphais Aug 01 '26
Ha funny you said that cause my answer was Dungeon Keeper before I figured out this wasn’t really a game post. An old two-player game where you and a friend build dungeons and eventually battle eachother. Kinda Starcrafty.
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u/Woolix Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
TestDisk for data recovery. The only software I found that can recover lost files/partitions without renaming everything to something irrelevant.
FYI, I might have had some luck where what I was recovering wasn’t totally screwed.
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u/umomiybuamytrxtrv Jul 28 '26
Windows Speech Recognition. It’s compatible with almost everything. It’s more reliable than other speech recognition softwares.
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u/SingerLive9209 Jul 28 '26
Since early 2000s, i always have this on my desktop.
Winrar or winzip Ms office Klite mega codec Vlc Windows media player Firefox Winamp Db audio converter Power iso Directx Any runtime environment
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u/BugginsAndSnooks Jul 28 '26
Clipmate. Astonishingly useful clipboard extender. It's the first thing I install on a new PC.
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u/ggeldenhuys Jul 28 '26
Beyond Compare by Scooter Soft. Brilliant software and supports Windows, Linux and MacOS.
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u/scottyuk30 Jul 28 '26
Microsoft Moviemaker from 2012, I work in schools and it can handle most formats and produces videos quickly with transitions etc.
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u/WolverineUnfair599 Jul 28 '26
Quicken. I'm still rockin' Quicken 2016 because after Intuit sold it off it went subscription and I refuse to use subscription software that doesn't actually justify a subscription model, which most don't. So far I've yet to find a suitable replacement for my trusty old Quicken so I've made sure it's survived the various ways they've tried to kill it.
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u/Jimxor Jul 28 '26
Microsoft Windows used to come with a program called recorder.exe that you could use to record your mouse and keystroke operations so you could replay them over and over to automate tedious tasks. Long ago it quietly vanished. I miss that little puppy.
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u/sughrue Jul 29 '26
SecureCRT. There are certainly things I’d change, but the way the tabbed interface works for accessing my fleet is burned into my brain at this point.
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u/Marty5020 Jul 29 '26
I hate to admit it but MSI Afterburner and gags HP Omen Gaming Hub are both keeping me on Windows.
I don't think there's options for reliably undervolting my CPU/GPU in Linux so I'm kinda screwed. I'd happily jump ship to Bazzite, CachyOS or SteamOS otherwise.
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u/ryancnap Jul 29 '26
Thunderbird
Also PyCharm, recently switched to it from visual studio and I probably couldn't ever be made to leave it now
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u/Glint_Bladesong Jul 29 '26
Microsoft Autocollage 2008. I don't use it often, and it's hardly of world shattering importance, but nothing I've found can match what it does.
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u/starthorn Jul 29 '26
changetrack. It's a stupid simple old SysAdmin utility that sits on a *nix box and monitors specified config files for changes and then notifies you of the changes. It's small, light-weight, easy, and it gives you a handy way to keep track of changes across critical systems you manage.
Unfortunately, it's also broken on recent systems, which is why I'm now writing a replacement. 🙄
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u/gamrin Jul 29 '26
ShareX. It's a screenshot ting tool on steroids. There 8snt an equivalent on Linux yet.
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u/genericw12 Jul 29 '26
Shutter encoder. Universal media file conversion tool with lots of customizations, free and open source, fast because it utilizes ffmpeg under the hood. And you can also download web videos/audio (from youtube, soundcloud, etc) using Shutter encoder.
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u/BatChainPusher Jul 29 '26
Picasa us still my favorite desktop photo management software. I'm still using it ten years after Google ended support for it.
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u/HopSkipAndDrop Jul 29 '26
Though not a cloud or a mobile based solution, I like docFreak (act as a tabbed word processor that can contain other office files embedded to which you can hyperlink).
The thing that makes it useful for me is that it stores everything into a single file.
Would be nice if there was a version for mobiles too.
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u/BussyEnthusiasts Jul 29 '26
Beyond Compare. I've used some other diffing tools just to try things out and give them a chance but nothing, so far, compares.
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u/PuzzleheadedClue9837 Jul 29 '26
IrfanView.
It's fast, simple and perfect for any quick & dirty image edit
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u/g8rdogboy Jul 29 '26
I used the OG Magix Video Deluxe. It did realtime video editing effects in an era when encoding took hours. I had a digital 8 camcorder and used it to set home videos to music. The UI was completely custom (no standard “Windows” components) but also very intuitive. The multi-track audio and video editing and ability to snap video cuts to the audio peaks as a default behavior was amazing. I haven’t really been into video editing that much since, but I’ve never used something as easy to use and powerful compared to available tech since then.
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u/TomWaitsForNoMan Jul 30 '26
I played a Mac game called spaceward ho in the 90s. I never have felt that joy in a game since.
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u/Ok-Procedure-7726 Jul 30 '26
freeplane - mind-mapping for power users. my maps have 10+ years, hundreds of screenshot-images, links, colored, icons, foldeable... without ever blinking slow. open-source, win mac linux.
Its the best solution for organizing notes. Why nobody knows it is a mystery ;)
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u/Inevitable_Morning53 Jul 30 '26
Paint and Notepad. Open so fast and that's their only job and do it amazing.
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u/bagfnzac Jul 30 '26
KDIFF3. Absolute best software for solving merge conflicts in a manner thats human readable.
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u/electricwildflower Jul 30 '26
VLC
I started using it in the Windows XP days and it's my go to for quick video playing, nothing beats it and i have yet to find any file that doesn't play.
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u/galactose310 Jul 31 '26
La suite MS Office.
Quoi qu'on en dise, quoi qu'on pense de MS. Office reste un must. Toujours copié, jamais égalé.
Je suis sous Fedora, j'ai un PC avec de très bonnes specs donc ça va. Mais sur mon PC d'avant (Core i5, 8 Go de RAM) Office tournait sans aucun problème avec des animations et des vidéos à gogo dans les pptx (je fais de l'imagerie médicale donc les vidéos, impossible de m'en passer). Que ce soit LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, FreeOffice, et je ne sais plus lequel j'ai testé en dernier : aucun ne permettait de travailler de la même manière. Intégration vidéo ratée, animations hasardeuses, lourdeur de l'interface une fois dépassé 8-10 diapos, sur LibreOffice c'était presque impossible de bosser, sur OnlyOffice c'était plus fluide mais il ne fallait pas compter sur la lecture d'anciens pptx.
Avec mon PC actuel j'ai moins de problèmes mais tout de même MS Office reste à mes yeux imbattable.
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u/djandiek Aug 01 '26
Tasker for Android. I use it to speak certain notifications so I don't have to look at my phone all the time. It's great when I'm programming and don't want to be distracted.
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u/Cirieno Jul 28 '26
Everything Search. There is a Linux equivalent with FSearch.