Free Software

Why free software is so important?

Free software is more reliable and secure than proprietary software. They typically use open data formats available to anyone, which allows for accessibility, future-proofing, and preservation, avoiding vendor lock-in.

What Operating System should you use?

Windows is the most popular operating system with a huge selection of available programs and games, but is not safe. macOS has a user friendly and clean interface, but is expensive. GNU/Linux is a free operating system. It’s available for everyone to download, use, modify, and distribute it at no cost.

What are the best alternatives for Microsoft Office?

Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice are free office suites. They include Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, and Math.

How To Learn To Type Fast?

There are free typing tutors to learn how to type the proper way with speed and accuracy. More specifically, we are talking about Klavaro, KeyBlaze, RapidTyping, GNU Typist, and Tux Typing.

What is the best children's educational software?

Educational software is a term used for any computer software which is made for an educational purpose, such as GCompris, Omnitux, The KDE Education Project, and Childsplay.

Multimedia, Drawing, Image and Video Editing

How to Edit Audio in Audacity. How to create music.

Audacity is a free and cross-platform digital audio editor, recorder, and mixer. GarageBand is one of the best free software for music creation. It is a fully equipped music creation studio inside your Mac.

How to listen to radio and podcasts

Online radio is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. A podcast is a radio talk show that you can download from the Internet.

How to play almost any media file. How to edit, record, and convert videos

VLC Media Player is a free, easy to use, and cross-platform multimedia player that plays almost everything. OBS is for video recording and live streaming. Kodi is a free media center. DaVinci Resolve is a popular video editing software.

How to Batch Convert, Compress, and Resize Images

Mass Image Compressor is one of the best image optimizer software that lets you compress images in a batch.

How to edit pictures and photos

Gimp is a free, open source, and extremely powerful image editing program. Inkscape is a professional vector graphics editor. ImageMagick is a free software suite for displaying, creating, converting, modifying, and editing raster images.

How to take screenshots

To take a screenshot, press the Windows + Shift + S keys on your keyboard. The screen will dim and a toolbar will let you take a rectangular, free-form, full-window, or full-screen screenshot. Take a screenshot and paste it in a photo editing program.

How to view pictures and create slideshows

Image viewers are programs that allow users to view and navigate through images in a fast and convenient way. They can handle a big variety of graphics file formats, create slideshows, and do basic image editing.

How to animate with Mixamo and Unity

Videos and animations are the most efficient and attractive ways for any learning process, marketing strategy or any other kind of communication because they are highly engaging, entertaining, and easily grab the attention of the audience.

Ebook readers, RSS, text and source code editors.

How to Use RSS Feeds to dramatically boost your productivity

If you want to follow your favorites sites and blogs efficiently, nothing beats a good RSS reader where you can read everything in just one place.

How to convert ebooks and remove DRM

Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application. It can convert a wide variety of formats. It helps you read and organize your entire library.

How to read ebooks? Everything You Need to Know

An ebook is a digital version of a printed book that you can read on a variety of electronic devices like a computer, ebook reader, tablet or smartphone. Amazon Kindle is one of the best ebook reader apps.

How to use Affinity Publisher

Affinity Publisher is a desktop publishing application for Windows and macOS. It is an intuitive, smooth app that helps publishers and creative professionals create and modify designs or layouts for professional-level books, ebooks, magazines, newspapers, social media templates, website mock-ups, and more.

What are the best text and source code editors? Best Online IDEs

Visual Studio Code is a free, lightweight, and powerful source code editor developed by Microsoft. NotePad++ is a free editor for Windows.

How to read comics? Everything You Need to Know

A comic book is a magazine that contains stories that are told through graphic drawings and dialogues. CBR and CBZ are the most popular comic book formats.

How to edit text super fast in distraction-free editors

Do you easily get distracted when you are writing with social media, your cellphone, etc.? Vim is a highly configurable text editor for efficiently creating and editing any kind of text.

How to edit Markdown and LaTeX

Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system commonly used for technical and scientific documents.

How to read and edit PDF

PDFedit is a free, open source, pdf editor and a library for manipulating PDF documents, released under terms of GNU GPL version. jPdf Tweak is boldly stated as the Swiss Army Knife for PDF files.

File Manipulation and Basic tasks

How to surf the web effectively. The best extensions.

Chrome is fast, Brave lets you earn crypto currency, and tor is the safest browser. Surfraw lets you search the web and find everything you need from the terminal. buku is a command-line bookmark manager.

How to Create and Use Virtual Machines

VirtualBox extends the capabilities of your computer so that it can run multiple operating systems at the same time. The Windows Subsystem for Linux lets users run a GNU/Linux environment including most command-line tools, utilities, and applications directly on Windows.

How to install any software and troubleshooting

A package manager is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing software.

Fun on the terminal

If you are stressed out, burnt out, depressed, or feeling increasingly overwhelmed, why don't you just chill out, man, and have some fun on the terminal? Worry not, let me suggest you some cool ideas.

How to use/make the most of file managers to boost your productivity

Dual-pane file managers allow their users to browse two separate folders simultaneously, compare, copy and move files and folders from one location to another. File managers are also equipped with many shortcuts to boost your productivity.

How to burn CDs and DVDs

External DVD writers are highly affordable, portable, and are widely compatible with many operating systems. Besides, they can play CDs, DVDs, and VCDs.

How to download torrents

Torrent files are files that contain information on how to download a larger file using the BitTorrent protocol. To open a torrent file, you need a torrent client, such as µTorrent, Vuze, Transmission, XTorrent, or Deluge BitTorrent.

How to convert files

There are different file formats for different purposes, needs, and uses. If a file was created in one application and you want to use or open it in another, you can either import the file or use a conversion program.

How to play retro

Retro gaming, also known as old school gaming or classic gaming, is the playing or collecting of games that were designed and developed for older generation consoles, PCs, or arcade machines in contemporary times.

Gaming, messaging apps & workstations

Best Messaging Apps: Signal (security), Viber (supports stickers and GIFs), WhatsApp (popular). Gaming: Steam, Discord, and game launchers. Workstations allow you to manage all your web apps in one neat and productive interface.

How to archive and compress files and folders

Select or highlight your file(s) and folder(s) that you want to archive, right click with your mouse and then choose the option Compress to ZIP file. 7-Zip is an open source archive manager that can compress and decompress a wide range of formats.

Productivity

How to boost your productivity with Espanso, a free text expander

Espanso is an open source, cross-platform text expander. This is a step-by-step guide to teach you how to use Espanso and boost your productivity to new heights.

How to boost your productivity with launchers

Rofi is a free and open source window switcher, a full-featured application launcher, and a dmenu replacement. Wox is an effective launcher for Windows. Albert is a desktop agnostic launcher. Alfred is an application launcher for macOS, but it is not free.

How to conquer your email and get your inbox under control

Email is the exchange of computer-stored messages between people using electronic devices. They have become ubiquitous and c Here's the complete, ultimate guide to Gmail.

How to make better to do lists

To-Do lists provide structure and a clear game plan. They bring order to our chaotic lives, they give us a sense of control and accomplishment, and help us stay accountable.

How to manage your personal knowledge easily and practically

Obsidian is a powerful note-taking tool. You can use it to create and manage your knowledge base, too. It is free, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and most importantly, you own and control your data.

How to set up and use a calendar app

Calendars help us stay organized and prioritize tasks in ways that are different from a to-do list. We use them to keep track of appointments, birthdays, dates, family and school events and keep our schedules organized and accessible to others.

How to use and share a single mouse/keyboard across devices

Barrier is a free and open-source KVM. It allows you to use and share a single mouse and keyboard across multiple devices.

How to Use the Clipboard

To get to your clipboard history at any time, press Windows + V. Ditto is an advanced clipboard manager for Windows.

How to use virtual desktops and keyboard shortcuts

Learn how to use virtual desktops and keyboard shortcuts to boost your productivity.

What is a dumb phone? Why should you care?

People are buying dumb phones to escape the temptation of social media, to stop spending more than three hours staring at their small screens because our phones are also our email inboxes, music players, gaming consoles, productivity apps, digital cameras, time wasting devices, payment devices, etc.

Security. Antivirus, firewalls, and password managers (pass, KeePassXC).

How to protect yourself and your privacy

Security is a big concern for everyone. Some typical security attacks include: phishing attack, malware, spam, identity theft, and spyware. Learn how to be secure online.

How to create a strong password you can remember

Your passwords should be memorable so you don't forget them and complex enough to protect your accounts. There are common substitutions like $, S or 5 for s/S; 1, Eye, or ! for i/I; @ for a/A; 2 for to; 7 for t/T; 3 for E/e; 0 for o/O; and 8 for b/B.

How to manage your passwords

Password managers store and manage all your passwords, so you don't need to try to memorize a bunch of unique, complex passwords for all of your personal and work accounts. You only need to remember one password, the one to your password manager.

How to access the dark web and what you can find

The dark web is a part of the deep web that is intentionally hidden from search engines and public view. Access to the dark web requires the Tor browser. The Tor browser is a web browser that anonymizes your web traffic using the Tor network.

How to browse anonymously

You can use a VPN. Another idea is to route all your system traffic through tor. Tor is a free, volunteer-run network of virtual tunnels designed to conceal your identity, location, and online activity from tracking or surveillance.

How to browse anonymously II: Tails

Tails, aka the Amnesic Incognito Live System, is a stateless operating system focused on privacy. It is a portable operating system that protects you against surveillance and censorship.

How to browse anonymously III: Whonix

Whonix is a Kicksecure-based security hardened Linux distribution and it is not amnesic by default. It is designed to preserve privacy and anonymity by helping users run applications anonymously.

How to delete files permanently

Deleting a file will only move it into the Recycle bin. Moreover, deleting a file will not physically remove it from your hard drive and therefore, it will not prevent third party utilities from un-deleting it again.

How to protect your router

Your router is your first line of defense. It handles and manages all the Internet traffic on your network. If your router is compromised, the security of all of your devices that use the router is in danger.

How to protect your smartphone. What are the most secure smartphones?

Google, Microsoft, and Apple monitor a lot of what you do on your smartphone. Besides, manufactures and software developers will add their own dangerous and privacy-invasive software into the mix.

How to protect yourself and your privacy II

Minimize your digital footprint. Use privacy-oriented operating systems, browsers, search engines, and messaging apps. Activate Ransomware Protection. Use tails, VPN, and ad blocker extensions. Protect your router.

How to backup your computer: System Restore, Time Machine, and Timeshift

System Restore allows you to restore your Windows back to its latest working state. Backup with File History, Backup and Restore, and AOEMI Backupper. Time Machine is a complete system backup for macOS. Timeshift is an open-source powerful backup tool similar to macOS's Time Machine.

How to backup your data: Synching, rsync & backup hardware.

File-sharing services are the easiest ways to back up and sync files and directories among computers. Syncthing is a continuous file synchronization program, a free alternative to Dropbox and Google Drive. rsync lets you transfer and synchronize data between different machines and directories.

Installing, configuring, and using VPN with WireGuard, Duckdns, OpenVPN, and PiVPN

A VPN protects your privacy. Wireguard is a free, open-source VPN connection protocol.

How to encrypt your computer: VeraCrypt, BitLocker & FireVault

If you have a computer or laptop with important, private, or sensitive files and information, you should encrypt your entire drive. VeraCrypt is a free open-source disk encryption software for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux-

How to protect your computer with a firewall

A firewall is a program that acts as a protective barrier, a gatekeeper or a security guard between you and the Internet. The best free firewalls are: ZoneAlarm Free Firewall, Comodo Firewall, Firewalld, and ufw.

Administration tasks

How to Check your Disk Space

How to Check your Disk Space using your own operating system built-in tools or WinDirStat, Disk Inventory X, GrandPerspective, and NCurses.

How to create a multib USB

Ventoy is an open source tool to create multiboot USB drive. balenaEtcher is an open-source software to create a bootable USB drive using ISO files safely and easily.

How to create, format, and manage partitions

GParted is a free partition editor for graphically managing your disk partitions.

How to Defragment your hard disk

Defragment your hard disk using your own operating system built-in tools or Defraggler, Wise Care 365, Auslogics Disk Defrag Free, and e4defrag.

How to dual boot on Raspberry Pi using BerryBoot

BerryBoot allows you to put multiple Linux distributions on a single SD card.

How to use Clonezilla to clone or create/restore an image.

Clonezilla is a free and open source partition and disk imaging/cloning program similar to True Image® or Norton Ghost.

How to enter a BIOS and configure it

The BIOS is the Basic Input/Output System. It is accessed and configured through the BIOS Setup Utility. First, the computer runs a Power-On Self Test.

How to Block Ads (Network-Wide) with Pi-hole

The Pi-hole is a DNS sinkhole that protects your devices from unwanted content, without installing any client-side software.

Remote Access: Remmina, RealVNC, TeamViewer, Putty & More

You can use Remote Desktop to connect and control your Windows PC from a remote device and Remmina as a remote desktop client. VNC allows your Raspberry Pi to be viewed and controlled remotely. TeamViewer is another solution for remote access.

Servers: Samba, NFS, Webtop, and Nextcloud

Let's install and configure: Samba, file sharing across different operating systems; NFS, Webtop (a Linux-based container with a desktop environment running in a browser); and Nextcloud, your own Dropbox.

Docker: A Step by Step Guide. Docker compose and Portainer.

Docker is a software platform designed to make it easier to create, deploy, and run applications by using containers

Dotfiles with Git + GNU Stow.

Manage and sync dotfiles with Git + GNU Stow.

Awesome command linux tools: bat, fzf, exa, ripgrep, youtube-dl, xclip

fzf is a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder. bat, exa, and ripgrep are modern replacements for cat, ls, and grep respectively. youtube-dl download videos from YouTube. xclip is a command-line clipboard manager

How to clean and maintain your PC.

Clean and Maintain your Windows, macOS, and Linux automatically

How to clean and update your PC

GeekUninstaller, WiseCleaner -Windows- and AppCleaner -macOS- uninstall programs and remove leftover files. CCleaner and BleachBit are tools for cleaning your PC of unneeded data, trackers, cookies, junk files, etc.

How to Find reliable and useful information.

Choose a good browser. Improve your Internet search results with Google. Use other search engines. How you search is just as important as what you search. Help in Linux: man, tldr, apropos, cheat, whatis

How to get help on the shell/terminal

The command help/man is the general help. Use the command options /? (Win) or -h or -help. whatis displays one-line manual page descriptions. tldr are simplified and community-driven man pages with practical examples.

How to Get Information about your PC

To get basic information about your PC, go to Settings, About. Besides, systeminfo is a Windows utility that can be used to gather quick information about your PC. Other system information software are: CPU-Z, GPU-Z, HWiNFO, Speccy.

How to improve your productivity in your terminal with Tmux

A terminal multiplexer is a software application that can be used to split a single terminal into one or more virtual sessions. Basically, a user can have several sessions inside one single terminal and attach and detach these sessions when required.

How to install, configure, and use Hyper, Alacritty, and Kitty

A terminal emulator is a text-only window that emulates a console in a desktop environment. Alacritty is a fast, cross-platform, OpenGL terminal emulator. Kitty is a fast, featureful, GPU based terminal emulator.

How to install, configure, and use Windows Terminal and iTerm

A terminal emulator is a text-only application that emulates a console in a desktop environment. Windows terminal is a modern host application for Command ⌘-line tools and shells, like Command ⌘ Prompt, PowerShell, zsh and bash (WSL).

How to use the terminal like a pro

The command line is the ultimate power tool, a kind of seat of power, on your computer. Using it can feel a bit intimidating, overwhelming and complex, but it allows you to navigate through files and folders, create, copy, move and delete files and directories, execute commands with multiple options, install and run programs, etc.

Customize your login screen, configure a login manager and a compositor

Login managers provide a nice graphical interface for login into your Linux desktop and starting the graphical display.

How to configure a bootloader. How to update a microcode.

A boot loader is a critical piece of software running on any system. Immediately after a device starts, a bootloader is launched by a bootable medium, such as a hard drive, a USB stick, or a CD/DVD. The bootloader loads the kernel into memory and passes control to it.

How to use Window Managers to increase your productivity

Window managers are responsible for the placement, arrangement and appearance of all your windows. They can help you to make the most of your display's screen real estate and improve your multitasking experience.

How to use Window Managers to increase your productivity II (Linux)

Window managers are responsible for the placement, arrangement and appearance of all your windows. i3 is a minimalist tiling manager that is primarily targeted at developers and advanced users.

Shells: Zsh & Oh-my-zsh. Aliases. Fish.

Unix shells are interactive interfaces that allow users to interact with the Operating System by executing commands and utilities. Let's install and configure Zsh and Fish.

SSH. SSH Key-Based Authentication. MOTD. Run GUI apps remotely. Two-factor authentication

Let's install and configure SSH: SSH Key-Based authentication; create a custom MOTD or login Banner, run GUI-based applications, keep alive SSH sessions, and two-factor authentication.

How to fix your computer

Recover your data, restart, update your system/drivers, run an antivirus scan, check your file system/Internet connection, log in with another account, use in-place repair upgrade, reset the computer

What to Do When Your PC Doesn't Start

If your computer won't boot, do not panic, at least not yet. Sometimes, battery or power issues, Fast Boot, or an USB device can cause boot problems. If your PC has a recovery partition, you can use it to restore the system to factory settings. Try Windows Safe Mode, too.

How to Kill some tasks and monitor your PC real-time performance

The Windows Task Manager displays information about the processes running on your computer. To force a frozen task to quit, select the task and smash the End task button.

How to recover deleted files

If you have deleted your files and folders by mistake or accident, because you did not think you were going to need them, or if your computer got fried after a power outage or a storm, you are not the only one. Just follow these instructions.

How to recover a partition table and deleted files II

If you have deleted your files and folders by mistake or accident, because you did not think you were going to need them, or if your computer got fried after a power outage or a storm, you are not the only one. Just follow these instructions.

How to remove viruses from your computer

Microsoft Defender is one of the most effective antivirus. Hiren's BootCD PE contains many free tools to fix many problems related to your computer. Tron is an automated PC cleanup script. You can clean your Windows from infected viruses using an Ubuntu live USB.

How to create and remove a BIOS password

The BIOS is the Basic Input/Output System. It is accessed and configured through the BIOS Setup Utility. You can set up an Administrator Password and a User Password in your BIOS: Advanced Mode, Security

Setup Guides & Personalization

How to set up a new Mac

Install Xcode’s Command Line Tools, Homebrew. Install apps via Homebrew. Install and configure iTerm, Zsh, and Oh My Zsh. Security and Privacy: Firewall, FileVault, and TimeMachine.

How to set up a new Ubuntu

Update and Upgrade Ubuntu. Customize Ubuntu's looks and behavior. Connect your phone(Android) to Ubuntu. Install extra codecs, Microsoft Web fonts, rar, and 7zip support, etc.

Arch Linux: From Zero To Hero

Arch Linux is an independently developed, free and open-source, rolling release distribution. It is a minimalist, lightweight, and bleeding edge distribution that targets advanced users.

How to set up a new Windows

Create two local accounts, one for administration and the other for normal use. Update your operating system , programs, and drivers to their latest versions. O&O ShutUp10++ is a free antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11.

How to personalize your PC

Customizing your operating system is a handy way to optimize your workflow, make your regular life a little more enjoyable and your computer experience more personal, and empower you to use the computer the way you like and need.

How to setup and configure a new Android

Android is the first open-source, Linux-based, technology platform for mobile devices. Let's see how to setup and configure a new Android smartphone.

How to access/mirror your phone & run Android apps on your PC

We spend a lot of time using our phones and in front of our computers, so we are constantly switching between our PCs and smartphones. Making these two platforms work together makes a lot of sense.

Advanced topics: Programming, Installing Arch from Scratch