Windows personal use app list
Last updated : 27/2/2023 (incomplete, will require additions)
Introduction
This article is to list out the Windows 10 apps that I use. I would also like to make it clear that I don't recommend using Windows 10/11, and that this list will also serve as some sort of reference for what kind of apps I look forward to use for Artix (GTK3).
Gallery
W10's prebuilt gallery app is quite decent, though it has its own unwanted connections & tends to be removed by the AME script.
Usable as a Windows Gallery replacement, but closed source. Sumatra PDF should be a good alternative as it also supports image viewing, although you will have to combine picture viewer & document reader.
Video / Music
Haven't switched from VLC on Windows for too long (if at all), so haven't tried other music apps to split video & music.
A video / music player I've come to rely on in Windows for pretty much most of my time in Windows. Mostly used to edit music tags, and the last known to work best for me is one from 2018 (3.0.14).
Text / source code editor
The de facto text & code editor of Windows, based on Scintilla. Unmatched in quality, even in Linux, where some (such as Dedoimedo) would even install Wine to make Notepad++ work in Linux.
Notepad++ features that I look for in Linux text / source code editors :
- Tab scrolling - the kind where scrolling will scroll through visible tabs. With how GTK developers do things, I fear this feature will never be present on GTK3.
- Automatic restoration of tabs between sessions. In addition, Notepad++ allows keeping unsaved buffers, which is neat for notes.
Prebuilt notepad
Pretty much the prebuilt Notepad app from Windows. Good for some text editing, not so much for anything else.
Document reader
Chromium-based browsers double as PDF readers, as not ideal as it sounds.
A small, fast, & open source document reader. Also supports image viewing, though I didn't use it.
Browser
Honorable mentions :
- Ungoogled Chromium (source) : Chromium, without Google integration. Mainly a one-dev-show, with separate contributors compiling the binaries.
Dishonorable mentions :
- Iridium Browser : Half-assed Ungoogled Chromium, with even slower updates.
- Microsoft Edge : Microsoft REALLY loves to force this shit to Windows users, to the point they made it unremoveable by default. Welp, this is Microsoft's prebuilt Windows malware I suppose...
Others
- Antivirus : None but personal intuition & trust (and maybe some SHA1/MD5 verifications), I guess. But still, if you really need one, maybe upload to VirusTotal or use Malwarebytes? Windows Defender also gets mentioned here since it's integrated with Windows 10 & beyond, but it destroys any & all hosts file that blocks any Microsoft connections (unless the hosts file were manually whitelisted).
- File manager : Stock Windows'. It works, at the very least.
- Network monitor : Glasswire. Closed source, naggy, & hides features (such as in-app firewall) behind premium subscriptions; but at least it sorts out connections by app, making it a supposedly workable network monitoring app.
- Office suite : LibreOffice. It's free & open source (unlike Microsoft's subscription-only Office) but doesn't seem to play well with Microsoft's office formats.
- Start menu : Pretty much stock Windows', just with some features cut away, including Cortana. Didn't bother trying out everything else.
- DS4Windows : Emulates an Xbox 360 controller to make various "unsupported" gamepads (such as the PS5's DualSense) work in Windows 10 & higher.
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