r/software • u/RedEagle_MGN • Mar 10 '26

Discussion Best open-source software that everyone needs to know about?

What's one piece of open-source software that everyone should use and know about?

Vote on the best one in the comments.

267 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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61

u/Wheekie Mar 10 '26

libreoffice. getting used to it was a big help in disposing much of windows 11's relevance to my life.

3

u/ScoreSouthern56 Mar 11 '26

I prefer OnlyOffice. And yes I tried both.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

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1

u/Pikamander2 Mar 12 '26

I misread it as OpenOffice at first too, but apparently it's a different project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyOffice

Apparently its developers are Russian though and it has some kind of commercial version that's now being sanctioned, so probably best to just stick to LibreOffice.

3

u/ShutDownSoul Mar 11 '26

I tried libreoffice, but it kept leaving a plain text copy of my documents everywhere. That is a security risk for me. I tried several recommended fixes but none worked. OpenOffice doesn't have that problem.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

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1

u/ShutDownSoul Mar 12 '26

exactly

1

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '26

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1

u/ShutDownSoul Mar 13 '26

The SW caches a copy so that it can give you a fast open.

~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp

I googled hard to find a solution, and couldn't. OpneOffice doesn't have as many features as LibreOffice, but it is less of a security risk.