Setec Astronomy
Security Tools
These are some of the great free and open source software tools available particularly for my friends who live in less free societies. Unless you are a cryptographer, I don’t recommend the Security through Obscurity strategy. Also, consider some of the tools recommended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Surveillance Self-Defense.
- DuckDuckGo - web search without tracking
- GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) - open source version of PGP
- Keybase - site that links social media identities with an encryption key
- Keyserver - MIT’s PGP keyserver (one of many available)
- Mailvelope - browser extension for PGP use in webmail
- Mega - encrypted cloud storage
- OpenVPN - run your own VPN on Windows, OS X, or Linux
- Signal Private Messenger - US-based encrypted SMS, MMS, and voice
- Syncthing - synchronized storage without disk limits using BitTorrent technology
- Termux - terminal for Android devices
- Threema - Swiss-based encrypted SMS and voice
- The TOR Project - a more private method of accessing the Internet
- Wormhole - command line tool for peer-to-peer files or text transfer with end-to-end encryption
Productivity
For those that just want to work with free and open source software, check out these alternatives to common applications. They are also useful for living a first world lifestyle on a third world salary.
- Libre Office - free replacement for Microsoft Office
- Ubuntu Linux - complete replacement for Windows / running the variant of Ubuntu called Xubuntu enables you to run a modern operating system and applications on minimal hardware such as a 10 year old computer that you can get virtually for free. If you need a graphical interface but want to run at ludicrous speed, check out i3.
- Portable Apps - you can even get by without your own machine or relying on cloud services
- Zotero - organize papers and manage citations
- Hugo - generate static websites that can be hosted anywhere
- Plex - the best media server
- OBS Studio - Open Broadcaster Software Studio
- Muse Score - open source music notation software
- Qubes OS - operating system for those who are tired of repeatedly wiping their system
Analytical Tools
These are some numerical analysis tools that I find useful. They may or may not be useful for what you do.
- R - statistical analysis language that competes with SAS and SPSS
- RStudio - IDE for R
- Octave - open source version of MATLAB
- python - general purpose programming language
- Jupyter Lab - interactive computing platform
- GRASS - Geographic Information System that competes with ArcGIS
- VS Code - One code editor to rule them all