Pages Tagged “Minimalism”

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Reviews

Agate (Gemini Server) ★★★★★ A simple Gemini Protocol server for static files. Fast, stable, easy, and running the Gemini version of this site.
Arc (Web Browser, discontinued) ★★★½☆ An interesting experiment in finding different ways to use the web, on the idea that people don’t want to use it more, they want to use the web less to accomplish what they want.
Arc Search (discontinued) ★★★★☆ Surprisingly, I like the mobile Arc browser better than its desktop counterpart. Simplified UI, stays mostly out of your way, and it’s satisfying to fling tabs offscreen to close them. Still leery of the AI summarizer, though.
Buran ★★★★☆ Simple, fast, intuitive Gemini Protocol client for Android with a clean interface. Supports bookmarks and client certs, but not subscriptions.
Deedum ★★★☆☆ A full featured, if awkward, Gemini client for Android and iOS. Handles bookmarks, subscriptions and client identities.
Dillo (Web Browser) ★★★★☆ Ultra-minimalist and super-fast browser for web documents (not applications). You won’t be logging into Gmail with it, but it’ll load a Wikipedia article incredibly fast.
FeatherPad ★★★★☆ A lightweight, fast, stable, and capable text editor for Linux.
Fossify Apps: Replacing Simple Mobile Tools Simple Mobile Tools was purchased and now does everything it used to refuse to. Fossify is a privacy-respecting fork.
Fossify Calculator ★★★★☆ Basic calculator, like the cheap 16-key models. No fancy scientific functions, but also no ads, no data mining, and no subscription. And it’s already in your pocket.
Fossify Calendar ★★★★☆ Basic calendar app that works with your phone’s local calendars. You can do all the usual things you want to use a calendar for on your phone. Doesn’t clutter up your schedule with ads or vacuum up your personal data.
Fossify Camera ★★★½☆ Basic camera app with support for flash, timer and video, optional EXIF. Lacks advanced processing like night sight. Images are slightly noisier than Google’s camera.
Fossify Contacts ★★★★☆ Basic, privacy-respecting contacts app for Android that works with all contacts accounts on your phone.
Fossify File Manager ★★★★★ Nice, simple app for handling the local files on your phone without talking to any cloud services.
Fossify Gallery ★★★★☆ Basic on-device gallery that lets you manage your photos without sending them to a cloud service just to deal with what’s on your phone.
Fossify Keyboard ★★★☆☆ I wanted to like this keyboard, but I can’t seem to type reliably with it just by tapping on my phone, and there’s no swipe gesture or autosuggest support. It works better at tablet size.
Fossify Launcher ★★★☆☆ Works fine for launching apps. Widget support needs more work. Does not auto-rotate.
Fossify Messages ★★★☆☆ Minimalist SMS/MMS app with custom alerts, archives and actions on the pull-down notifications. No RCS support or swipe actions, but does the job without sending a copy of all your messages to Google.
Fossify Phone ★★★½☆ Minimalist dialer app for the actual phone part of your smartphone, with basic call blocking. Doesn’t provide all the transcription and screening that Google’s app does, but it’s also not sending your call activity to the cloud.
Fossify Voice Recorder ★★★★☆ A simple mono recording app where the audio stays on your phone. No ads, no subscriptions, no remotely-generated transcripts, just basic recording.
Geopard ★★★☆☆ Simple desktop Gemini Protocol client with bookmarks. Polished, fits well with any Linux desktop but especially GNOME. Fast, no frills.
HeliBoard ★★★★☆ Versatile on-screen keyboard for Android with local-only autocorrect and suggestions for multiple languages. Extremely configurable. More private than GBoard, and works better for me than Fossify Keyboard. A separate download can enable optional gesture support.
Kristall ★★★★☆ Cross-platform desktop browser for the small internet, including Gemini, Gopher and Finger. A little faster than Lagrange, but fewer features and hasn’t been updated in a while.
Lagrange ★★★★★ Lagrange quickly became my favorite Gemini client on the desktop with its clean and convenient UI, stability and speed across platforms. And the mobile version works well too.
NetSurf ★★★☆☆ Lightweight browser for RISC-OS and Linux/Unix (and a few smaller OSes). Slightly more capable than Dillo, if not quite as small or fast.
Phanpy (Mastodon App) ★★★★★ An app for Mastodon (and other Fediverse sites) that cuts through the clutter. Runs anywhere in a web browser, or can be installed to your device’s home page as a PWA.
Scrambled EXIF ★★★★½ One of those ‘does one thing really well’ apps: It’s a filter that removes all the date, time, location, camera, and other metadata from a photo as you share it from your phone.
Sly (Image Editor) ★★★½☆ Simple, friendly, privacy-respecting image editor for Android and Linux. Convenient for most basic photo adjustments, but metadata handling is currently broken, so I can’t use it to just crop photos for iNaturalist. Once that’s fixed, though…
Snac ★★★★☆ Extremely bare-bones social networking server that runs on low-resource machines, works on the web without cookies or JavaScript, and still interacts through ActivityPub with Mastodon, GoToSocial and other Fediverse software.
Whalebird (Mastodon client) A simple desktop app for Mastodon and (most) compatible Fediverse servers. Fast, runs on multiple platforms.

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Blog Posts

Overstuffed Websites
I’m not ready to give up on the flexibility of WordPress for my main blog yet, but holy crap are these pages heavy. Even with compression. There’s no reason it should take 450K (before compression) and 20 requests to display a 500-word post. And I don’t even do ads, popups, social sharing buttons or anything […]
(Nov 2021)