Cross‑platform USB/SD card image flasher with a clean UI and smart safety features.

⚡ Fast, minimal interface

🗜️ Handles writing compressed images (ZIP, GZ, BZ2, XZ) directly unlike Refus

🛡️ Validates writes to avoid corrupted media

🚫 Hides system drives to prevent accidental nuking

🧩 Works on Windows, macOS (Intel/ARM), and Linux

👐 Open‑source and actively maintained

Ideal for prepping bootable ISOs, installers, and homelab recovery media.

Saltcorn is an MIT‑licensed platform for building full database‑driven web applications without writing code. Its point‑and‑click interface and drag‑and‑drop builder make it possible to create complete apps quickly and visually.

Key Features

• Drag‑and‑drop page builder

• Relational database management

• Web + mobile‑friendly apps

• PDF generation & email support

• Themes and plugin ecosystem

• Free, open‑source, MIT‑licensed

• Self‑hostable via Docker or NPM

• Trial hosting available on Saltcorn.com

Example Use Cases

• Wikis

• Issue trackers

• Dashboards

• Forums

• Project management tools

• Todo lists

• Software directories

A tiny but powerful tool to keep an eye on each CPU core’s temperature in real time. Super handy if you’re tuning, overclocking, or just like knowing what your system is really doing.

• Shows per‑core temps with high accuracy

• Works with Intel, AMD, and VIA

• Minimal footprint — won’t hog resources

• Plugin support + mobile monitoring

Great for stability testing or mining rigs

A clean, no‑nonsense way to run modern LLMs entirely on your own hardware.

• Run modern LLMs (gpt‑oss, Qwen3, Gemma3, DeepSeek, etc.) locally

• Fully private: no cloud, no telemetry

• Free for home and work use

• Cross‑platform: Windows, macOS, Linux

• OpenAI‑compatible API for drop‑in integration

• CLI (lms) + JS & Python SDKs

• Supports Apple MLX models

Great for self‑hosted workflows, offline coding assistants, and experimentation

LibreELEC is a “just enough OS” designed to run Kodi with maximum stability and minimum fuss. It strips away everything unnecessary, leaving a fast, appliance‑like media experience that works brilliantly on small devices and living‑room setups.

If you want a clean, reliable, open‑source media center that stays out of the way and simply plays your content, LibreELEC remains one of the best options out there.

If you’ve ever looked up at the night sky and wondered “What star is that?”, Stellarium answers it beautifully.

🪐 Realistic sky rendering
🔭 Telescope control support
🌙 Perfect for the curious, casual stargazers and serious astronomy nerds
💻 Runs on desktop, mobile, and even in the browser

It’s clean, powerful, and completely free

VirtualBox remains one of the most capable and flexible virtualization platforms out there — fully open‑source, cross‑platform, and backed by a massive community. Whether you're running a homelab, testing OS builds, or isolating workloads, it delivers a clean, reliable experience.

Why it stands out:

🚀 Full virtualization for x86_64, plus macOS/Arm (7.1) and Windows/Arm (7.2) support

🧩 Works across laptops, desktops, servers, and embedded systems

📚 Excellent documentation, tutorials, and training resources

🛠️ Active community with forums, test builds, and contribution opportunities

🆕 Frequent updates

If you need a dependable VM solution without vendor lock‑in, VirtualBox is still a rock‑solid choice.

Immich.app has become one of the most polished, privacy‑respecting photo solutions out there. If you’re tired of cloud lock‑in, slow syncing, or subscription creep, this project feels like a breath of fresh air.

✨ Why it stands out

🚀 Lightning‑fast uploads and browsing

🔒 100% self‑hosted with full data ownership

🤖 Smart search, face recognition, and maps

📱 Excellent mobile apps for seamless backup

🧩 Clean UI and active development

If you’re building a privacy‑first homelab or replacing Google Photos, Immich deserves a spot on your shortlist. It’s one of those tools that feels both powerful and thoughtfully designed.

A lightweight, no‑install disk diagnostics tool for HDDs, SSDs, RAID arrays, and even USB flash drives. Perfect for quick health checks, surface tests, and SMART monitoring without bloated suites or vendor lock‑in.

Why it’s useful:

• Runs as a portable app — ideal for toolkits

• Supports a wide range of storage devices

• Offers SMART analysis, surface tests, and drive benchmarks

• Great for spotting early signs of drive failure before data loss hits

• A solid addition to any homelab or repair workflow.

A powerful, fully open‑source deepfake framework built on TensorFlow and Keras.

Faceswap runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, with an active community, detailed guides, and a modular workflow for extraction, training, and conversion.

Ideal for researchers, VFX hobbyists, and anyone exploring machine‑learning‑based face manipulation in an ethical, transparent way.

A clear, practical walkthrough from Panjno on safely undervolting any modern Nvidia GPU. Great for reducing temps, noise, and power draw without sacrificing performance.

The video covers MSI Afterburner setup, curve editing, stability testing, and common pitfalls.

If you’re running a homelab, SFF build, or just want quieter gaming, this is a solid reference.

Open Library is a project by the Internet Archive aiming to create a web page for every book ever published. It offers millions of books you can read, borrow, or preview for free through Controlled Digital Lending.

What makes it stand out:

• Massive catalogue — 3M+ books available to read or borrow

• Full‑text search across millions of digitized works

• Reading log & lists to track what you’ve read and want to read

• Virtual Library Explorer with shelves arranged like a physical library

• Community‑driven — anyone can edit metadata, add books, or help improve the catalogue

• Multilingual interface with dozens of supported languages

• Part of the Internet Archive, alongside the Wayback Machine and Archive‑It

If you love books, open data, or digital preservation, this is one of the most valuable free resources on the web.

If Windows feels a bit too chatty, cluttered, or nosy, this script is a relief.

Win11Debloat is a lightweight PowerShell tool that removes pre‑installed apps, disables telemetry, and tidies up the overall experience. It works on both Windows 10 and 11.

It’s straightforward, configurable, and perfect for anyone who wants a cleaner, quieter system without wrestling with menus or registry edits. A small script with a big impact.

If you care about privacy, control, and clean engineering, OPNsense is one of those rare projects that instantly earns your respect.
No noise. No gimmicks. Just a beautifully built firewall that gives you full visibility into your network without locking you into anything.

Key Features
Stateful Firewall (IPv4 & IPv6)
Clean rule management, live traffic view, and full transparency over what’s happening on your network.

Multi‑WAN Support
Load balancing, failover, and flexible routing for resilient connectivity.

Built‑In VPN Options
Native support for WireGuard, IPsec (including route‑based), OpenVPN, and Tinc mesh networking.

Intrusion Detection & Prevention
Suricata with Emerging Threats rules, inline IPS, and optional ET Pro for deeper protection.

Hardware Failover (CARP)
High‑availability setups with synchronized states for zero‑downtime environments.

Unbound DNS & DNS Tools
Local resolver, DNSSEC, overrides, and tight integration with firewall rules.

Modern Reporting & Monitoring
NetFlow analytics, exportable graphs, and real‑time visibility into interfaces, ports, and applications.

Open Source, Actively Developed
Transparent codebase, strong community, and a development model that prioritizes trust and longevity.

Cloudflare’s speed test doesn’t just throw numbers at you; it feels like a quiet diagnostic pulse check for your entire network.

Built on Cloudflare’s global edge network, it measures download, upload, latency, jitter, and packet loss with a kind of clinical precision. And yet, there’s a strange comfort in it — a sense of “okay, show me what I’m really working with today.”

If you’re the kind of person who likes transparency, privacy‑respecting tools, and clean, no‑nonsense interfaces, this one hits the spot. Just be mindful: a full test can chew through up to 200MB of data.

Sometimes, the simplest tools are the ones that make you feel the most in control.

Most “passive income” ideas demand time, capital, or risk. Microsoft Rewards is the rare exception — a genuine zero‑effort income drip hiding in plain sight.

You’re already searching the web.
You’re already clicking links.
You’re already doing the behaviour.

The only difference is whether you let those actions quietly earn you points that convert into real value — gift cards, subscriptions, store credit, even Xbox balances.

If you’re serious about stacking small, effortless wins, this is the lowest‑friction system you can plug into.

CrystalDiskInfo is a lightweight, open‑source HDD/SSD/NVMe monitoring tool that gives you instant visibility into drive health, temperature, SMART attributes, and early‑warning signs of failure

Highlights

📊 SMART health status + temperature display

🔔 Alarm notifications for failing drives

🧩 Supports USB, RAID, and NVMe devices

🪶 Extremely lightweight and easy to use

Perfect for anyone who wants proactive drive monitoring without bloat. A must‑have in any diagnostic or maintenance toolkit.

A lightweight, all‑in‑one stack for spinning up a local PHP environment in minutes. XAMPP bundles Apache, MariaDB, PHP, and Perl into a single installer, giving you a fast, frictionless way to test, prototype, or run local tools without touching system configs. Ideal for anyone who wants a simple, predictable dev setup that just works.

Highlights

• Apache, MariaDB, PHP, and Perl packaged together

• Cross‑platform installers (Windows, Linux, macOS)

• Minimal configuration; great for quick testing

• Open‑source and maintained by Apache Friends

• Reliable option for local development and demos

Firefly III is a powerful, open‑source personal finance manager designed for people who want full control over their financial data. It supports double‑entry bookkeeping, multi‑currency accounts, detailed reporting, and a flexible rule engine — all running on your own server for maximum privacy.

Highlights

🧮 Double‑entry accounting — Accurate, structured transaction management.

🌍 Multi‑currency support — Track accounts and budgets across currencies.

📥 Data Importer — Cleanly import CSVs and bank exports with rule‑based cleanup.

⚙️ Advanced rule engine — Automate categorisation, tagging, and transaction transformations.

📊 Informative reports — Weekly, monthly, yearly insights plus audit‑friendly list views.

🔌 JSON REST API — Integrate with apps, scripts, dashboards, or automations.

🏷️ Budgets, categories, tags — Flexible organisation for any workflow.

Why it matters

If you want a privacy‑respecting alternative to cloud‑locked finance apps, Firefly III gives you full ownership of your data with enterprise‑grade features and a clean, extensible design. Ideal for anyone building a self‑hosted, transparent financial workflow.

KMyMoney is a free, open‑source personal finance manager built on KDE technologies, offering a familiar and accurate way to track accounts, budgets, and transactions without relying on proprietary cloud services.

It’s available across major platforms and designed for users who want clarity and control over their financial data.

Highlights

🧮 Accurate & familiar — Double‑entry accounting with a clean, intuitive interface.

💻 Cross‑platform — Runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS.

🔒 Privacy‑respecting — No forced cloud sync; your data stays local.

🛠️ KDE frameworks — Stable, well‑maintained, and community‑driven.

📊 Feature‑rich — Categories, budgets, reports, reconciliation, and more.

Why it matters
If you want a dependable finance tool without subscriptions, tracking, or vendor lock‑in, KMyMoney delivers a solid, transparent alternative that fits perfectly into a privacy‑focused workflow.