6 ms·

Sumatra, alongside maybe Everything and IrfanView, is my favorite piece of software on windows. Incredible speed, great customizability and awesome compatibilit

Sumatra, alongside maybe Everything and IrfanView, is my favorite piece of software on windows. Incredible speed, great customizability and awesome compatibility. I really missed it when I made the switch to Linux, but not enough to consider installing WINE. Still, absolutely wonderful project deserving of the highest praise.

krylon 5y ago
Paint.NET is great, too. It's not open source, unfortunately (for valid if regrettable reasons), but it's free as in free beer. The memory of its GUI makes me sigh a little whenever I open GIMP.
- npteljes 5y ago
  Have you tried Pinta? Filled the niche for me after switching to Linux.
  - pndy 5y ago
    Pinta uses an older Paint.Net code - https://github.com/PintaProject/Pinta https://github.com/PintaProject/Pinta
    - mananaysiempre 5y ago
      Apparently the author was unhappy with someone re-releasing the software while erasing the original credits (multiple times?): <https://stackoverflow.com/a/1693549 https://stackoverflow.com/a/1693549>. Not sure why hiding the source code would help much, but oh well.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    Pinta crashes very frequently for me, usually after 2/3 operations.
  - pizza234 5y ago
    I did, and unfortunately it's usable only for extremely basic cases. Images of a few megapixels will cause it to crash or hang on selection. Happened so many times that I am forced to use GIMP.
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  >(for valid if regrettable reasons) Well now you got me curious. Why is that?
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    Paint.NET was open source, but a pirate would download the code, put their name over the author’s, and click build. That’s a very clear case of copyright violation, but the author decided it wasn’t worth the effort (especially if the pirate is in another country). https://blog.getpaint.net/2007/12/04/freeware-authors-beware-of-%E2%80%9Cbackspaceware%E2%80%9D/ https://blog.getpaint.net/2007/12/04/freeware-authors-beware...
  - genpfault 5y ago
    > Initially, Paint.net was released under a modified version of the MIT License, with the exclusion of the installer, text, and graphics. It was completely open-source, but because breaches of license, all resource files (such as interface text and icons) were released under a non-free Creative Commons license forbidding modification, and the installer was made closed-source. Version 3.36 was initially released as partial open-source, but Brewster later took down the source code, citing problems with plagiarism. In version 3.5, paint.net became proprietary software. Users are now prohibited from modifying it.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.net#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.net#History
  - angus-prune 5y ago
    The author blogged about it in 2009 [1] TL;DR They used a MIT licence and other people were selling broken, rebranded cashgrab copies without changing things like the installer or crash logs being sent to the author etc [1] https://blog.getpaint.net/2009/11/06/a-new-license-for-paintnet-v35/ https://blog.getpaint.net/2009/11/06/a-new-license-for-paint...
    - beerandt 5y ago
      So why isn't this a problem for other open source software? Or is it? Is it only because of the high demand for a cheaper/free Photoshop alternative?
- slugs19 5y ago
  I use photopea.com. It's a Photoshop clone but loads much faster and works great for when you don't need some of the newest / cutting edge PS features and don't work with large files.
  - OneLeggedCat 5y ago
    How have I never tried this. Nice project.
    - jjeaff 5y ago
      Most amazing thing to me is that it is built and maintained by a single developer.
      - basch 5y ago
        and that the entire program is about 2mb. Would fit on an extra high density 3.5in floppy. https://www.photopea.com/api/accounts https://www.photopea.com/api/accounts
  - redeuxx 5y ago
    The developer did an AMA. He makes a decent living off it. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_alternative_to_photoshop_that_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_...
nolroz 5y ago
What's wrong with WINE?
- approxim8ion 5y ago
  Nothing wrong with it, I just think it's too much stuff to have on my system for a single program. And it introduces new kinds of vulnerabilities that I don't care for.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Not the poster but in brief using wine for your workflow implies that between version n and n+1 something may stop working potentially with a workaround or potentially forever. It's also styled funny compared to native apps.
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I love Sumatra too. I dislike there is no dark mode so I just used inverted colors and it has worked well. Super lightweight and simple. Unlike adobe which is bloated, slow, and annoying.
rand49an 5y ago
I'd add Bvckup 2 to that list. Simply a application for copying/mirroring directories but is quick with a simple UI despite having lots of options. Bought a license years ago but still use it daily.
- luismedel 5y ago
  Happy customer here. Bvckup2 is one of the most polished pieces of software I've ever used.
  - cryo 5y ago
    The author of Bvckup2 has a very interesting blog with articles about the ui developement: https://bvckup2.com/wip/ https://bvckup2.com/wip/
hexomancer 5y ago
There is a new open source PDF viewer called sioyek that has many of the features of sumatra and has experimental linux builds. https://sioyek.info/ https://sioyek.info/ (Disclaimer: I am the developer of sioyek)
- culopatin 5y ago
  What is the origin of the name? Sounds pretty hard to remember
  - hexomancer 5y ago
    It means 31 (thirty one) in persian.
    - culopatin 5y ago
      And what connects 31 to PDFs? Just curious honestly. I also wonder why Sumatra is called that way
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - hexomancer 5y ago
    Replying here because I couldn't reply to your other comment (I think it reached max depth). It has no particular relation to PDFs :D. It's just a random name. I also like the number 31.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago
  I like the idea of the 'portal' feature. I use a wide monitor instead of two monitors, so two windows side by side is perfect for PDFs.
Multicomp 5y ago
Big kudos to the author for not getting sucked into the Electron Maelstrom. I find it so interesting that fancy MVU style Elm web UI event loops etc. all just reinvent the message loop that Windows has used since Win95. My PDF journey went from Adobe to Foxit to Firefox to SumatraPDF to Okular. I chose Okular over SumatraPDF because it does form fills and saves said form fill data to a new PDF. (Sumatra may do form fills now, IDK) I never would have tried Ocular if I wasn't on Fedora KDE, Sumatra was good enough, and I just fell back to FF when I had to do form fills (then print via CutePDF). Now that Okular is just a 'choco install okular' away from having it on Windows as well as Linux, I get application consistency, form-fills that save modified PDF files, and annotation stuff. But for Grandma? SumatraPDF it is.
- Narishma 5y ago
  > the message loop that Windows has used since Win95 I'm pretty sure Windows had a message loop since the very first version.
radmuzom 5y ago
Agreed. And it's written in the native Win32 API. I personally find native Win32 apps much more usable with better UI/UX than most "modern" frameworks.
keb_ 5y ago
There really is an abundance of high quality, and performant open-source applications on Windows. Among the three you've listed, I can also mention Notepad++, JPEGView, MPC-HC, Scoop.sh, and ShareX.
throwawaysea 5y ago
I wasn't aware of Everything - seems interesting. Are there equivalents to these that you like on Linux?
- wander_homer 5y ago
  FSearch is intended to be an alternative to Everything. However it doesn't have feature parity (and probably won't ever have due to some platform limitations on Linux). Disclaimer: I'm the author of FSearch. I also like to use fzf a lot, which is an amazing search utility (not only for finding files) for the terminal.
- keb_ 5y ago
  Catfish: https://bluesabre.org/catfish/ https://bluesabre.org/catfish/
- approxim8ion 5y ago
  I use fzf on Linux for the same thing. Just stick it in an xdg-open and alias it. As for pdfs and stuff, zathura, Okular, Calibre, or whatever ships with the distro are usually fine.
qalmakka 5y ago
I personally like Okular a lot, I also like to use it on Windows (it's in the Windows store).

krylon 5y ago

Paint.NET is great, too. It's not open source, unfortunately (for valid if regrettable reasons), but it's free as in free beer. The memory of its GUI makes me sigh a little whenever I open GIMP.

npteljes 5y ago
Have you tried Pinta? Filled the niche for me after switching to Linux.
- pndy 5y ago
  Pinta uses an older Paint.Net code - https://github.com/PintaProject/Pinta https://github.com/PintaProject/Pinta
  - mananaysiempre 5y ago
    Apparently the author was unhappy with someone re-releasing the software while erasing the original credits (multiple times?): <https://stackoverflow.com/a/1693549 https://stackoverflow.com/a/1693549>. Not sure why hiding the source code would help much, but oh well.
- Zababa 5y ago
  Pinta crashes very frequently for me, usually after 2/3 operations.
- pizza234 5y ago
  I did, and unfortunately it's usable only for extremely basic cases. Images of a few megapixels will cause it to crash or hang on selection. Happened so many times that I am forced to use GIMP.
Workaccount2 5y ago
>(for valid if regrettable reasons) Well now you got me curious. Why is that?
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Paint.NET was open source, but a pirate would download the code, put their name over the author’s, and click build. That’s a very clear case of copyright violation, but the author decided it wasn’t worth the effort (especially if the pirate is in another country). https://blog.getpaint.net/2007/12/04/freeware-authors-beware-of-%E2%80%9Cbackspaceware%E2%80%9D/ https://blog.getpaint.net/2007/12/04/freeware-authors-beware...
- genpfault 5y ago
  > Initially, Paint.net was released under a modified version of the MIT License, with the exclusion of the installer, text, and graphics. It was completely open-source, but because breaches of license, all resource files (such as interface text and icons) were released under a non-free Creative Commons license forbidding modification, and the installer was made closed-source. Version 3.36 was initially released as partial open-source, but Brewster later took down the source code, citing problems with plagiarism. In version 3.5, paint.net became proprietary software. Users are now prohibited from modifying it.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.net#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.net#History
- angus-prune 5y ago
  The author blogged about it in 2009 [1] TL;DR They used a MIT licence and other people were selling broken, rebranded cashgrab copies without changing things like the installer or crash logs being sent to the author etc [1] https://blog.getpaint.net/2009/11/06/a-new-license-for-paintnet-v35/ https://blog.getpaint.net/2009/11/06/a-new-license-for-paint...
  - beerandt 5y ago
    So why isn't this a problem for other open source software? Or is it? Is it only because of the high demand for a cheaper/free Photoshop alternative?
slugs19 5y ago
I use photopea.com. It's a Photoshop clone but loads much faster and works great for when you don't need some of the newest / cutting edge PS features and don't work with large files.
- OneLeggedCat 5y ago
  How have I never tried this. Nice project.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    Most amazing thing to me is that it is built and maintained by a single developer.
    - basch 5y ago
      and that the entire program is about 2mb. Would fit on an extra high density 3.5in floppy. https://www.photopea.com/api/accounts https://www.photopea.com/api/accounts
- redeuxx 5y ago
  The developer did an AMA. He makes a decent living off it. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_alternative_to_photoshop_that_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9urjmg/i_made_a_free_...

nolroz 5y ago

What's wrong with WINE?

approxim8ion 5y ago
Nothing wrong with it, I just think it's too much stuff to have on my system for a single program. And it introduces new kinds of vulnerabilities that I don't care for.
michaelmrose 5y ago
Not the poster but in brief using wine for your workflow implies that between version n and n+1 something may stop working potentially with a workaround or potentially forever. It's also styled funny compared to native apps.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

I love Sumatra too. I dislike there is no dark mode so I just used inverted colors and it has worked well. Super lightweight and simple. Unlike adobe which is bloated, slow, and annoying.

rand49an 5y ago

I'd add Bvckup 2 to that list. Simply a application for copying/mirroring directories but is quick with a simple UI despite having lots of options. Bought a license years ago but still use it daily.

luismedel 5y ago
Happy customer here. Bvckup2 is one of the most polished pieces of software I've ever used.
- cryo 5y ago
  The author of Bvckup2 has a very interesting blog with articles about the ui developement: https://bvckup2.com/wip/ https://bvckup2.com/wip/

hexomancer 5y ago

There is a new open source PDF viewer called sioyek that has many of the features of sumatra and has experimental linux builds. https://sioyek.info/ https://sioyek.info/ (Disclaimer: I am the developer of sioyek)

culopatin 5y ago
What is the origin of the name? Sounds pretty hard to remember
- hexomancer 5y ago
  It means 31 (thirty one) in persian.
  - culopatin 5y ago
    And what connects 31 to PDFs? Just curious honestly. I also wonder why Sumatra is called that way
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- hexomancer 5y ago
  Replying here because I couldn't reply to your other comment (I think it reached max depth). It has no particular relation to PDFs :D. It's just a random name. I also like the number 31.
rahimnathwani 5y ago
I like the idea of the 'portal' feature. I use a wide monitor instead of two monitors, so two windows side by side is perfect for PDFs.

Multicomp 5y ago

Big kudos to the author for not getting sucked into the Electron Maelstrom. I find it so interesting that fancy MVU style Elm web UI event loops etc. all just reinvent the message loop that Windows has used since Win95. My PDF journey went from Adobe to Foxit to Firefox to SumatraPDF to Okular. I chose Okular over SumatraPDF because it does form fills and saves said form fill data to a new PDF. (Sumatra may do form fills now, IDK) I never would have tried Ocular if I wasn't on Fedora KDE, Sumatra was good enough, and I just fell back to FF when I had to do form fills (then print via CutePDF). Now that Okular is just a 'choco install okular' away from having it on Windows as well as Linux, I get application consistency, form-fills that save modified PDF files, and annotation stuff. But for Grandma? SumatraPDF it is.

Narishma 5y ago
> the message loop that Windows has used since Win95 I'm pretty sure Windows had a message loop since the very first version.

radmuzom 5y ago

Agreed. And it's written in the native Win32 API. I personally find native Win32 apps much more usable with better UI/UX than most "modern" frameworks.

keb_ 5y ago

There really is an abundance of high quality, and performant open-source applications on Windows. Among the three you've listed, I can also mention Notepad++, JPEGView, MPC-HC, Scoop.sh, and ShareX.

throwawaysea 5y ago

I wasn't aware of Everything - seems interesting. Are there equivalents to these that you like on Linux?

wander_homer 5y ago
FSearch is intended to be an alternative to Everything. However it doesn't have feature parity (and probably won't ever have due to some platform limitations on Linux). Disclaimer: I'm the author of FSearch. I also like to use fzf a lot, which is an amazing search utility (not only for finding files) for the terminal.
keb_ 5y ago
Catfish: https://bluesabre.org/catfish/ https://bluesabre.org/catfish/
approxim8ion 5y ago
I use fzf on Linux for the same thing. Just stick it in an xdg-open and alias it. As for pdfs and stuff, zathura, Okular, Calibre, or whatever ships with the distro are usually fine.

qalmakka 5y ago

I personally like Okular a lot, I also like to use it on Windows (it's in the Windows store).