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Can’t count the number of times I’ve found a little widget from somewhere like www.nirsoft.net that does exactly what I need it to do and doesn’t try to sell me a subscription or turn out to be gimped unless you pay £50 for a key…

@carlbottcher.bsky.social Yes!

Have always used Malwarebytes as a secondary layer, but the new (v4) premium option looks very promising.

As a professional web developer, this is how I feel when judging websites for businesses.

I know. When I search for a tool to do some random task, I try to find a crappy looking website with a download that's like 10 mb, if you dig deep past all the bloated crappy ones.

bsky.app/profile/cher...

We'll just from a design aspect as well the aesthetic - usability effect is also real.

Perfect

What's the site?

These are the people who keep the world spinning

I use Notepad++ for everything too. But those are even big compared to the things I'm thinking of. Like, merge these files together, here's a 300 kb exe

Do you have any examples of alternatives for common apps?

The Keygens of yesteryear tried to warn us.

Yes they made it for themselves and decided to share. They aren't trying to make money here

non-standard keyboard shortcuts for basic things like save, copy, paste? ohhhh baby now we're cooking

I think it used to be the case that beautiful software was often a good sign. Someone cared enough to make it pretty. Like an album with excellent cover art. But now a pretty UI is often a bait and switch.

Ooo!

A look we should all aspire to

But the more it looks like it's trying to steal your bank details, the less likely it's actually trying to! The people trying to steal stuff learned looking nice helps.

I feel the same way about my slider or taco place

Fancy looks mean bloat. I assure you, sound card drivers do NOT need to be 500mb in size

I think it's time to work on my neocities site again

No such thing

Yeah! I think you're right! Like the audiobook version of the txt read me and the voice is something I trust.

Autistic+ADHD+OCD+dyslexic here I am the exact type that would put the Extra to make things look polished even free things because it has to look good for ME first. It's gotta be pleasant to my eyeballs or I can't focus. So there's that aspect of it But I get the premise here & agree too.

My work uses a program that turns pdfs into excel tables. Program hasn’t been updated since 2012. Has the old old twitter logo in the corner.

If you can afford to spend time making it look nice, you can spend that time making it work better

Also acceptable

I feel this way about skeuomorphism in audio tools. The more the plugin looks like physical hardware the harder they are trying to trick me into thinking it sounds good. While the truly best tools just have simple graphs and actual computer interfaces.

Never trust a toolbox that isn't full of scuffed, banged up tools.

#9Front has the terrible look, and also it has the appearance from a alternate timeline of where somehow nobody wanted to copy Apple in the Ui department. And it originates from a successor OS to #UNIX created by said creators of UNIX.

Reminds me of when I upgraded from WinDirStat to WizTree, wiz is infinitely faster and cuts down on unnecessary features that I don't need from wds

I pick my software solely dependent on if I think it may whip a llama’s ass.

Handbrake has this quality.

Yes! IrfanView is my go-to example of this software archetype. It's only a few months younger than me at 28, and like it looks absolutely ancient - but it's also 3mb in size, lightning fast, and uses an order of magnitudrum fewer resources than the Windows 11 calculator.

Those are exactly what we look for. Every time.

i wish this was as true with niche corporate software

this is a really good point yk

It's the same thing as anything that comes with a hand formatted txt file. You know that file is going to tell you everything you need to know.

I don't know what that is, but I googled it and yes.

Limewire? Virus city... Slsk? it still fit on a 3.5" floppy

Growth-hacking you can _see_!

And that's before someone forks and rewrites it in toaster assembly language, just because they could.

Maximum 10 MB download

The sort of UI that’s so complex you know that mastering it would earn you a seat at Valhalla

I did eventually learn how to do that but I’d say this tool was actually more straight forward and definitely easier and way faster than that for someone who had never written code. Everything I needed to do was a built in option and it’s so fast you can fiddle with it while checking results.

Totally! I remember frequently thinking “I need to do x” and the thing I needed was always right there.

I fucking love this tool. Absolute godsend.

I've done things like this. Some developer had a job to do and just keeps adding buttons to the same screen for each thing they need. Adding extra screens or UI work takes away from the goal. I've just got something I need to use, I already know how to use it, because I made it.

It is beautiful. Form follows function, each thing you'd need is right in front of you and easy to find. You don't need to read something because it's all there. It's not fashionable or sellable for UI, but it is beautiful.

the unix way was a great philosophy