This obscure open-source tool is better than any paid alternative I’ve tried

I’m not averse to paid apps. A commercial app points to a certain amount of polish and support. However, the constant nickel-and-dime to-and-fro over subscription prices and AI-enshitification of some of the most popular paid apps has made me look for open-source alternatives wherever possible. But that’s not always the easiest task when it comes to creative tools. Industry experts and tutorials always point to Adobe’s suite as the top option for getting professional-level results. It makes sense since Lightroom and Photoshop are deeply entrenched in the world of photography and image editing. The tools are polished, powerful, and considered essential for anyone serious about giving their photos a professional edge. However, as polished and powerful as these apps are, sometimes the most popular tool isn’t the best tool for the job. And ever-so-often, it might just be the niche, understated option that nobody is talking about.

Emily Brown
Houston

Anker’s new earbuds are the first with its AI chip that boosts noise reduction

The Liberty 5 Pro Max feature a larger touchscreen with more controls and the ability to record meetings without a phone. | Image: Anker Anker has announced a new version of its Soundcore Liberty Pro earbuds: the new Liberty 5 Pro. These are the company's first earbuds featuring the Thus...

Sophia Wilson
Atlanta

PC gamers are leaving 20-30% performance on the table with this one setting

Let's say you spent months picking out parts or researching a pre-built PC. You made sure to get 16GB of fast dual-channel RAM, so your games would run smoothly, and your desktop wouldn't choke under heavy multitasking. But somehow your system feels strangely sluggish. You notice erratic 1% low frame...

Sophia Wilson
Atlanta

This $900 network switch has been flawless for nearly a decade, and it just taught me that it was a mistake

There's something about a network humming along for years without fault. After many hours of painstakingly configuring every aspect of it, from virtual local area networks (VLANs) to DNS filtering, there's little I've found to provide the same amount of accomplishment as getting my LAN fully up and running. The...

Emily Brown
Houston

I bought the RX 9070 XT for FSR 4, but the games I actually play don’t support it

When I bought my RX 9070 XT upon release, I expected FSR 4 to be one of the bigger parts of my upgrade. AMD's machine-learning upscaler had been positioned as the answer to DLSS, and the actual gameplay footage that was put out by reviewers backed up the image quality...

Jane Smith
Los Angeles

I finally see why everyone removes Windows bloatware – here’s my complete removal list

There are things Windows is good at, and other aspects where it fails miserably. Bloatware, I believe, falls under the latter. Over the years, Microsoft has been pushing more and more apps on Windows that offer no real utility to the vast majority of users. And after AI integration picked...

Josefa Campos
Spain

Lenovo’s G02 retro handheld is reportedly packed with copyrighted ROMs, including Nintendo games

The wild world of retro handhelds just got a little weirder.

John Doe
New York

Buying Plex Pass Lifetime is still one of the best streaming decisions I’ve ever made

I've been using Plex for more than half a decade, and one reason I've stuck with it is the lifetime subscription I bought. I still think it's one of the best purchases I've made for home streaming because Plex has almost everything you need for remote access and media management.

Sophia Wilson
Atlanta

States ask judge to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster

A federal judge is officially being tasked with deciding whether to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster. More than 30 states are asking Judge Arun Subramanian to order a sale of the ticketing giant, a "sufficient number" of large amphitheaters, and limit its ability to tie access to its remaining amps to...

Gonzalo León
Spain

I used frame generation wrong for months – here’s what helped

Even though I've been using an RTX 4090 since 2022, I barely ever enabled frame generation for anything besides benchmarking. Every time I toggled it on, I was just underwhelmed with how the game felt while moving around, and turned it back off within minutes. Sure, the FPS counter looked...

Sarah Grewal
Canada

I stopped switching between four apps the moment I connected them to Claude Project

For a long time, my workflow was spread across too many disconnected places. Editorial tasks lived in one dashboard, side projects in another. My ideas were scattered across note apps, and my inbox was getting buried under marketing threads. At some point, switching dashboards and keeping context became more exhausting...

Nisha Kulkarni
India

Anker’s new earbuds have the best call quality I’ve ever heard

The Liberty 5 Pro series are Soundcore’s most ambitious earbuds yet. Soundcore, Anker's audio brand, has mostly lived in the budget-to-midrange world, but with its new Liberty 5 Pro earbuds, it's aiming at the big guys. The two new earbuds - the Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 5 Pro Max...

John Doe
New York

Stop treating the Raspberry Pi 5 as a smart home hub — it’s actually built for something bigger

The Raspberry Pi has always been easy to recommend for home automation, but the Raspberry Pi 5 complicates that recommendation in a useful way. If all you need is a box to run Home Assistant, a few Zigbee devices, and some basic automations, it’s more machine than the job really...

John Doe
New York

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This obscure open-source tool is better than any paid alternative I’ve tried

Anker’s new earbuds are the first with its AI chip that boosts noise reduction

PC gamers are leaving 20-30% performance on the table with this one setting

This $900 network switch has been flawless for nearly a decade, and it just taught me that it was a mistake

I bought the RX 9070 XT for FSR 4, but the games I actually play don’t support it

I finally see why everyone removes Windows bloatware – here’s my complete removal list

Lenovo’s G02 retro handheld is reportedly packed with copyrighted ROMs, including Nintendo games

Buying Plex Pass Lifetime is still one of the best streaming decisions I’ve ever made

States ask judge to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster

I used frame generation wrong for months – here’s what helped

I stopped switching between four apps the moment I connected them to Claude Project

Anker’s new earbuds have the best call quality I’ve ever heard

Stop treating the Raspberry Pi 5 as a smart home hub — it’s actually built for something bigger

Express your creativity and start building your project