It’s probably not surprising that I’m often particular about which apps and programs I use. While most of the time apps can be relatively interchangeable, I have three favourite programs/apps. For me, that’s defined as programs/apps that a) I have chosen as the sole way for me to do a specific task after a lot of research, and b) I would be genuinely upset about not being able to use any more.
The apps/services are MusicBee (where I manage and back up my music and podcast library and sync it to my phone and mp3 players), Omnivore (where I save articles from my phone, laptop, or desktop to read later and archive), and Listenbrainz (an open-source listen tracker).
Of the three, MusicBee would be the biggest loss. It’s also the main reason I still own a Windows PC. Finding anything that could equal MusicBee would require intensive research, but its local-first nature means that I could continue to use my installed copy even if the program was no longer actively maintained, making it hard to truly lose access to.
Omnivore, on the other hand, is a service rather than a program. It is also now a dead service: on November 30th, the hosted service was shut off and all user data was deleted.
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