Helpful software for composers, gamers, and the average computer user; with a special emphasis on free and open-source.
Table of Contents
‣ Web Development
• HTML Editing & Cheatsheets
• Website and File Hosting
• Images & Fonts
‣ Music
• DAW Software
• VST Instruments
• Soundfonts
‣ Gaming
• Emulators
• Abandonware
• Jailbreaking tutorials
‣ Computers
• Cutting Google out of your life
• Essential Firefox addons
• Essential computer software
Do you like what you see? Do you hate it? Do better! Make your own site today!
HTML Editing & Cheatsheets
‣ YOUR WEBSITE'S TITLE HERE. Bogleech's public domain HTML document that you can customise by simply opening it in Notepad++.
‣ W3 Schools. Guides and tutorials for every step of web development, including the advanced stuff.
‣ MDN Web Docs. Learn HTML directly from Mozilla. Make sure to paste this into your uBlock Origin filters first...
developer.mozilla.org##li.top-level-entry-container:nth-of-type(7)
Website and File Hosting
‣ Neocities. Web host with 1024 MB storage for free accounts; 50 GB for supporters.
‣ Catbox. Secure file host; 200 MB limit per file (useless for piracy, useful for webmasters). [HOVER CURSOR HERE]
‣ Internet Archive. Public file host; allows others to access files you upload.
Images and Fonts
‣ nothing yet.
Every great composer had to start somewhere. These resources will allow you to build your first studio and sound like a pro without having to spend anything.
Digital Audio Workstations
‣ Audacity v.3.0.2.
The last version of the world's best FOSS audio editor before the bunglesome takeover by music technology monopoly, Muse Group.
‣ FL Studio.
Free unlimited trial, full VST compatibility in trial mode. The only problems are that you will not be able to load existing project files, save presets in any Image-Line plugins, or export to MIDI. Also, Image-Line website will autoload when you exit.
‣ LMMS.
Free and open source with some VST compatibility. Bigtime pro audio plugins won't work with it and compatibility with macOS is sort of sketchy. Supports SF2 (soundfont) files, compatible with Hydrogen *.H2SONG format.
‣ Hydrogen.
Free and open source Fairlight CMI Page R style sample sequencer.
VST Instruments
‣ E-MU Emulator X3.
Abandonware, full version of this once industry-leading software. Standalone and VST compatible, it might even work in LMMS. Windows only, but can be convinced with Wine to run on Linux. All the Sound Central instrument libraries are also abandonware and available from the Internet Archive.
‣ Plogue sforzando.
Freeware soundfont player with some limited sampling abilities (drag a single WAV file onto the workspace to import it as audio). Standalone and VST2/VST3/AAX/AU compatible.
‣ DecentSampler.
Freeware Kontakt-like sample bank player. Pianobook has a lot of free sample banks for it.
‣ Spitfire Audio LABS.
Freeware sample bank player with loads of broadcast-quality sample banks, including a versatile full-keyboard strings ensemble and grand piano. You have to download the Spitfire Audio software first, then use it to grab the LABS banks you want from their database. Account required, but no payment info or personally-identifying data is asked for. VST2/VST3/AAX/AU compatible. May run properly on LMMS with a sufficiently fast CPU.
Soundfonts
‣ Polyphone. Soundfont editor. Not a VSTi, but might provide greater stability than sforzando for problematic soundfonts. Windows, Mac, and Linux.
‣ Internet Archive. The largest repository of soundfonts on the internet at the moment. Ignore all files except *.SF2, *.SFZ, and *.SFARK!
‣ Musical-Artifacts. The second-largest repository of soundfonts on the internet (back from the dead!)
Emulating console games on your computer gives you access to all the thousands of games that no giant corporate outfit is ever going to release again.
Emulators
‣ Atari.
VCS/2600. Stella
400/800/5200. Atari800 Emulator
7800 SuperSystem. A7800
ST. Hatari
Lynx. Handy
Jaguar. BigPEmu
‣ Sega.
All 8- and 16-bit consoles and their add-ons. Kega Fusion
Saturn. Mednafen
Dreamcast. Flycast
‣ Nintendo.
NES. Nestopia
Super NES. Snes9x
Game Boy/Color/Advance. VisualBoyAdvance-M
Nintendo 64 (legacy video card). Project64 1.6-2.1 (anything newer than this is malware)
Nintendo 64 (Vulkan-compatible video card). Simple64
Nintendo 64 (video chipset). M64Py
GameCube/Wii. Dolphin
Nintendo DS. MelonDS
Wii U. Cemu
‣ Sony.
PlayStation. DuckStation
PlayStation 2. PCSX2
PlayStation 3. RPCS3
PSP. PPSSPP
PS Vita. Vita3K
‣ Microsoft.
MS-DOS. D-Fend Reloaded
Xbox. xemu
Jailbreaking tutorials
‣ Wii. Use Wilbrand to unlock your standard Wii.
‣ Wii Mini. Just because you can't connect to the internet doesn't mean you can't hack your Wii Mini (warning: Linux is required for this process).
‣ Wii U. Follow the instructions precisely to reduce the risk of a brick to almost 0%.
‣ Nintendo 3DS. Instructions for all the various and sundry firmware (and hardware) revisions.
Abandonware
‣ MyAbandonware. Neglected and forgotten MS-DOS and Windows games.
‣ No-Intro Collection & Redump Hoard. Abandoned games released on consoles.
CVLT_OF_MIRRORS.
AlvRo.
shinji257.
LongAccordian.
archiver_2020.
LoiltonJC.
THE COLLECTOR.
Corporate tech has shown how untrustworthy it really is. Cut out the corporations and preserve your privacy with this software.
Cutting Google out of your life for good!
‣ Mozilla Firefox. Replaces Chrome/Edge/Brave/Vivaldi/Opera.
‣ Invidious. Replaces YouTube.
‣ SearXNG. Replaces Search.
‣ LibreOffice. Replaces Docs/Sheets/Slides.
‣ Proton. Replaces Gmail and Drive.
‣ OpenStreetMap. Replaces Maps.
‣ Neocities. Replaces Sites.
‣ Joplin. Replaces Keep.
‣ FontSquirrel. Replaces Fonts.
‣ searching for a replacement for Blogger...
Essential Firefox addons
‣ The Privacy Trifecta. The only step up from here is using a VPN!
uBlock Origin. Blocks trackers, malware sites, and advertising.
Privacy Badger. Uses the same techniques that the algorithms do to detect new trackers and block them.
LocalCDN. Emulates corporate content delivery networks without actually accessing them.
‣ AdNauseam. Use instead of uBlock Origin on websites that kill adblock extensions (will not work on YouTube; use Invidious instead).
‣ SingleFile. Save an entire webpage as a single HTML document. Works better on static sites like this one, not so well on dynamic sites like Tumblr or Facebook.
‣ DownThemAll. Download all files of a particular type on a webpage.
‣ Stylus. For Tumblr users, utilises this script to restore your dashboard to its pre-Twitter appearance.
‣ Save WEBP as PNG or JPG. Allows you to save WEBP and GIFV in their proper computer-readable formats.
Essential computer software: Advanced Edition (see How to Use a Computer, Part 7 for the Basic Edition)
‣ Linux Mint. Free and open source GUI operating system.
‣ Etcher.
Recommended by the Linux Mint team for burning the install ISO to flashdrive.
‣ Mullvad VPN.
€5 per month for complete, unchallenged privacy online.
‣ qBittorrent.
Trustworthy torrent client, bindable to Mullvad VPN. Able to block pirate sites' leech/seed trackers if you're interested in that sort of thing.
‣ MakeMKV.
DVD backup software. Unlimited 60-day trial period, or 35 USD registration for permanent unlock. Can't tell the difference between DVDs you own and DVDs you rent from the public library if you're interested in that sort of thing.
‣ JDownloader 2.
Batch downloader for the Internet Archive and many other filehosts, sort of like DownThemAll on steroids.