Tools: 2026 edition

  • \o/

Tools: 2026 edition

Tue Jan 13 2026
5 minute read

I wrote about tools on Windows in 2019 and I wanted to write an update to that post for a while already. Now with extra content!

Windows

  • Browsers

    • Firefox as the default, with several multi-account containers
      • Pinned browser tabs for Matrix, Slack, WhatsApp, Mail
    • Vivaldi for some stuff instead of a container

  • E-Mail

    • kinda got into the habit of using webmail and have not set up Thunderbird

  • IRC

    • Quassel, as usual

  • Audio/Video

    • I just set up mpd, currently I am using Cantata as my client
    • nomacs instead of IrfanView, although it's worse

  • Editors

    • Notepad++

  • Voice

    • Discord
    • Trialing Ferdium here for chat, only starting the Discord client for voice

  • Passwords

    • KeePassXC

  • Network stuff

    • PuTTY
    • FileZillaPortable
    • Remote Desktop Connection or whatever the offical name for the Win11 RDP client is
    • Syncthing

  • Misc

    • SharpKeys
    • WinSplit Revolution 11.04
    • 7ZipPortable
    • Flow-Launcher instead of Launchy now
    • Sysinternals
      • mosty Autoruns and procexp, sometimes tcpview

    Quite pared down, but as I hate working on it I've moved everything I can to Linux. My traditional C:\Apps\bin looks downright barren compared to years ago. (This is where I put shortcuts to everything, and give the dir to the launcher instead of letting it go wild everywhere and potentially finding useless stuff.)

Linux

As I am currently writing this on my NUC via RDP and it's a pretty new setup (and I'm not using Linux for work at the moment), this will be shorter.

  • Browser
    • Firefox
  • Editors
    • neovim - tried out CyberNvim and it stuck for now
    • TextAdept for notes
  • Window managers/DEs
    • xfce4 on the NUC because using the super key via RDP is meh
    • KDE Plasma on my main laptop because it's a casual couch device now
    • i3 on my old "work" laptop and this or sway would be my #1 choice for work again
  • Misc
    • rofi because the xfce launcher is not great
    • zenity

The funny thing is that while this would be the easiest OS to customize, it's the one I have to do the least because I can choose my WM and configure stuff. And a lot of times I just don't ever actively think about a tool because I have a proper shell open anyway (somewhat true for the mac as well, but definitely not for Windows). E.g using bc instead of a GUI calculator. Or just quickly starting a Python repl, or just using some stuff in /bin or something from my dotfiles.

mac OS

  • Browser
    • Firefox for most tasks
    • LibreWolf for "personal stuff", e.g. logged into my own Github account, Webmail, etc
    • Safari only for the SAP portal where I file my vacation requests
    • Chrome installed as a Backup, only used for LinkedIn, useless
  • E-Mail
    • Outlook Web, 90% of the time
    • Outlook (the app), when I need to access our shared team inbox
  • Audio/Video
    • Cog plays mp3s
    • recently Cantata to control mpd at home
  • Editors
    • IntelliJ as my main IDE
    • Neovim
    • TextAdept for notes
  • Passwords
    • KeePassXC
  • Network stuff
    • Windows App, Microsoft's better RDP client
    • Syncthing
  • Terminals
    • Ghostty after some time with WezTerm
  • Window Management etc
    • Hammerspoon
    • Rectangle
  • Misc
    • Podman Desktop works surprisingly well for what I need, not using the GUI much though, but it provided me with a working podman setup

Plugins

Firefox: All three very important and I've not missed anything else.

  • Consent-O-Matic
  • Firefox Multi-Account Containers
  • uBlock Origin
  • (rarely installed) FoxyProxy

Fonts

Might as well put these here. What I use is changing over time, but there are a few choices that I don't change around much.

  • Terminals
    • Usually Iosevka
  • IRC
    • Fantasque Sans Mono for the last few years, Iosevka in the past
  • Text editor (Non-IDE)
    • Consolas or Iosevka on Windows
  • IDE
    • I kinda like JetBrains Mono and never changed it since they introduced it, but for some reason I also never switched all my IDEs on other machines.

Themes and colors

I have this seemingly odd idea of wanting to read what is written on my tabs, so I've been using this Firefox theme for the last 10 years. Honorable mention.

I've not themed and styled all my apps in the same colorscheme, although I wrote about it - but I'm still using a mix of Dracula, Solarized Dark, Monokai, Nord, and other things, usually to not have it uniform, but quicker to distinguish between them :D.