Apps
- Sync to local attached storage
- Sync to computers on the LAN or the Internet
- Passwordless login by SSH key
- Snapshot creation
- Profiles to organize tasks
- Quick tasks for repetitive file operations
- Data restoration from remote servers
- To record TV shows watched - Trakt
- Track App Purchases - AppRaven
- To track music - Last.fm
- To record books read - Goodreads
- Private Location Tracking - Geofency
- Location Bookmarking - Rego
- Step Counting - Pedometer++
- Heart Rate Data - HeartWatch
- Sleep Data - Autosleep
- Walking/Running - Runmeter
- To connect different apps - IFTTT
- Journal app - Day One
- Notes App - Obsidian
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇 - Search - Google, Brave, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo
- Apple - App Store, Knowledge Base, Mac Update
- Blogs
- Computer Science - GitHub, StackOverflow
- Dictionaries - Onelook, Wiktionary, Info Please
- Directories - Open Directory, WoW, Yahoo Directory
- Discussion Lists - Yahoo Answers
- Government - USA.gov, Firstgov.gov
- Images & Videos - Google Video, Picsearch, YouTube
- Legal - Google Scholar, FindLaw
- Medical - FDA, HeathFinder, PubMed, WebMD
- News - BBC, Google News, Reuters
- Patents - US Patent Office, Google Patents
- References - British Library, Gutenburg.org, Wikipedia
- Science
- Shopping - Amazon
- Social Networking - Facebook Profiles
- Search - Google, Brave, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo
- Apple - App Store, Knowledge Base, Mac Update
- Blogs
- Computer Science - GitHub, StackOverflow
- Dictionaries - Onelook, Wiktionary, Info Please
- Directories - Open Directory, WoW, Yahoo Directory
- Discussion Lists - Yahoo Answers
- Government - USA.gov, Firstgov.gov
- Images & Videos - Google Video, Picsearch, YouTube
- Legal - Google Scholar, FindLaw
- Medical - FDA, HeathFinder, PubMed, WebMD
- News - BBC, Google News, Reuters
- Patents - US Patent Office, Google Patents
- References - British Library, Gutenburg.org, Wikipedia
- Science
- Shopping - Amazon
- Social Networking - Facebook Profiles
-
Output formats are suitable for use on AirPlay, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Cast, Xbox, PlayStation, YouTube and web hosting
• MP4
• MKV
• M4V
• MOV
• WEBM
• AVI
• GIF -
Codecs
• H.264
• H.265 (HEVC)
• MPEG-4
• VP8
• VP9
• Apple ProRes -
Quality
• Auto (with transmuxing)
• Balanced
• Better Quality
• Smaller Size
• ProRes Profiles -
Output formats are suitable for use on AirPlay, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Cast, Xbox, PlayStation, YouTube and web hosting
• MP4
• MKV
• M4V
• MOV
• WEBM
• AVI
• GIF -
Codecs
• H.264
• H.265 (HEVC)
• MPEG-4
• VP8
• VP9
• Apple ProRes -
Quality
• Auto (with transmuxing)
• Balanced
• Better Quality
• Smaller Size
• ProRes Profiles - Uses extra Reed-Solomon parity bytes to protect from file corruption and bit rot
- Built in customizable password generator
- Comments to store notes, information, and text along with the encrypted file
- Keyfiles, which can be generated and distributed to multiple people if there is joint ownership of information requiring more than one person to authenticate decryption
- Paranoid mode - a double encryption method suitable for government level or whistle-blower secrecy
- File chunking splits large encrypted files into multiple user selectable sized blocks
- Deniability allows encrypted files to appear without identifiable headers so that if they are intercepted, the bad actor in possession of them will have no way to prove what they are. The output volume will indistinguishable from a stream of random bytes, and no one can prove it is a volume without the correct password.
- Uses extra Reed-Solomon parity bytes to protect from file corruption and bit rot
- Built in customizable password generator
- Comments to store notes, information, and text along with the encrypted file
- Keyfiles, which can be generated and distributed to multiple people if there is joint ownership of information requiring more than one person to authenticate decryption
- Paranoid mode - a double encryption method suitable for government level or whistle-blower secrecy
- File chunking splits large encrypted files into multiple user selectable sized blocks
- Deniability allows encrypted files to appear without identifiable headers so that if they are intercepted, the bad actor in possession of them will have no way to prove what they are. The output volume will indistinguishable from a stream of random bytes, and no one can prove it is a volume without the correct password.
- Save and organize content: Collect web pages and social media posts and tag them as you send them to Read later.
- Annotate while you browse: Mark and annotate texts directly in your browser, then revisit your notes anytime in Inoreader.
- Stay on top of your feeds: Monitor account activity, feeds, tags, and Team channels -- all without switching tabs.
- Streamline article sharing: Share content to Team channels or set up rules for automated content distribution.
- Built in podcast player
- Turn Google News searches into feeds
- Customize the look with your own CSS if desired
- Get accelerated updates on certain feeds
- Annotate and save articles
- Multi-lingual content
- Sync your YouTube subscriptions
- Filtered Reddit feeds (see Obsidian posts without having to look at pictures of other people's graphs)
RsyncUI - a GUI for the powerful CLI Utility
RsyncUI is the successor to Rsync OS X. It is a graphical user interface for the powerful command line utility, rsync, a file synchronization utility that has its roots in the Linux world. RsyncUI is an Apple native app, 100% written in Swift. All of the actual work is still done by rsync, buy you can skip much of the learning curve involved in using the CLI.
Pure rysnc can sync files between remote and local servers. Rsync has many options that can help you define the connections you make, and allow you to specify files that should be excluded in a transfer. Rsync is great for complex file syncs and for transferring a large number of files. When used with cron, rsync can also make automatic backups.
Features
How to get RsyncUI
RsyncUI can be installed via Homebrew or download from GitHub:
brew install --cask rsyncui
Thoughts on the Quantified Self
I enjoy collecting information about the things I do and looking back over it, just as a form of journaling. Since tech is my jam, I try to automate collecting as much information as I can. There isn't a real point to it. I'm not trying to discover anything or achieve some kind of life hack. Currently, I'm not tracking any sort of health data, even though I've got an Apple Watch. It can collect information on heart rate and sleep quality/quantity, both of which I've been interested in before. I even have a digital scale and a blood pressure monitor, both with Wi-Fi to feed information into Apple's health app.
The type of information I'm interested in these days has more to do with culture and creativity. I use web services that track my television and music consumption automatically. I record the books I read into Goodreads because that information can be exported into other formats. I use a location tracking app that doesn't send the information anywhere other than to my encrypted iCloud account. I also use an app to bookmark notable places I've been, like restaurants, parks, coffee shops and hotels. That app stored its data in a cloud account that only I have access to.
When I was training for long-distance cycling, data collection had a different flavor because I had numerical goals: trying to hit 10,000 miles and get 30 or more rides of 100 miles completed in a calendar year. My Garmin bike computer recorded all of that, along with speed data plus my heart rate and pedaling cadence. Some people even have power meters on their bikes to determine the wattage they generate on rides. I didn't use Strava, but I did use the Garmin website to store my information.
Raycast Quicklinks - Power Searching from the Keyboard
There are various Internet search tools available for Macs, but if you are a Raycast user, you can search just about any website without having to install an extension if you take the time to set up Quicklinks. Raycast is a Mac automation tool that extends the power of Spotlight and can replace other utilities, like clipboard managers, emoji pickers and window managers. (See use cases) Raycast offers a few preconfigured site searches in its own library, but you can add your own by adapting the search URL and using a dynamic placeholder.
To configure Quicklinks, open Raycast with your usual shortcut and then press ⌘+, to bring up the Raycast preferences window. Click Extensions > Quicklinks, and you'll be presented with the interface you need. There is also a Raycast command Create Quicklink. You can get detailed instructions here.
Here are the Quicklinks I use
Google w/out AI - [www.google.com/search](https://www.google.com/search?q=){Query}&udm=14
All Music - [www.allmusic.com/search/al...](http://www.allmusic.com/search/all/*){Query}
Amazon - [www.amazon.com/s](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=){SEARCH}&sprefix=
Bluesky - [bsky.app/search](https://bsky.app/search?q=){Query}
DDG - [duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=){Query}
Gmail - [mail.google.com/mail/](https://mail.google.com/mail/)\#search/{query}
Macupdater - [macupdater.net/app_updat...](https://macupdater.net/app_updates/search.html?q=){Query}
HBO/Max - [play.max.com/search/re...](https://play.max.com/search/result?q=l){Query}
Reddit - reddit.com/search?q={Query}
Wayback Machine - [web.archive.org/web/*/](https://web.archive.org/web/*/){query}
[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=){argument name="Article"}
YouTube - [www.youtube.com/results](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=){Query}
Raycast Quicklinks - Power Searching from the Keyboard
There are various Internet search tools available for Macs, but if you are a Raycast user, you can search just about any website without having to install an extension if you take the time to set up Quicklinks. Raycast is a Mac automation tool that extends the power of Spotlight and can replace other utilities, like clipboard managers, emoji pickers and window managers. (See use cases) Raycast offers a few preconfigured site searches in its own library, but you can add your own by adapting the search URL and using a dynamic placeholder.
To configure Quicklinks, open Raycast with your usual shortcut and then press ⌘+, to bring up the Raycast preferences window. Click Extensions > Quicklinks, and you'll be presented with the interface you need. There is also a Raycast command Create Quicklink. You can get detailed instructions here.
Here are the Quicklinks I use
Google w/out AI - [www.google.com/search](https://www.google.com/search?q=){Query}&udm=14
All Music - [www.allmusic.com/search/al...](http://www.allmusic.com/search/all/*){Query}
Amazon - [www.amazon.com/s](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=){SEARCH}&sprefix=
Bluesky - [bsky.app/search](https://bsky.app/search?q=){Query}
DDG - [duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=){Query}
Gmail - [mail.google.com/mail/](https://mail.google.com/mail/)\#search/{query}
Macupdater - [macupdater.net/app_updat...](https://macupdater.net/app_updates/search.html?q=){Query}
HBO/Max - [play.max.com/search/re...](https://play.max.com/search/result?q=l){Query}
Reddit - reddit.com/search?q={Query}
Wayback Machine - [web.archive.org/web/*/](https://web.archive.org/web/*/){query}
[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=){argument name="Article"}
YouTube - [www.youtube.com/results](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=){Query}
If You Read This Tiny Apple Rant - I'll Give You Some Good Automation Tips
Apple is both proving to be something other than the romanticized ideal corporation many tech people once thought it to be. It is a ruthless profit machine committed to taking advantage of every legal and close to legal loophole it can to "return value to shareholders." That means extracting capital from the working class to put it into the hands of the investor class. I'm an Apple guy, but I am fully aware that the company decided last year to take 30% of Patreon contributions away from podcasters and bloggers and other creators who downloaded the app from the App Store. There was a god-damned thing anybody could do about it, either.
So, when I mention my love for Apple tech, it is in the context of what the ecosystem allows me to do, which is get work done with tools I enjoy using. I don't feel a kinship with the ghost of Steve Jobs,a miserable bastard if there ever was one. The current CEO just gave $1 million to Donald Trump, so screw him too.
If you use a Mac to GSD - here are a few links with useful information on automating your workflow,
Easily find Raycast Extensions!🚀
Coding Bull Junky – Automation and Personal Productivity for macOS
My Triumvirate of Mac Automation Technology – Mike Burke
Sync Mac/PC and iOS using Syncthing + Möbius Sync
How to Use Karabiner Elements to Get More Out of Your Mac Keyboard - TechPP
How To Use Hazel To Automate Your Repetitive Tasks - Asian Efficiency
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇
Krisp - AI Meeting Assistant for Noise Cancellation and Transcription
If you have online meetings using apps like Slack, Microsoft
Teams. Zoom or Google Meet, you can get free noise cancellation via AI
as well as meeting transcripts and recordings via Krisp, a business app with a generous free
tier. Make sure you clearly understand the privacy policy before doing
so.
Noise Cancellation
The AI-powered noise cancellation is bidirectional. It removes any extraneous sounds, background voices and echos. If you elect to use only this feature, none of the data from your calls is recorded on Krisp's cloud servers. Users of the free plan get 60 minutes of cumulative noise cancellation per day. If you purchase a pro ($8 a month)or a business ($15 a month) plan, you get unlimited voice cancellation.
Recording and Transcription
If you choose to let Krisp record your calls onto its cloud servers, you can get unlimited diarized transcription for free and the paid plans also offer audio and video recordings of your meetings. Krisp technology can generate meeting notes complete with action items. The data is presented to you in a way that makes it easy to share with other meeting participants.
My Experience
Krisp encourages people signing up for an account to use their work email by granting a seven-day free trial of the pro plan to those who do. As part of the sign up procedure I had to give it access to either my Outlook calendar or Google calendar. My organization doesn't allow third-party apps to access anything inside our Microsoft 365 tenant, so I opted to connect a Google account. It asked for access to all my contacts, which I did not grant. It asked for access to my calendar events, which I did grant. Furthermore, it asked for access to all calendars to which I have access. I said no to that. After that, my account was created, and I was provided an opportunity to download the software, which comes as a package installer.
Reading the Privacy Policy
Krisp says that the recordings of your meetings are encrypted and stored on its cloud servers, and that it does not use the content for any business purposes. However, it does collect considerable data about your specific computer, tying the machine identifier to your account identity. It makes that data available to third-party vendors and if you want to know what happens then, you have to find out who those vendors are and what their individual privacy policies are. Krisp also
This site uses Google, Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook remarketing services or tags to advertise to previous visitors to Krisp on third-party platforms such as those mentioned. With the help of cookies or tags, these remarketing services allow it to advertise itself to visitors who may have visited them. Thankfully, they provide opt-out links to every one of the services right from the privacy policy page.
The other thing that jumped out at me about their privacy policy was their clear admission that if the cops come for your data, Krisp is going to give it to them.
I can see a use for the app for areas of my life that aren't sensitive and that I can wall off from my primary Internet presence. Work related calls don't give me privacy heartburn and volunteer activities that don't involve any kind of political engagement are OK too, if I feel like going to the trouble of making a separate Google or Microsoft account for them. Otherwise, I'll find some other solution.
Krisp - AI Meeting Assistant for Noise Cancellation and Transcription
If you have online meetings using apps like Slack, Microsoft
Teams. Zoom or Google Meet, you can get free noise cancellation via AI
as well as meeting transcripts and recordings via Krisp, a business app with a generous free
tier. Make sure you clearly understand the privacy policy before doing
so.
Noise Cancellation
The AI-powered noise cancellation is bidirectional. It removes any extraneous sounds, background voices and echos. If you elect to use only this feature, none of the data from your calls is recorded on Krisp's cloud servers. Users of the free plan get 60 minutes of cumulative noise cancellation per day. If you purchase a pro ($8 a month)or a business ($15 a month) plan, you get unlimited voice cancellation.
Recording and Transcription
If you choose to let Krisp record your calls onto its cloud servers, you can get unlimited diarized transcription for free and the paid plans also offer audio and video recordings of your meetings. Krisp technology can generate meeting notes complete with action items. The data is presented to you in a way that makes it easy to share with other meeting participants.
My Experience
Krisp encourages people signing up for an account to use their work email by granting a seven-day free trial of the pro plan to those who do. As part of the sign up procedure I had to give it access to either my Outlook calendar or Google calendar. My organization doesn't allow third-party apps to access anything inside our Microsoft 365 tenant, so I opted to connect a Google account. It asked for access to all my contacts, which I did not grant. It asked for access to my calendar events, which I did grant. Furthermore, it asked for access to all calendars to which I have access. I said no to that. After that, my account was created, and I was provided an opportunity to download the software, which comes as a package installer.
Reading the Privacy Policy
Krisp says that the recordings of your meetings are encrypted and stored on its cloud servers, and that it does not use the content for any business purposes. However, it does collect considerable data about your specific computer, tying the machine identifier to your account identity. It makes that data available to third-party vendors and if you want to know what happens then, you have to find out who those vendors are and what their individual privacy policies are. Krisp also
This site uses Google, Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook remarketing services or tags to advertise to previous visitors to Krisp on third-party platforms such as those mentioned. With the help of cookies or tags, these remarketing services allow it to advertise itself to visitors who may have visited them. Thankfully, they provide opt-out links to every one of the services right from the privacy policy page.
The other thing that jumped out at me about their privacy policy was their clear admission that if the cops come for your data, Krisp is going to give it to them.
I can see a use for the app for areas of my life that aren't sensitive and that I can wall off from my primary Internet presence. Work related calls don't give me privacy heartburn and volunteer activities that don't involve any kind of political engagement are OK too, if I feel like going to the trouble of making a separate Google or Microsoft account for them. Otherwise, I'll find some other solution.
Integrity - Free Link Checker
Use the free tool, Integrity,
to quickly crawl an entire domain or subdomain and check every link on
each page within. See a report listing the URL of each page and see the
server response code for all internal and external links found. From
within Integrity you can quickly jump to any page within the domain and
with the text of the broken link highlighted.
As corporate owned social media becomes more toxic and advertising invades every space available, more and more people are adopting the ethos of the Indie Web movement and creating their own websites in the form of personal blogs hosted on various independent platforms. Some opt for WordPress sites with complicated plugins and CDN management, while others use services that are basically online editors that operate like word processors with a "publish" button, like Micro.blog. For anyone interested in maintaining their own web presence, the bar to entry is low with domain registrations costing under $10 a year and blog hosting as low as $1 a month..
One of the things that happens over time to all websites is link rot. Linking to news articles and other bloggers invariable results in links breaking over time as companies go out of business, switch URLs or simply remove content. It can be frustrating to people visiting a site to run into many broken links and if you are interested in appearing in search engine results, you'll find that sites with link rot get downgraded.
Integrity, an app under continuous development since 2007 and was updated just this week. On a domain I own that contains two blogs, the crawler found 1717 pages and 3498 links. There were about a dozen 404 errors from websites that had closed down and social media posts that had been deleted. I also found an issue with Cloudflare and the way my blog host handles hashtags that led me to open a ticket.
Integrity is a free link checker best suited for personal blogs or smaller websites. The same developer has similar tools for professional use. More features and options such as exporting your data, authentication (logging in), managing multiple sites, sitemap generation, SEO checks, spelling & grammar are all available in two related apps; Integrity Plus and Scrutiny. Here is a comparison of major features
Integrity is available from the developer's website or the Mac App Store.
Integrity - Free Link Checker
Use the free tool, Integrity,
to quickly crawl an entire domain or subdomain and check every link on
each page within. See a report listing the URL of each page and see the
server response code for all internal and external links found. From
within Integrity you can quickly jump to any page within the domain and
with the text of the broken link highlighted.
As corporate owned social media becomes more toxic and advertising invades every space available, more and more people are adopting the ethos of the Indie Web movement and creating their own websites in the form of personal blogs hosted on various independent platforms. Some opt for WordPress sites with complicated plugins and CDN management, while others use services that are basically online editors that operate like word processors with a "publish" button, like Micro.blog. For anyone interested in maintaining their own web presence, the bar to entry is low with domain registrations costing under $10 a year and blog hosting as low as $1 a month..
One of the things that happens over time to all websites is link rot. Linking to news articles and other bloggers invariable results in links breaking over time as companies go out of business, switch URLs or simply remove content. It can be frustrating to people visiting a site to run into many broken links and if you are interested in appearing in search engine results, you'll find that sites with link rot get downgraded.
Integrity, an app under continuous development since 2007 and was updated just this week. On a domain I own that contains two blogs, the crawler found 1717 pages and 3498 links. There were about a dozen 404 errors from websites that had closed down and social media posts that had been deleted. I also found an issue with Cloudflare and the way my blog host handles hashtags that led me to open a ticket.
Integrity is a free link checker best suited for personal blogs or smaller websites. The same developer has similar tools for professional use. More features and options such as exporting your data, authentication (logging in), managing multiple sites, sitemap generation, SEO checks, spelling & grammar are all available in two related apps; Integrity Plus and Scrutiny. Here is a comparison of major features
Integrity is available from the developer's website or the Mac App Store.
DEVONagent Lite - Free Tool to Increase Search Productivity
If you do much research in your browser, and you're past the stage where you just use Google everything, DEVONagent Lite gives you keyboard quick access to seventeen different categories of reference material, most of them with multiple sources to choose from. No longer do you need to find your browser bookmark for the website you want to use for search. You type your query right in the menu bar of macOS, choose the category and site you would like to search, and press enter. The resulting page opens in your default browser.
The search categories and some of the most useful sites are:
You cannot add or remove search sites in the free version, nor can you directly access any type of AI. DEVON offers an express version of the app with a few more features for $4.99 and a pro version for $49.99. You can check out the features for each version at the DEVON web site.
DEVONagent Lite - Free Tool to Increase Search Productivity
If you do much research in your browser, and you're past the stage where you just use Google everything, DEVONagent Lite gives you keyboard quick access to seventeen different categories of reference material, most of them with multiple sources to choose from. No longer do you need to find your browser bookmark for the website you want to use for search. You type your query right in the menu bar of macOS, choose the category and site you would like to search, and press enter. The resulting page opens in your default browser.
The search categories and some of the most useful sites are:
You cannot add or remove search sites in the free version, nor can you directly access any type of AI. DEVON offers an express version of the app with a few more features for $4.99 and a pro version for $49.99. You can check out the features for each version at the DEVON web site.
The RSS Feed for AppAddict Has Changed
For those of you who are regular readers of AppAddict, I changed
the domain name to something easier to remember . Old links will still
work but if you use an RSS reader, you’ll need to resubscribe. I really
appreciate everyone who stops by.
The RSS Feed for AppAddict Has Changed
For those of you who are regular readers of AppAddict, I changed
the domain name to something easier to remember . Old links will still
work but if you use an RSS reader, you’ll need to resubscribe. I really
appreciate everyone who stops by.
Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion
One of the websites I keep an eye on for new to me software is Thriftmac, which currently has a
library of 428 categorized free Mac apps with short descriptions and
links to developer sites or the Mac App Store. That's where I found
today's app.
If you need a nice, simple , easy to use GUI front end for FFMpeg, , the free offering from developer Justin Bush, Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion is an easy to access choice, Available in the Mac App Store this app has a simple drag and drop interface.
To use the app, first drop the video file to be converted into its holding area. The options are:
The app allows you to AirPlay your BluRay movie without sacrificing 4K quality or immersive Dolby Digital Surround Sound. It is capable of handling up to 8K video. If you input a video file with 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound for your home theater system, your output video will retain that ultra-quality format.
User reviews praise the app for its ease of use and speed on Apple Silicon, for which it is optimized. One reviewer noted that the app did not carry over subtitles or chapter markers. It also doesn’t have any features for upscaling.
You can view the source code on GitHub. The most recent update was in November 2024. The app has been in development for three years.
Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion
One of the websites I keep an eye on for new to me software is Thriftmac, which currently has a
library of 428 categorized free Mac apps with short descriptions and
links to developer sites or the Mac App Store. That's where I found
today's app.
If you need a nice, simple , easy to use GUI front end for FFMpeg, , the free offering from developer Justin Bush, Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion is an easy to access choice, Available in the Mac App Store this app has a simple drag and drop interface.
To use the app, first drop the video file to be converted into its holding area. The options are:
The app allows you to AirPlay your BluRay movie without sacrificing 4K quality or immersive Dolby Digital Surround Sound. It is capable of handling up to 8K video. If you input a video file with 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound for your home theater system, your output video will retain that ultra-quality format.
User reviews praise the app for its ease of use and speed on Apple Silicon, for which it is optimized. One reviewer noted that the app did not carry over subtitles or chapter markers. It also doesn’t have any features for upscaling.
You can view the source code on GitHub. The most recent update was in November 2024. The app has been in development for three years.
Session - Free and Open-Source E2E Decentralized Cross Platform Messaging
For anyone looking for an anonymous messaging system, that
requires no account, email or telephone number to set up, Session may be what you are looking
for. With clients for macOS, iOS, Windows, Android and Linux, you can
communicate with just about anyone through a network of 2000
decentralized servers. If a server goes down, the network stays up,
eliminating any one node as a single source of failure.
Session's encrypted messages are sent through an onion routing network. Onion networks encrypt messages with multiple layers of encryption, then send them through a number of nodes. Each node ‘unwraps’ (decrypts) a layer of encryption, meaning that no single node ever knows both the destination and origin of the message. Session uses onion routing to ensure that a server which receives a message never knows the IP address of the sender.
Account in Session are created and secured with a mnemonic seed which can be used to restore your existing Account ID to a new device. Your display name can be anything you want it to be. Session does not collect any geolocation data, metadata, or any other data about the device or network you are using. On your local device, Session allows you to encrypt your local Session database with a PIN code. With this feature turned on, your messages cannot be accessed without knowing your PIN code. If the police or a thief have physical access to your device, they still can't see your messages without your PIN.
Voice and video messaging are current beta features in the app. In early 2025, the back end technology for the app is transitioning to upgraded technology, using crypto-based engineering. Although there are no paid features currently, the non-profit foundation behind the app says that it may implement some in the future, using cryptocurrency. They say the primary private messaging will always be free.
Session - Free and Open-Source E2E Decentralized Cross Platform Messaging
For anyone looking for an anonymous messaging system, that
requires no account, email or telephone number to set up, Session may be what you are looking
for. With clients for macOS, iOS, Windows, Android and Linux, you can
communicate with just about anyone through a network of 2000
decentralized servers. If a server goes down, the network stays up,
eliminating any one node as a single source of failure.
Session's encrypted messages are sent through an onion routing network. Onion networks encrypt messages with multiple layers of encryption, then send them through a number of nodes. Each node ‘unwraps’ (decrypts) a layer of encryption, meaning that no single node ever knows both the destination and origin of the message. Session uses onion routing to ensure that a server which receives a message never knows the IP address of the sender.
Account in Session are created and secured with a mnemonic seed which can be used to restore your existing Account ID to a new device. Your display name can be anything you want it to be. Session does not collect any geolocation data, metadata, or any other data about the device or network you are using. On your local device, Session allows you to encrypt your local Session database with a PIN code. With this feature turned on, your messages cannot be accessed without knowing your PIN code. If the police or a thief have physical access to your device, they still can't see your messages without your PIN.
Voice and video messaging are current beta features in the app. In early 2025, the back end technology for the app is transitioning to upgraded technology, using crypto-based engineering. Although there are no paid features currently, the non-profit foundation behind the app says that it may implement some in the future, using cryptocurrency. They say the primary private messaging will always be free.
Picocrypt - Free and Open-Source File Encryption with Simple but Powerful Features
The threat from bad actors who seek to access and exploit user data increases every year. The list includes for-profit gangs, unscrupulous developers, the world's largest social media companies and repressive governments. The information they could potentially use includes, but isn't limited to, financial records, political or social organizing records, medical records, blackmail material, passwords and personal communications. Those who seek to access your data have increasingly sophisticated methods of bypassing weak security.
A small but powerful free and open-source utility, Picocrypt, weighing in at only 3MB provides easy to use encryption that is powerful enough to withstand attacks from government agencies. With Picocrypt's simple UI, all you have to do is drag and drop your files, enter a password, and hit Encrypt. There is no need to set up a volume, as there is with other tools like Veracrypt.
Installing Picocrypt is simple. Only download Picocrypt from the official site,. Open the container, and drag Picocrypt to your Applications folder. You may need to manually trust the app from a terminal and control-click on the app if macOS prevents you from opening it:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Picocrypt.app
Features
Picocrypt also has Windows and Linux versions, meaning that the recipient of the files does not have to have a Mac to decrypt the files, just the password. Picocrypt is also portable and does not require installation. It can be run from an external drive, such as a USB stick.
Picocrypt - Free and Open-Source File Encryption with Simple but Powerful Features
The threat from bad actors who seek to access and exploit user data increases every year. The list includes for-profit gangs, unscrupulous developers, the world's largest social media companies and repressive governments. The information they could potentially use includes, but isn't limited to, financial records, political or social organizing records, medical records, blackmail material, passwords and personal communications. Those who seek to access your data have increasingly sophisticated methods of bypassing weak security.
A small but powerful free and open-source utility, Picocrypt, weighing in at only 3MB provides easy to use encryption that is powerful enough to withstand attacks from government agencies. With Picocrypt's simple UI, all you have to do is drag and drop your files, enter a password, and hit Encrypt. There is no need to set up a volume, as there is with other tools like Veracrypt.
Installing Picocrypt is simple. Only download Picocrypt from the official site,. Open the container, and drag Picocrypt to your Applications folder. You may need to manually trust the app from a terminal and control-click on the app if macOS prevents you from opening it:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Picocrypt.app
Features
Picocrypt also has Windows and Linux versions, meaning that the recipient of the files does not have to have a Mac to decrypt the files, just the password. Picocrypt is also portable and does not require installation. It can be run from an external drive, such as a USB stick.
Inoreader RSS Gets New Features
Inoreader, the RSS app and service provider, got some new features today with the release of a new browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Edge.
Existing Features
Custom Monitoring Feeds
My favorite feature, hands down, are the custom monitoring feeds Inoreader allows me to create. It scours the web every hour to search for articles using my keywords. I have monitoring feeds to help me track my favorite software titles for news and tips/tricks. The wizard that creates these feeds lets me decide whether I want to search entire articles or just titles. I can search the entire Internet or just sources from sites whose main RSS feed I follow. As with all feeds on Inoreader, I can set up a highlighter for my search terms (Obsidian, Raycast, Keyboard Maestro, Micro.blog). I can filter out terms I definitely do not find interesting (Android, Apple Vision Pro, Trump). Finally, I can filter out duplicates and near duplicates so my feed doesn't get inundated on dates when one of my keywords makes the news, for example when updates to a certain title get released. It is possible to place all these keyword monitoring feeds into a folder and to view the output combined. I can even generate an OPML file with the output to share with others!
Newsletter Subscription Replacement
Inoreader allows me to generate email addresses to use in subscribing to newsletters. That way, I get the benefit of their content without having my mailbox clogged up. Like every other feed, these newsletters can be saved to OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive. I can export them to Pocket or ReadWise, Instapaper, Blogger, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, Mastodon or a custom location.
Automation
If you highlight text in any RSS article or newsletter, you can use the highlight to trigger an IFTTT applet. You can do the same with any article you mark to read later. In fact, IFTTT has a dozen different triggers for Inoreader and over 2000 services you can connect it to. You can read your feeds in a web browser or in your choice of RSS readers like Reeder or NetNewsWire. I like their web interface so much that on a desktop, I choose to use a stand-alone web app of their site to read my feeds since it has easy access to most of the extra features offered. On my iPhone and iPad, I use their app as opposed to a separate RSS reader. Their iOS and Android apps have an offline mode allowing you to download content to read later, useful for flights and helping you avoid a separate subscription to a read it late service.
Organization and Backup
You can use folders or tags (or both) to organize your feeds. You can set up notifications for different keywords or material from certain sources. In the settings section of the Inoreader you can look at the health of all of your feeds and easily determine if one is down, allowing you to contact the blogger or publisher of the site in question. If you currently have an RSS provider or reader, Inoreader can easily import your feeds and conversely, it can export feeds for you if you want to use them elsewhere. Your feeds get backed up every day, and you can set them to be saved to a cloud folder synced with your computer so you can have ready access to them. I use Dropbox for this.
Other Features
Pricing for all the features I mentioned is $7.50 a month, paid annually. You can download Inoreader for iOS and iPadOS on the App Store.