Are there any websites or communities dedicated to finding offline alternatives to software that is unnecessarily-Internet based?
I can think of two use cases:
- Software-as-a-service for something that could easily be a downloadable program to run locally
- “Smart” devices that require you to connect to the Internet, and serve you ads
There are websites for finding FOSS alternatives to proprietary apps, EU alternatives to American services, etc. but I don’t see a website for local-app alternatives to online services.
I sadly can’t recommend any communities for this, but what I do know is that search engines have been basically useless for finding software alternatives for a while. Search results are just full of for-profit bullshit trying to sell you their stupid app or low-effort list sites like alternativeto.net. If I need to find an offline alternative to some specific tool, as ironic as it is, I usually just ask an LLM. They work pretty well as a sort of reverse-search engine for finding software based on a description of the features.