- cross-posted to:
- BuyFromEU@europe.pub
- buyeuropean@feddit.uk
- cross-posted to:
- BuyFromEU@europe.pub
- buyeuropean@feddit.uk
Interest in LibreOffice, the open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, is on the rise, with weekly downloads of its software package close to 1 million a week. That’s the highest download number since 2023.
“We estimate around 200 million [LibreOffice] users, but it’s important to note that we respect users’ privacy and don’t track them, so we can’t say for sure,” said Mike Saunders, an open-source advocate and a deputy to the board of directors at The Document Foundation.
LibreOffice users typically want a straightforward interface, Saunders said. “They don’t want subscriptions, and they don’t want AI being ‘helpful’ by poking its nose into their work — it reminds them of Clippy from the bad old days,” he said.
There are genuine use cases for generative AI tools, but many users prefer to opt-in to it and choose when and where to enable it. “We have zero plans to put AI into LibreOffice. But we understand the value of some AI tools and are encouraging developers to create … extensions that use AI in a responsible way,” Saunders said.
You must log in or register to comment.
Yeah desktop apps era is back baby. Fuck you cloud.
Syncthing has been so helpful in making me move away from cloud based options. And to think only reason I found out about it and gave it a shot was because I was trying to figure out how to easily sync my non Steam game save files between my Desktop and my Steam Deck. It’s been invaluable since then.
I’m afraid to find out how many people are still downloading OpenOffice, thinking it’s the same software they heard about back in 2010.
Is it not the same software they heard about in 2010?
Oracle bought (and quickly killed) it. It’s not under active development, and anything that claims otherwise is likely malicious. LibreOffice is a lot of the original OpenOffice devs who got fed up with the way things were going, and jumped ship.
It was discontinued in 2011. Anything that is out there today is outdated at best, and malicious at worst.
… so it is precisely the software they heard about in 2010
What happened to Openoffice?
Oracle bought and ratfucked it.
I must be one of them. In the last couple of weeks I’m transitioning my apps and services to open source and EU based. I switched from Windows to CachyOS, switched my emails, switched browser, degoogled my phone, deleted FB and X and many more.
It feels so refreshing and free.
European countries should adopt linux and these alternatives instead of paying for windows and Microsoft. Much more private too.
If you’re a nerd, also check out Typst and LaTeX. Being able to format your documents with pure code is awesome, and you can also define functions for different things, import libraries to generate graphs, and write comments that don’t show up in the document.
LaTeX is great for documents, mediocre for slides, questionable for spreadsheets, useless for mail and calendar.
Awesome, it does great at what it was designed to do. And it even does mediocre at things it was not designed to do. It even does incompetently things that aren’t anywhere in its code? Amazing piece of tech.
LaTeX is great but it’s not an office suite.
Does anyone know how to get endnote or a similar citation manager to work in Libre Office?
If you ever figure it out I’d love to know, too. I relied entirely on Libre Office as an undergrad but missed this feature of MS Word. I currently use a combination of Scribbr and Purdue Owl but would prefer an offline and open source solution.
Copying my response from above for u!
I’ve been using Zotero since I converted a few weeks back. It has some really useful plugins, so I would recommend adding this one first- it’s like a store where you can easily browse and add them :))
I’ve using using it with Obsidian (there’s a short guide you can find online), so while I’m writing an essay in Obsidian I can just hit a key shortcut and it lists every paper I’ve saved to Zotero. Then when I click one, it adds the citation!
Zotero has plugins for LibreOffice and other word processors: https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_integration
Is it just me, or do new office features seem kinda pointless or unnecessary?
I use libreoffice the same way I used microsoft office decades ago. Never really cared for ‘advanced’ or even ‘intermediate’ features because they are never necessary to what I’m doing.
I can’t imagine that people who are more computer-illiterate than me getting significantly more involved in what should be simple and easy to use programs.
Sometimes I think these little updates are just a ruse to upload our personal information without us knowing. I stopped auto-updating a few years ago and only update when the software is not running correctly or something new is introduced.
Nice. Maybe now Microsoft will respond by
offering non-subscription optionsinventing a new proprietary industry-standard file format so their bloated ransomware remains mandatory.Fortunately platforms like docs are providing sufficient competition that I don’t think they’d be able to lock it down as effectively as they once could.
They’ll have to settle for “warning” the user if they detect a file that was made by libreoffice.
Love to see it. I haven’t used MS Office in well over a decade at this point and I have no plans to go back. LibreOffice is fantastic, suits all my needs, doesn’t pack itself with bloat and it respects my freedom and privacy. What more can I want from an office suite?
