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.
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.
LibreOffice too for that matter. Kick 'em a few bucks if you can spare it.
Syncthing
That is a very cool project that I’d never heard of. Thanks for sharing!
Nextcloud is, as the name says, a dedicated server used as a cloud. Syncthing only syncronises fders between devices. You dont need a dedicated server for this that stores all the data.
Woowoo! Cloud has its place and I love it but it’s not for literally everything
I’m hoping to set one up later this year. I have an old laptop that has good enough specs to run it from my research - I just need to get everything off of it and swamp windows for Linux! Never did a Linux install so I’m excited.
OnlyOffice is also good - my preferred for the basic Word/Excel type stuff I do.
Yeah I love LibreOffice’s customisability including sidebar etc, but OnlyOffice just performs a lot better and handles the most common formats better for me
Yeah! To me LibreOffice just looks dated and, to be honest, shit. OnlyOffice has a much cleaner interface.
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.
It was discontinued in 2011. Anything that is out there today is outdated at best, and malicious at worst.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_OpenOffice
It seems it’s still legit, but of course Libre Office is the better choice.
Oracle happened. https://www.pcworld.com/article/423300/why-you-should-ditch-openoffice-and-use-the-free-libreoffice-suite.html
Seriously, fuck Oracle with a rusty rebar. They already ruined mysql.
mysql -> MariaDB
OpenOffice -> LibreOffice
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.
Dude. The Expanse was dope! Watch it. You won’t regret it. I’ve heard the books were better, but I lack the time to go through them right now : /
Yeah I’m wondering for how many weeks.
And then how many millions of ms office users there are? (Or billions…)
Nice. Maybe now Microsoft will respond by offering non-subscription options inventing 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.
