Welcome Friend!

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Hello Friend and welcome to The Friendly Manual. You know, as in RTFM – ‘Read The Friendly Manual.’ (That’s right, the ‘F’ stands for ‘Friendly.’ Trust me on this, I would never lie to you about something so important.)

This project aims to showcase and promote Free/Libre and Open Source Software. It began life as a forum thread on South Africa’s number one IT website, mybroadband.co.za with community members contributing hundreds of their favourite Free or Open Source applications to a ‘Useful List of Free/Libre/Open Source Software Projects.’

The list has been hosted as a Github Gist but now we have upgraded to a website so we can make the list even more useful and publish richer content such as tutorials and blog articles.

Please check out our Friendly Free Software Directory for a list of Free software that we hope you will find interesting and useful. You can find the original forum thread HERE and the original list HERE.

Thanks for stopping by. Please check back soon for more Free and Open Source software related content.

UpSnap

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UpSnap

Website

Source Code

License: MIT

Description:

UpSnap is a free, open-source wake-on-LAN web app built with SvelteKit, Go and PocketBase. It provides a one-click dashboard to wake devices, cron-based automation, port ping, device discovery via nmap, and secure multi-user management. It’s self-hostable and available as Docker images.

Raccoon

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Raccoon

Website

Source Code

License: MIT

Description:

Raccoon is a high-performance offensive security tool for reconnaissance and vulnerability scanning. It performs DNS lookups, WHOIS, TLS data collection, port and service discovery, URL fuzzing, subdomain enumeration, WAF detection, and organized output. It leverages asyncio for speed and supports Tor/proxy routing.

Zero Password Manager

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Zero Password Manager

Website

Source Code

License: PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0

Description:

Self-hosted, open-source password manager built with Flutter. Client-side AES-256-GCM encryption keeps vault data on-device; the server stores only encrypted data and blind site hashes. Features mandatory TOTP 2FA, per-operation OTPs, audit logs, and cross-platform UI.

animfetch

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animfetch

Website

Source Code

License: MIT License

Description:

Animfetch is an animated system fetch that stays pinned above your shell while you work. A Linux-only CLI utility with no dependencies, it renders ASCII art animations in your terminal and supports styling, sizing, and palette options. Install from source or binaries; interactive mode keeps the art visible while the shell scrolls.

OpnForm/OpnForm

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OpnForm/OpnForm

Website

Source Code

License: AGPL-3.0-or-later

Description:

OpnForm is an open-source, no-code form builder enabling embedded and configurable forms with analytics, notifications, and integrations. Dual-licensed: AGPLv3 core with proprietary Enterprise options. Self-host or cloud deployment with Codex worktrees and Docker support.

cliamp

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cliamp

Website

Source Code

License: MIT

Description:

cliamp is a terminal music player inspired by Winamp. It plays local files, streams, podcasts, YouTube/YouTube Music, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, and more, with a spectrum visualizer, parametric EQ, and playlist management.

NPort

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NPort

Website

Source Code

License: MIT

Description:

NPort is a free, open-source ngrok-style tunnel tool that exposes localhost to the internet via Cloudflare’s edge network, with no accounts, custom subdomains, automatic HTTPS, and cross-platform support.