Weeding out the slop programs from my daily computing

[pyrrhic7]

I don't want any LLM slop in the tools I rely on. It's hostile to humanity, the environment, critical thinking... need I go on? (I'm not ready to unleash the vast rant gathering steam within.) Just as critically, I want to trust my software a smidge more, especially software handling sensitive things like my software packages (brew...).

Anyway, I want to share a cool project I came across, documenting slop in open-source software & even suggesting slop-free alternatives: Open Slopware. They've recently included color-coded labels categorizing the presence of slop; how sparkling!  Another list of slop-free software I like to check on is Starlight Network's No-AI list.

[Why am I particularly scrutinizing open-source software in this post? Because I want that load-bearing word to actually hold weight. "Vibe-coding" even portions of the codebase suggests to me not even the prompter has reviewed those lines of code, and LLM generation infamously optimizes for plausibility, logically resulting in the most subtle (for humans to spot) bugs.]

There's a range of upsetting and/or baffling entries (brew, git, Neo/vim :( curl?? rsync??) that I'm slowly working through (or gritting through). I've ditched vlc in favor of SMPlayer, stopped installing/updating with brew, and might give Classic Vim a spin. My partner migrated our personal software forge (wow didn't know they were called that) from Gitea to Forgejo. Investigating the alternatives has also pushed me to learn Zig, even if none of my projects require system-level programming... but hey, a bright spark.

I recognize it isn't possible to excise 100% of the slop, and I'm navigating this journey bearing in mind what I can personally handle, and my threat model of trust. I mean, I necessarily rely on closed-source software—I'm still on macOS because there's software vital to my workflow—and I'm even considering a media server with a lengthy, sensible-leaning "permissive AI policy" unless I can find reasonable alternatives. But I honestly feel lighter with any change for the better.

Anyone else here switch open-source software specifically to escape LLM junk? (Also asking as I'm hoping to hear other alternatives!)

[lakes]

I'd like to add some stuff about my attempts to avoid AI summaries in search engines.
Duckduckgo has a special url that disables AI by default.
Startpage doesn't have AI in their search engine but has it in their mobile browser I think.
Meanwhile decentralized meta search engines like SearXNG & 4get don't have AI summaries as far as I can tell, but the quality of the search results with them varies & they can get rate limited. Although the link does say SearXNG has AI generated code which is unfortunate.
There's also search engines that prioritize non-corporate results like Wiby, Marginalia, and Searchmysite.net. But their search index is limited because it relies on submissions.

Anyone else here switch open-source software specifically to escape LLM junk? (Also asking as I'm hoping to hear other alternatives!)

I was already switching to open source alternatives before all this LLM stuff, but it was the final straw for me and I switched to Linux because of it.
That said, I'm disappointed that so many FOSS advocates and devs are fine using LLMs even if I understand a lot of FOSS devs are overworked & that local AI isn't as bad for the environment, or perceived as such. I'm glad to see most of the stuff I use on here tends to be more "AI permissive" than "AI generated code." But I still wish it was different & I'm glad my browser & video player choices don't use LLMs either. I'm actually in the Librewolf Matrix rooms. The Librewolf devs seem pretty nice.

[Watanabe_1994]

Duckduckgo has a special url that disables AI by default.

Man I missed when the first thing that would pop up was a Wikipedia page

[klungus]

I'm actually in the Librewolf Matrix rooms. The Librewolf devs seem pretty nice.

I second the LibreWolf recommendation. Firefox has stayed strong for so long against all the enshittification taking over browsers but recently has started adding in unnecessary and un-askedfor AI features :/. Other than minor inconveniences (which I'm sure I can disable if I took the time to figure out how) such as having to log into websites like YouTube each time you book the browser, LibreWolf was a pretty pleasant experience. I don't need much from a browser I just want it to load a webpage quickly  .

My current quest is to find a nice alternative to Spotify. I think I may purchase some sort of MP3 player with Bluetooth and just download all of my music because the amount of AI music and just pointless features being shoved into that app (plus all the price increases) have really turned it into more of a hassle than a convenience. If anyone has any nice recommendations (I've been looking at Tidal as an alternative streaming platform but I think I'll go with the downloaded music route) please let me know!

[lakes]

My current quest is to find a nice alternative to Spotify. I think I may purchase some sort of MP3 player with Bluetooth and just download all of my music because the amount of AI music and just pointless features being shoved into that app (plus all the price increases) have really turned it into more of a hassle than a convenience. If anyone has any nice recommendations (I've been looking at Tidal as an alternative streaming platform but I think I'll go with the downloaded music route) please let me know!

If you're looking for places to download music, I know a couple of options that aren't as well known:

• Bandcamp: Bandcamp is a website which offers you to buy songs/albums and merch. All albums are available in the FLAC file format. Some albums give you the option of buying physical media and you get the option to listen for free. The only download sides are: there's no way to support an artist for free AND the selection of music is smaller than Spotify.
• Free Music Archive: self-explanatory, music that was made for free use
• Soulseek network: a peer to peer network for music file sharing, this way is less legal than the 1st 2, I'd also recommend the Nicotine+ app instead of the official one
• Youtube to MP3 downloads: self-explanatory, I use Ultimate Media Downloader for youtube downloads: it's a program that uses ytdlp, so no need for a shady website; also it can download full playlists even though the "playlist" feature is supposedly locked
• RawkBawx: a torrent website for rock & metal music
• The official Vintage Obscura Radio website lets you download songs from there. You can also use "radio capture" on some audio players like AIMP.