this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026

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233

What paid software is absolutely worth the money? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by early_riser@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

277 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For me, that would be Secure CRT. I have yet to find a terminal emulator that matches its feature set. If you regularly manage hundreds of machines using various connection protocols (serial and ssh mostly in my case) It's worth the $$$, and so far there hasn't been any subscription nonsense. I liked using it at work so much I forked over the dough to have it at home.

None of the free alternatives do everything I need.

I'll also mention a few iOS apps. One is Sun Surveyor. It's an AR app that shows you the position of the sun, moon, and galactic center at any given time. The other would have to be Radarscope. It's a weather radar app, but it's a really good weather radar app.

EDIT:

This one's debatable, but I use it all the time. Plasticity is 3D modelling software that attempts to bridge the gap between practical CAD programs and software meant for 3D artists like Blender. It's not cheap considering Blender is free, but it's buy once use forever, and at (I think) $150 it's within reach of an individual hobbyist who knows what they want and is willing to pay for it.

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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The only software I would buy again instantly is Tasker (Android).

[–] RattlerSix@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I've been using tasker for 16 years now and am always surprised that it hasn't started to suck or had a lot of functions blocked over the years

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Any interesting uses you'd care to share?

[–] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

The list is literally endless, and more often than not specific to what you specifically need. Here are some things I have setup:

If my wife texts me "911" it turns my ringer volume to 100%
When my phone battery is below 5% and my home wifi is not nearby, it will send a text to my wife to let her know my phone might die
I split my photos into different folders based on GPS coordinates in the exif data. I have one for home and work, then a default
Backup files to my server when I am on my wifi
Tracks how much time I am spending at work by checking when I am near my works WiFi
Auto-enable Wire guard when I leave my home network
Stores my phones location whenever it disconnects from my cars bluetooth (basically a local parked car location reminder)
If I turn on my flashlight while pressing the volume down button it instead opens a "flashlight app" that is just a solid color on the screen. This allows me to use a light source without it being the full brightness of the flashlight. Nice when you have a sleeping partner
I have been using DailyYou and forget to take pictures, so I have it open the app for me every 30 minutes after the reminder notification until I take the picture.

I have also used it previously for job specific tasks. Like I had a button on my home screen that would open a menu with a list of options, and then I would select one of the options. It just saved that selected text and the current time into a file so I could reference what time I did something.

If you have any sort of smart home, the options just keep growing.

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

I do have a smart home and spend way too much time playing around with it, but haven't done much with Tasker yet. The only thing I use it for right now BT presence detection to trigger a task enabling wifi and disabling location.

Interesting and useful info, thanks for sharing.

[–] robador51@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I have it too but don't use it. What do u use it for?

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Some of my most used:

Automatically disable wifi and connect to my Wireguard server through mobile data when I'm not at home, then enable wifi and shut down WG when I return home. My self hosted apps are automatically connected without having to expose any detectable app ports to the Internet.
Detect when I'm roaming to execute variations on some tasks.
Enable location only when in the car and using Maps, disable otherwise.
Voice notifications when my phone battery drops below 25%, or 45% when I'm in the car.
Change the display timeout to 5 minutes when in the car and charging, and back to 1 minute otherwise.

[–] zipkag@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Any chance you'd be willing to share some of those configurations? Especially the wireguard one. For some reason I have the hardest time getting something working to connect to wire guard using tasker when I leave home.

The others I'd love to see and learn from also if you'd be willing to share. Thanks!

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

I had trouble getting Wireguard to connect when using Tasker on another phone. Turning on a tunnel in a task only worked intermittently. If you're experiencing the same thing the work around is adding a step to start WG and then connecting the tunnel, but if I remember correctly I had to include a step to return to the previous app so I wouldn't end up with the WG UI left on the screen.

I do have one task shared on taskernet.com that may be of use. Go to https://taskernet.com/?public and deselect the "Basics" tag at the top, then search for "wireguard". Look for Wireguard Autoconnect. It's designed to connect a WG tunnel, then run an app and maintain the tunnel as long as the app is still on the screen. It drops the tunnel if you switch to another app or the launcher. Someone else has uploaded one that connects WG when not on your home SSID, but doing that requires location to be left on all the time, something which I avoid.

Would have no problem sharing my other configs but they've become too complex to do that easily. Everything's interconnected and nested with tasks setting and clearing multiple variables and then calling other tasks based on events and those variables. I'm no expert but am glad to help if you have questions and am on Lemmy often. DM me.