I have moved four businesses to free software and only gotten great feedback. I honestly have no idea why anyone would pay for a Microsoft product when Foss alternatives are better in every way.
Open or libre office, NAPS2, local send, proton, helpwire, inkscape, firefox with addons, and a local server if they need a lot of “cloud” storage, which people think they need more of than they do.
Seriously, the rehab was convinced they needed several TB to store their records, when every invoice and exam note they had for the ~12 years they’d been digital amounted to about 8GB, ignoring the fact that they only needed to hold on to records for 7 years, or 10 for Medicare, which wasn’t terribly common.
The optical that needed access to very large (16k) retinal photos, really only needed access from 2 locations, so a couple of local servers on automatic backup with a UPS powering the routers meant unless power went out in the whole state, the images and documents were always accessible somewhere.
The grant service needed encrypted emails and wanted personalized URLs, so proton business worked for them and came with storage. Not free, but that was their choice.
For some reason most businesses I’ve worked with seem to think running everything on laptops or all in one computers is the way to go, and get frustrated when everything inevitably gets slow as shit.
So I switch them to mini PCs running my scrubbed ultra light windows image mounted to the back of monitors, and now they can replace parts when necessary, and I can gut the old computers for harddrives for a local server. The HDDs might be crap, but 20 of them make for a hell of a backup RAID.
Helpwire as a hidden startup app allows access from anywhere for files, and I can run tech support from anywhere if necessary.
Is there anything that offers the same amount of storage as Onedrive? I pay about £80 a year and get 6 TB across 6 email addresses. One is mine and the others are for family.
To add to that, they all get the Office suite included too, which is 100% compatible with whatever random office files other normies send them.
You know, I was waiting for this comment as soon as I listed open office. I sometimes use libre, but I like open better for no real reason. I’ve never run into anything it can’t do, except of course for whatever reason I can’t remember that caused me to get libre in the first place.
I’ve been gradually de-googling and de-microsofting, but it’s a slow process. OneDrive was one of the only ways to get my files out of Google takeout because they’re so huge. The direct downloads are rate limited, and have a high error rate, making it almost impossible to download massive Google takeout files before they expire.
I have moved four businesses to free software and only gotten great feedback. I honestly have no idea why anyone would pay for a Microsoft product when Foss alternatives are better in every way.
I’m assuming something like nextcloud and only office? It’s what I’m doing right now as well
Name them, I dare you.
Two optical shops, a rehab clinic, and a grant funding service. No specifics on the internet.
I think they meant the FOSS alternatives
Open or libre office, NAPS2, local send, proton, helpwire, inkscape, firefox with addons, and a local server if they need a lot of “cloud” storage, which people think they need more of than they do.
Seriously, the rehab was convinced they needed several TB to store their records, when every invoice and exam note they had for the ~12 years they’d been digital amounted to about 8GB, ignoring the fact that they only needed to hold on to records for 7 years, or 10 for Medicare, which wasn’t terribly common.
The optical that needed access to very large (16k) retinal photos, really only needed access from 2 locations, so a couple of local servers on automatic backup with a UPS powering the routers meant unless power went out in the whole state, the images and documents were always accessible somewhere.
The grant service needed encrypted emails and wanted personalized URLs, so proton business worked for them and came with storage. Not free, but that was their choice.
For some reason most businesses I’ve worked with seem to think running everything on laptops or all in one computers is the way to go, and get frustrated when everything inevitably gets slow as shit.
So I switch them to mini PCs running my scrubbed ultra light windows image mounted to the back of monitors, and now they can replace parts when necessary, and I can gut the old computers for harddrives for a local server. The HDDs might be crap, but 20 of them make for a hell of a backup RAID.
Helpwire as a hidden startup app allows access from anywhere for files, and I can run tech support from anywhere if necessary.
Thanks for the list. Hadn’t seen Helpwire before.
Maybe someone wants to store their Linux isos to share around work 😂
The 4 businesses or the free alternative to onedrive?
Is there anything that offers the same amount of storage as Onedrive? I pay about £80 a year and get 6 TB across 6 email addresses. One is mine and the others are for family.
To add to that, they all get the Office suite included too, which is 100% compatible with whatever random office files other normies send them.
For that much storage, you’d be better to self host. The initial cost would probably be around 3 months of your current bill, and open office is free.
Friendly reminder that OpenOffice is barely maintained and has no community left. LibreOffice is where the community moved to over a decade ago 🙂
You know, I was waiting for this comment as soon as I listed open office. I sometimes use libre, but I like open better for no real reason. I’ve never run into anything it can’t do, except of course for whatever reason I can’t remember that caused me to get libre in the first place.
Fair enough, it’s just worth noting that Apache has been very neglectful of security flaws. But you do you!
6 TB for $20? Man I haven’t looked at hardware prices in a while.
?
They said there current bill was 80 /Year. 3 months would be 80/4. 20, though I realize they didnt say dollars now. But still really cheap
True, but then I’d have no offsite storage. I know that Onedrive isn’t the best option, but it’s better than nothing
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And then you have my company that now shut down our nextcloud instance because “it is insecure” and moved all files to OneDrive.
Ouch, the Nextcloud I’m usually stuck with only has an 8mb per second transfer rate which is annoying but at least we have it.
I’ve been gradually de-googling and de-microsofting, but it’s a slow process. OneDrive was one of the only ways to get my files out of Google takeout because they’re so huge. The direct downloads are rate limited, and have a high error rate, making it almost impossible to download massive Google takeout files before they expire.