SyncThing. That shit has pretty much replaced iCloud Drive for me, and as such has saved me a fortune.

https://magnetz.eu/

I found the aars. I really only use it now to get tv series that come out slowly, but it was fun setting it up and seeing how it automates half the work.

Not piracy related, but GrapheneOS.

Nix. You dont need NixOS, you can just use nix as a package manager on top of whatever you have.

It has the benefits of containerisation, but a vast repo including things you'd usually run in docker containers, and CLI apps and tools, and large GUI projects as well.

Lemmy

Another one Ana's archive

Kodi. I remember trying it years ago but since it didn't play well with the piHole I was running back then I forgot about it completely.

A few months ago I was trying to figure out jellyfin but the computer I was planning to use was way too old for it, someone suggested Kodi and after getting used to its interface it's been great. I've even found a great remote control app on f-droid.

Stremio + RealDebrid freed me.

I feel slow on this one but I only learned about copyparty a while ago. With the more frequent use of uv for Python stuff, I like that invoking it on a directory I want to share with a group in a room can be as simple as uv tool run copyparty and they can just scan the QR code and get whatever as long as they're connected to WiFi.

uv tool run copyparty -v .::r --grid --qr --hist ~/.cache/copyparty is what I use for quick folder shares.

Was getting great use of the Destiny File Transfer client for a while. Localsend as well. Great for loading up the mobile devices with movies and music, with little fuss.

https://github.com/LeastAuthority/destiny

Stremio and torbox

Torrent sits, syncthing, xmpp(replaced WhatsApp), RSS maybe some more

yt-dlp

I don't know why I avoided this for so long and stuck to whatever the first search result for 'online youtube downloader' was; but it's been much nicer having a consistent and versatile tool at the ready.

HexOS(TrueNAS) + Headscale(Tailscale). Then Emby or whatever existing tool on it.

Z-Lib android app

Not a tool or website per se, but more of a system that I thought of to share loot - mostly single files - with normie friends that neither use a VPN or pirate in any capacity: just pack it in an encrypted archive, encrypt the file headers too, change the filename to something random, upload it to the cloud service of your choice, share the download link and the password to the archive with them and Bob's your uncle.

MAL sync on Firefox. The utility of it lets me get away from my old tactic of keeping track of anime mentally (and tabs open) and keeping manga on Tachiyomi, while also just linking sites to watch/read stuff on, and even showing the highest translated chapter (as opposed to # released in native language)

Absolutely invaluable, takes all the legwork and guesswork out of this sort of stuff

ytdownloader