Ask HN: Products/Services you swear by – Dec. 2022 | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Products/Services you swear by – Dec. 2022

77 pointsimpish920873 comments

I've been happy using/buying products recommended in previous threads and I figured I'd get another one started for the end of the year.

So HN: what are some items you bought or services you've started using (could be paid apps, OSS projects, etc.) this year that you swear by?

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Fastmail. Been a loyal customer for more than 6 years. Using my own domains with it, the best part is you get to use more than one domains, with total of 600 alias addresses you can attach to your account. Great spam filter, doesn’t try to be smart categorizing your emails like Google. For $50 a year, it’s one of the cheaper subscription that I have while providing high value.

I second your comments!

I wanted to piggyback PFF of this comment because I recently discovered domains.google will let your set a *@domain.tld as a forwarding address, for free, and that's pretty nifty.

I use it for infinite throwaway addresses which won't get put on a blacklist because I'm the only one using that domain.

Anyway send me mail at (anything) at poggers.website

Their features section says something else:

> With free email forwarding, get up to 100 alias email addresses with your domain. Design as many sites as you need with up to 100 sub-domains.

So not infinite, but up to 100. Unless I'm misunderstanding something.

Been a Fastmail user for more than a decade. Definitely been worth the money.

I don't use aliases but instead a catch-all email, and the web UI knows to respond to emails with the correct catch-all email, so you don't have to set your From address manually. Very handy.

- GrapheneOS, a de-googled fork of open source Android, has amazing privacy features while not compromising on proprietary services that you need to use, UX, or security.

- Glider is the best HN client you can find on Android that is also open sourced and on F-droid

- Proton has amazing VPN, mail, and cloud storage services that are still a bit lackluster in features when it comes to applications (Linux VPN GUI is bad, no cloud storage app or sync) but very capable, affordable, and promising for the future

- Wikipedia. I don't know if this fits exactly, but it has been so useful not only to me in research and studying, but also to voice assistants, web browsers, documentarians, students and countless others.

I don't love the way Glider displays the favicon for the website of each post. I find it makes the UI really noisy. Other than that, it's a great client. I also like Hews.

You are able to disable the favicon from appearing

Ah good to know

Bitwarden, absolutely fantastic password manager. Open-source and you can self host, though I pay for their service.

Bitwarden is one if those things that seem too good to be true. That being said, I’m a loyal user.

- Pinecil soldering iron. It works really well, is cheaper than anything comparable and is powered by usb-c. Since I got one I don’t use any of my other ones. It sits in my desk drawer and I just unplug my laptop for a while when I use it.

- icloud... on windows. Cloud drive works well, chrome plugin for passwords works well, and all Of the webapps were recently updated and work good enough there’s no annoyance for an apple person to have a windows machine too.

- Barrier for using one keyboard and mouse with multiple systems with different OSs.

Pinecil: Would you recommend this if the soldering job were more than just a few wires (e.g. circuit assembly)? I've had a couple of cordless soldering irons in the past and they were a bust - took too long to heat up, didn't hold their temp very well.

Yes, for any basic PCB assembly it works as well as, if not better than my Hakko 888 (70W) and TS100 (60W). It also works as well as the $2000 soldering station I have access at work (admittedly that has a lot more features such as desoldering).

It's not cordless/battery power but rather uses usb-c power delivery directly. It's up to 60W on "normal" usb-c, but supports up to 88W with newer usb-c standards your charger probably doesn't support. I think even higher if you really want to push it. Even using it at 45W with a usb-c battery pack, it heats up in a few seconds. And since it has an OLED screen, you can understand what power it's getting with your battery pack and change settings like temperature and idle temperature easily.

It's also based on RISC-V and you can get a $4 breakout board to turn it into a dev kit.

Finally, it's $26. Don't forget to add a high-temp silicon cable ($3.50) and extra tips (4 for $25). I'm so excited just writing about this I think I am going to buy 5 or so as go-to gifts for nerdy people.

John, thanks for the detailed write-up. Much appreciated. Unfortunately, they are out of stock now. I have the tab pinned and will refresh it daily until it's available. Did you order the last 5? :-)

I have a Hakko 888 as well and while I like it, there's a bit of a set up as I'm limited on space. So when you said it's as good as your Hakko, you sold me on it.

It wasn’t me! Also noticed they are out of stock.

PSA: barrier hates Wayland and multiple screens.

It does hate Wayland but I haven’t had trouble with multiple screens between windows/osx and X/osx

https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit (My favourite git interface. Can be used in neovim as well)

https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim (Fuzzy finder plugin that uses ripgrep and fzf)

https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide Smart replacement for `cd`

https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka My favourite font for coding, it's width lets me fit more text on the screen

Hadn't heard of Iosevka, thanks for sharing.

+1 for zoxide. I can be in my home directory and cd into a directory 3 subdirectories away.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your exact use-case, but can't cd do that?

cd ../../../<dir> or whatever

Or are you saying you can skip a greater portion of the path?

Say I have a directory as Documents/projects/rust/supercoolproject, from my home directory I can just type `z sup` and because it's in my command history and no other path contains super, it just takes me straight there.

If there are more than one you either repeat the command to go to the next match, or can do `zi sup` and it will give you the results in an fzf picker to just pick the right one

my spouse spent $650 I think on a Dyson vac. I tried to interfere but it was going to turn into a fight and wasn’t worth it.

3 years later, its one of best purchases we’ve ever made. I put on airpods and vacuuming is almost therapeutic. It’s so light and works so damn well. not sure if it’s over priced but it’s not half the noise of the previous vac and works amazingly well.

I have similar story. I have interfered and made my wife buy other brands like shark and eventually we got Dyson and very satisfied

We have a Dyson battery powered model. Pretty nice but the battery pack has gone bad several times. Thankfully, while under warranty they ship you a new pack without too much trouble, and you're free to harvest the 18650s from the old one, which made up for the hassle.

Funny. As a non native speaker I kind of thought "things you swear by" would mean something totally negative. I was surprised to see positive reviews.

By Vim I will never abandon ye

I swear to Havaianas I've never met her before

With Amazon Prime as my witness I'll pay you back

You gotta be duckduckgo-ing kidding me.

That is funny. The phrases "things you swear by" and "things you swear at" sound very similar but have entirely different meanings.

That's hilarious. In this case, the "swear" uses the old-fashioned definition (to give an honest testimony/promise; as in "swear on my mother's grave") rather than rude words.

If you're ever in Australia, don't forget to ask for a "Golden Gaytime". ;)

ASK HN: What are some produts you want to swear at?

Supabase. They have a great free plan, and provide the missing glue that makes postgres awesome. For the first time, I'm using triggers and functions to implement core application logic that would be unweildy to put elsewhere.

I love Supabase for all their features, but something I think is overlooked is they’re the simplest way to get a free postgres DB up and running for demos/PoCs/side projects. You don’t _need_ to use their fancy features or API clients, you can just spin up a DB without messing with a VM or temporary IP (looking at you, Oracle)

Agreed, this is a great feature. (Plus - most of their fancy features are just wrappers / better UI / more visibility into postgres!)

You can either roll your own PG + API + other goodies, or you can spend $20+ / month on AWS, or use Supabase for free. They did a cool market segmentation - ratchet their pricing down one level. What AWS charges $25 for, Supabase is free. Where AWS is around $100, supabase is $25. Etc.

Roborock S7 vacuum-it's incredible how much dust and crap it picks up. The app had some warts and it isn't perfect, but still super impressive how far robo-vacs have come from the days where the only SLAM going on was when the vacuum collided with walls and furniture at full speed

Obsidian app-I pay for the monthly subscription even though it'd be pretty straightforward (I think?) to self host just to support development. I do the same thing with Bitwarden.

I have finally received my preordered Librem 5 (GNU/Linux smartphone) and am very happy with it. While it certainly has rough edges (mainly the battery life of 10-12 hours, because suspend to RAM is still in development), it feels amazing to be in full control of my mobile device and to run a full desktop OS on it.

Sent from my Librem 5.

The Librem 5 looks great.

The thing that kills is for me is the lack of NFC. I haven't carried a wallet / cards with me since about 2018 and I'm not super eager to go back.

How would you use your bank card (nfc) without the proprietary app? Clone your physical card's nfc signature somehow?

Fastmail (location is a problem though), 1Password, Bartender, LittleSnitch, clamXAV, iStatmenus, iTerm, oh-my-zsh, vim are the first ones that come to mind but there are quite a few more on all fronts (paid, oss, etc.).

Jetbrains Rider. I've been against IDEs in the past but only used free ones, Eclipse and Visual Studio. Rider is so much better. It uses less ram, feels faster and requires less setup.

NopCommerce is an amazing free platform. I've worked with a few web frameworks in the past but not with ASP.net (the framework Nop is built on). Nop is a really nice platform. The speed is incredible and figuring out how the code works is intuitive. Almost everything you need for an online store is there out of the box, or available as a plugin. Writing your own plugins is easy.

Copilot. I get it for free, but I’d absolutely pay $10/month for it. Outside of its professional usefulness, it’s been a great help for messing with new languages and libraries. Plus, as long as you have your relevant code open in a tab, writing certain tests becomes incredibly easy.

Github’s Copilot labs is also doing some cool stuff with their code explaining and refactoring tools. I don’t use them much yet but I’m sure they’ll continue to improve.

- Crunch Fitness membership

- YMCA membership

- flexispot desk bike (https://www.amazon.com/FLEXISPOT-Sit2Go%C2%AE-Adjustable-Exe...)

I gained a covid 25 and was feeling awful, these three things helped me lose almost 50 pounds and got me in the best shape of my life.

Minisforum UM690. Such featureful, fast little miniPC. I've loaded it with Linux and using it as my work computer currently.

Also got my first robot vacuum to test the waters, so didn't want to go all in. Got a Eufy LR20 on sale. It's not perfect, but wow was I wrong. I always thought robot vacs were gimmicky, but this thing saves us so much time sweeping and vacuuming.

Using an HX90 here.. actually have a few friends on them for their primary/secondary usage. Mine is a simple home server with ProxMox and a few Linux VMs.

Simple Human garbage cans, specifically this one: https://www.simplehuman.com/products/rectangular-liner-pocke...

$140 is an outrageous amount to spend on a garbage can, but you interact with them _constantly_. I love this thing.

According to the government of SF, you are a liar. A good garbage can should cost 1.4 million, not $140.

What makes this can better than the $20 version I can get at Walmart?

- La sportiva Theory & Katana climbing shoes, i used MadRock shark & drone for a while but after switching to la sportiva i cannot go back.

- Tokyo powder industries' climbing chalk, i tried many climbing chalks this is the one that works for me. i use it for indoors, outdoor, training and performing! the only time i do not use this chalk is during hangboarding at home to avoid making a mess.

- The clever dripper, i finally gave away my V60, the clever dripper constantly produces decent coffee.

- DataDog, my teams services are written in Scala, we use DD's JVM agent and we get lots of integrations for free (JVM metrics, tarcing for http calls, tracing for DB queries...) and we push our own metrics.

- my Iphone 10 (now 13 mini) & Macbook pro 2015, Super happy about the quality & the constant OS updates, but i miss a proper package manager like APT from Debian, i cannot seem to trust homebrew's reliability :(

I’m also a la sportiva enthusiast. I’ve found the women’s shoes to fit even better than the men’s. I’m on my third pair of women’s solutions and they are so good. I think the women’s shoes are made for a lighter person (I weigh about 135) and they are very sensitive and easy to feel footholds with.

PDF-XChange pdf software. I often have to edit/manipulate pdf files for work. I've tried so many (including Acrobat DC, Power PDF Advanced, Nitro PDF, Phantom, etc.) and this software is hands down the best. It is even reasonably priced.

Other mentions: Bitwarden, Roborock vacuums, Emporia home energy monitoring products and EV charger, Shelly (diy home automation products), Nvidia Shield Pro streaming device, Weawow weather app (android), Progressive car insurance (saved me a fortune), Relay Pro for reddit (android), and pocketcast (android).

I've barefoot shoe suggestions.

Freet, a UK maker. Wholesome (according to my taste). So good for my feet. Have been wearing only these and Skinners for around five years now. Cannot imagine going back to thick-sole, narrow, heel-having shoes.

Skinners, barefoot shoe-sock. The most barefoot experience without actually going barefoot. Have been regularly wearing these for three years, my main outdoorsy shoe (with a waterproof sock when might get wet). Ran ~240km in these this summer, mostly on paved roads, and they're still fine.

A nice pair of hiking shoes. I’ve got la sportiva Bushidos but any decent hiking/trail running shoes will do. It’s nice to not be slipping and sliding on loose gravel and leaves anymore, as I did often when wearing more casual sneakers.

- Wahoo Elemnt Bolt (onboard GPS device) for [gravel] cycling, Strava heatmaps to sync. Makes a huge difference when you're trying to plan an outdoor ride.

- Peak Design outfront mount / case for the iphone 13 for my commuter bike

- Remarkable 2, for sketching UX

I've used Roam Research for note taking for the last year. Before that, I spent two months trying out a dozen competitors. Using it the last year has been amazing for me. I definitely can't go without it now.

Peloton

It’s the streaming service I use the most. Easy to do a 10 minute workout from my desk between meetings. Generally good software and hardware quality. Interesting new products like lanebreak, peloton guide, etc.

Todoist (to do list), Arc (browser), Spark (mail), Cron (calendar), Diarly (journaling), Shottr (screenshot tool), Raycast (spotlight alternative), Notability (notetaking for iPad).

Fastmail, 1Password, Apple phones and notebooks, vscode, docker

- 1Password for storing passwords, credit cards information

- iCloud+ 200GB for sharing photos with my family

- Raindrop.io for keeping my bookmarks

- Logseq for note taking

- Copilot for code recommendation

- Downdog apps for Yoga, HIIT exercises

Backblaze for backups

GIT for version control. Young folks have no idea how awful it was storing source code backups in zip files on floppy disks. GIT is like magic.

Google Keep and Calendar. Specifically because of the blazing fast home screen widget. I wouldn't trust a cloud solution for important long term stuff but I love how well it integrates with everything.

BitWarden. Every time someone asks about password managers, the answer is always BitWarden or KeePass.

My answer is no different. I have been very happy with it. And the secure notes feature is nice.

MOLLE. This is the military webbing soldiers use that makes their packs modular. My SOG ninja backpack is only $35. lacks a laptop compartment, but a standalone sleeve fixes that.

The pouches are cool, but what really sells the system is putting an extra water bottle holder, or a carabiner attachment with Grimlocs that can then hold a bag for extra shoes, a keychain solar flashlight, or a towel case so it's out and can dry.

(By the way, I would NOT recommend a solar backpack for any reason unless you really like walking in direct sun all day. They cost a fortune, weight a lot, have stuff to break, and MOLLE lets you carabiner on a folding solar charger if you really want.)

YoLink temperature sensors. If you think you have an area where pipes might freeze, don't wait till they do, watch them with a sensor of your choice. Or maybe wait for a Matter compliant one.

A pourover coffee maker. The filter catches the cholesterol raising stuff, the process is focused and relaxing and a break from the screens, coffee makes you live longer, and it tastes better than keurig or instant.

One of the few analog functional items I actually use and recommend.

Plano molding plastic ammo boxes. Put all your stuff for one project in them, put them in a cube shelf organizer by your shoes, and getting ready to go somewhere for a project is so easy! If you can't fit all your stuff, then you know it's time to reassess how much stuff you need to take there.

They're cheap enough to have a bunch and dedicate them to different activities.

Kind of an odd one since I just now learned of their existence and have not personally tried them yet(They haven't come in the mail), but I can't just not share this one.

Uni-ball Power Tank pens.

Currently, I use a Rite in the Rain pressurized pen, but reviews say the uni-ball ones are just as good, but in a disposable form factor, for $16 per 10 pack.

Pressurized pens are amazing. Nothing else stands up to being left to sit around unused quite like that. Having them available cheaply makes them the perfect pen for occasional users. I just wish I had known about them sooner, since I know so many people who would appreciate a few for Christmas.

The power tank pens are especially great if you're left handed since they dry fairly quickly. You might also enjoy the Pilot multiball- doesn't have the cool pressurization thing going on, but it works really well on non-paper surfaces

The multiball does in fact seem like something I'd enjoy, thanks for the tip! I'll keep that in mind if I run out of sharpies.

- unifi dream machine pro, wifi6 pro

- retropie

- Sonos arc and sub

- ZSA Moonlander mechanical ergo keyboard.

- Sublime Text

- Proxmox

- wasabi s3

+1 for proxmox. Can't believe people are paying VMware licenses for their home setup.

Why host vms at home?

Leatherman Multitools.

I highly recommend the Surge, Signal and Skeletool.

-Setapp for Mac

-Raindrop.io

-Gitpod

I’m a tool junkie, but those three are the only ones I’d swear by.

Iron skillet and Bitwarden

vim and more specifically iVim for mobile

- The iCloud 50GB ($0.99) plan. Used for backups. Its _so_ cheap and no hassel.

- Sublime Text.

- Proton Mail. Its good, its secure, and its gdpr compliant.

My favorite feature of the $0.99 plan is "Hide My Email". I generate new emails for pretty much everything nowadays.

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