Mastodawn

Christopher Wright Jan 5

Microsoft Office has been replaced by "Microsoft 365 Copilot App" 🙄 (not a joke, see office.com)

Fortunately there are many good alternatives on the Fediverse:

➡️ @libreoffice - Free open source office suite, can be used entirely offline
➡️ @CollaboraOffice - Online fork of LibreOffice, upstream contributor
➡️ @nextcloud - FOSS personal cloud including collaborative office tools
➡️ @CryptPad - FOSS online office suite with maximum privacy

(via @jbz )

João Tiago Rebelo (NAFO J-121)Jan 5

@FediFollows thank you, I'd just like to add that @CollaboraOffice has announced Collabora Office isn't "just" online anymore:
https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/collabora-online-now-available-on-desktop/

Collabora Online now available on Desktop

Same look. Same code.Your files, your device. We’re excited to share the first release of the new Collabora Office for desktop – bringing the familiar, powerful Collabora Online experience, to run locally on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Open it and feel instantly at home: ODF or DOCX, quick edits or deep dives, a clean, beautiful […]

Collabora Online and Collabora Office

@jt_rebelo @FediFollows @CollaboraOffice I came here specifically to say this as well.

Collabora works on Desktop (Win/Mac/Linux) and I don't know about Apple stuff, but works well on my Droids.

Online, I have it running just fine in my NextCloud instances. (I will skip the griping about the preferred deployments being Docker.)

It replaced LibreOffice on everything I use and it "Just Works".

I do not give positive reviews lightly.

@jt_rebelo @FediFollows @CollaboraOffice Entirely offline?

Baessando ☭🇧🇷🇵🇸🇺🇳Jan 6

@jt_rebelo @FediFollows @CollaboraOffice wow. That is great 😃😃

@FediFollows @libreoffice @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz Thanks for compiling this list. I wasn’t familiar with some of these alternatives and will have to check them out!

Terminal Tilt Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice

This is a fantastic list! It is so important to remind people that there are powerful, privacy respecting alternatives out there that do not require a subscription or constant cloud connection. LibreOffice has been a lifesaver for my offline work. Thank you for sharing these!

Ray McCarthy Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice
Been using Linux instead of Windows 100% since January 2017. Switched to LibreOffice, Gimp, etc years earlier.
NCSA Mosaic 1994 -> Netscape -> Firefox. Tried loads of other Browsers.
Switched loads of customers to Thunderbird from Outlook over the years, inc ones with Exchange.
Notepad > Textpad > Notpad++ & now KATE.
NT 3.51 to Windows 7.
WFW3.1 to NT 4.0.
Win9x used for kids as game consoles.
Hosting on Ionos.de

🅱️eisbolCards Jan 5

Have a computer with a valid Windows 10 license. Decided against a dual boot and only has Linux Mint.

However, I had a Windows 95 CD around so finally made it work on VirtualBox - along with 32 bit color and functional floppy/cd drives

And two Win10 VMs. One is offline and runs fairly decent. The other is online - just for downloading and setting up stuff for the first one- and it runs very, very, very slow.

Ray McCarthy Jan 5

@beisbolcards XP is really the minimum for Virtualbox (Guest Additions). Win9x will be better in an x86 emulator, though not tried it yet. The Win98 was pretty poor on VirtualBox. No GPU or file I/O

🅱️eisbolCards Jan 5

Win95 runs somewhat smoothly but I feel it's one bad program away from a permanent blue screen of death. Can't believe is *that* old.

Somehow it lost the ability to read actual CDs, but as long I can load ISOs and read/write to a floppy disk image should be somewhat ok.

Ray McCarthy Jan 5

@beisbolcards
Win10 is actually faster on my workstation VM than the real E460 laptop, but is much slower than Win7 in VM which is much slower than XP in VM.
The same E460 runs Linux Mint with Mate MUCH faster than Win10.

You need a lot of RAM for a VM. 16 G on host is fine and 4G on host is not.

My 11" Chromebook converted to Linux Mint (flashed BIOS) is very fast, but can't sanely run VirtualBox anything, not even XP. 4G RAM, 64G EMM and 1T microSD card for user data.

Dual booted 1998-2016

Ray McCarthy Jan 5

@beisbolcards
I used MS Tool Disk2VHD to clone a 2002 XP laptop and a Win7 tower PC (legacy boot installed rather than UEFI boot) to VM files.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/disk2vhd

Some fiddling with settings of Disk2VHD and of VirtualBox needed. Obviously you need GuestAdditions. Sadly support for Direct3D was removed on VirtualBox for XP, which killed some programs, such as Scrabble.
Soundblaster Emulation works. Mapping real serial ports or USB with serial adaptors works for Radio programming.

Disk2vhd - Sysinternals

Disk2vhd simplifies the migration of physical systems into virtual machines.

Damage Control Blog Jan 5

@FediFollows LibreOffice is amazing! Works just fine on Windows.

Damage Control Blog Jan 5

@FediFollows LibreOffice is amazing! Works just fine on Windows.

@damagecontrolblog @FediFollows yes it is, i love libre office, it's accessible with NVDA and works grate for what i use it for

Mars Uribe Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice
I think the branding has not concluded. I expect next names to be... "Microsoft CoOffice", then "MS Co365", then "Copilot 365 from Microsoft", then "DocsAI 365", then "DocsAI from Microsoft", then eventually "F U, Pay Us - 365" 🤣

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice

I've used StarOffice, OpenOffice and now LibreOffice. I dispice MS software with passion.

Meznor UNGRATEFUL MIDDLE POWER Jan 5

@FediFollows besides the obvious, what a terrible branding exercise. Really rolls off the tongue lol.

Nicole Parsons Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @[email protected] @libreoffice

#TranslatedFromTheRepublican

"Saudi Arabia & Koch Network paid for an international state surveillance platform, & dang it!, they are going to get what they paid for!"
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-google-hand-dissident-data-to-saudi-arabia-activists-say-2023-7

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2025/07/17/bill-gates-charles-koch-and-three-other-billionaires-are-giving-1-billion-to-enhance-economic-mobility-in-the-us/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/13/trump-tech-execs-riyadh/

https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligencer-trump-mbs-meeting-brings-ai-money-2025-11-20/

Orwell's telescreens and ubiquitous state surveillance, courtesy the fossil fuel industry.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90208133/orwell-knew-we-willingly-buy-the-screens-that-are-used-against-us

Microsoft and Google may have to surrender people's data to Saudi Arabia after signing huge deals there

Saudi Arabia is seeking to be an innovation hub, but activists are warning that tech firms could be complicit in the repression of dissidents.

Business Insider

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @[email protected] @libreoffice

I hope it doesn't take much time for LO to implement Peer-to-peer collaboration https://design.blog.documentfoundation.org/2024/07/17/peer-to-peer-collaboration-with-libreoffice/

Peer-to-peer collaboration with LibreOffice - Design Community Blog

A while ago, Simon Phipps, member of the Board of Directors at The Document Foundation, shared the idea to introduce a peer-to-peer collaboration built in to desktop LibreOffice without the requirement for a cloud provider. This idea has received a lot of attention inside the organization and the design team

Design Community Blog

Madman’s Nest Jan 5

@FediFollows Thank you

Maarten De Bal Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice upvote for @ONLYOFFICE im using it on all my Linux devices and I love it.

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice
Thanks for the info! I have Libre and it works very well for my needs. I’m kinda disappointed in big tech for doing all this. We didn’t ask for all this AI sloppification!!

@FediFollows
More like Microsoft Slopice, amiright? 😆

@moldavia @FediFollows this is so bad it's good

I mean, what the everloving fuck.

@FediFollows wtf??? #LibreOffice is great.
I have been using it for years.
Maybe it's not good enough for a "power user", but it's more than adequate for me, and probably 80% of users....

Ned Hamson Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice a libre user for a decade!

BardMoss the Bodhi Linux Guy Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice
also SoftMaker Office and SoftMaker FreeOffice. Not open source (and the main product is not free, but is less than half the price of M$) but excellent tools and available on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

DarkAthena 🐝Jan 5

@FediFollows @_L1vY_ @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz I was excited about @libreoffice but it was rather ugly on all my machines. I tried themes but couldn’t find one that worked properly.

@DarkAthena @FediFollows @_L1vY_ @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice

+1

I'm probably shallow, but I've held off on Linux desktops until Elementary OS 8, now would like to find an office suite that looks at least as nice as that

DNA schedule Jan 5

@mtnrbq65 OnlyOffice looks pretty decent, and its compatibility with Office files has been good too in my experience. There's also things you can do to improve the looks of LibreOffice, I riced mine up years ago when I was doing a lot of document production work, but I agree the out-of-box experience is not great.

DarkAthena 🐝Jan 6

@mtnrbq65 @FediFollows @_L1vY_ @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice Form is important.

狐ヴィクシー Jan 6

@DarkAthena @FediFollows @_L1vY_ @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice Try Collabora Desktop

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice I wish I could convince my employer to switch, but I guess the company is too deeply invested in all things Microsoft.

Nicole Parsons Jan 5

@paavi @FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2025/07/17/bill-gates-charles-koch-and-three-other-billionaires-are-giving-1-billion-to-enhance-economic-mobility-in-the-us/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/13/trump-tech-execs-riyadh/

Most offices are gung-ho on standard platforms like Microsoft Office, until the lawsuits from data breaches start arriving...
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-google-hand-dissident-data-to-saudi-arabia-activists-say-2023-7

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/technology/saudi-arabia-ai-exporter.html

Remember, each time someone uses a Google or Microsoft product, they are at risk of sharing that information with the surveillance sectors of Saudi Arabia & Koch Network ...

1/

Five Billionaires Pledged $1 Billion To Boost Economic Mobility Using AI

Five of America’s top philanthropists are teaming up for a new venture aimed at helping low-income Americans rise from poverty. An AI giant has signed on to help.

Forbes

Nicole Parsons Jan 5

2/

... who invested heavily in AI.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-peter-thiel-rupert-murdoch-met-with-bin-salman-2020-1

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-06/google-thiel-stand-out-in-saudi-prince-s-silicon-valley-tour

https://www.techradar.com/pro/oracle-cto-wants-to-put-all-americas-data-into-one-big-system-to-study-including-dna

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/omnipresent-ai-cameras-will-ensure-good-behavior-says-larry-ellison/

https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/16/oracle_vectorizes_its_customers/

Data centers are state surveillance data aggregators for sale to their investors.

Their own website says so.
https://news.microsoft.com/source/emea/features/building-the-foundations-for-saudi-arabias-ai-powered-future/

The Saudi crown prince accused of hacking Jeff Bezos' phone met with more than a dozen tech execs and celebs during the same US trip. From Tim Cook to Oprah, here's everyone Mohammed bin Salman met with.

Tim Cook, Michael Bloomberg, and Oprah met with Mohammed bin Salman on the same trip in which he connected with Jeff Bezos.

Business Insider

Lance, Enjoying Copious Pollen Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @jbz I miss the days when computers were fun.

erinaceus Jan 5

@FediFollows Satire is dead.

@FediFollows @jbz #Microsoft Office still exists -- it's only their subscription service that is being renamed. You can buy "Office Home 2024" for $150.

Snuffleupadon Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @libreoffice add @grist to the list!

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice

You can add @mailbox_org to the list, also comes with a very privatel online office suite

@FediFollows i hope there won't be a sane person that will call it that instead of office

schuelermine Jan 5

@FediFollows
This was already the case since January 2025.

@anselmschueler

Microslop 365 Copilot SlopApp 🙄 (not a joke, see office.com) [apologies @FediFollows ]

#Microslop #MacroSlop #Sloperator #CopilotSlopAppTM

Dawn Tåke 🌙

@FediFollows @libreoffice

I've been using the portable Libre Office at work for any incidentals even though work pays for office 365. In part so I don't have to worry some LLM is ingesting what I type.

I wonder when the secturity concern becomes greater than the Inconvenience of moving.

Christian Waidner Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice omg....this is so full of slop. The German translation just....hurts.

DNA schedule Jan 5

@FediFollows apologies if somebody else has already pointed this out, but OnlyOffice is not online-only. The desktop apps are fully usable offline.

Rislandr 🇪🇺 🔰Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice

Why do you include Russian software OnlyOffice which is also partially closed source?

That seems very risky to me.

FediFollows Jan 6

I've removed it from the list as it seems to be AI-powered nowadays 😞

tootbrute Jan 5

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice this is great. Probably the final push for my wife to ditch windows. She only clings to microslop windows 11 for office by has already been sniffing around only office.

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice

As soon as I go to the @ONLYOFFICE website, "now driven by AI-powered virtual assistants and smart agents". No thank you.

FediFollows Jan 6

Yup, apologies, I've removed it from the list. They didn't used to have this.

@FediFollows its really a bummer because I recall using their software a while back and thinking it was nice

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice

Judah Hansen Jan 6

@aguamielerogpz @FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice Also it isn't even really open source, they bend the GPL to prevent forking.

FediFollows Jan 6

@judahhansen @aguamielerogpz

Sorry about that, I've removed it from the list.

Lindsay Cowell Jan 5

@FediFollows @nextcloud What's so bad about the Microsoft 365 co-pilot app?

SlightlyCyberpunk Jan 6

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @jbz @[email protected] Yeah, Cryptpad keeps your docs super secure, even from you! Good luck using it for more than a few hours before your docs end up corrupted and inaccessible...tried using it once, had multiple corrupted files in the span of a week. Switched to Nextcloud in a private VPS instead and have no complaints.

VWestlife Jan 6

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @ONLYOFFICE @jbz @libreoffice Office 2003 still works, too, and is the last good version ever made.

Michael Simons Jan 6

@FediFollows @CollaboraOffice @nextcloud @CryptPad @jbz @libreoffice it’s wild that “can be used completely offline” is a stand out quality for an office program these days.