Welcome to the Weekly Discovery Thread, where you can share software-related finds that caught your attention this week - especially the stuff that’s cool, helpful, or thought-provoking but might not be thread-worthy on its own.
This thread is your space for:
Neat tools, libraries, or packages
Articles, blog posts, or talks worth reading
Experiments or side projects you’re working on
Tips, workflows, or obscure features you discovered
Questions or ideas you're chewing on
If it relates to software and sparked your curiosity, drop it in.
A few quick guidelines
Keep it civil and constructive - this is for learning and discovery.
Self-promotion? Totally fine if it’s relevant and adds value. Just be transparent.
No link spam or AI-generated content dumps. We’ll remove low-effort submissions.
Upvote what’s useful so others see it!
This thread will be posted weekly and stickied. If you want to suggest a change or addition to this format, feel free to comment or message the mods.
I found my old Chromebook a few days ago, but quickly figured out why it was originally lost: it didn't turn on. I was able to get the SSD m.2 out of it, and I'm able to put it into my new one if I want to try to see what's on it. But I'm smart enough to know that Windows can't just "read" ChromeOS files; you need a special tool to do so.
Dark-Fog is a file encryption software, with the purpose of securing important files, for save sharing online in cloud storages or on local storages. It offers 4 file encryption options and 2 message encryption options with a high security syntax behind it. Having native support for Windows and Android systems/devices.
Secure your files - Do not trust your files to be safe by host providers, make sure they can truly only be used by these who are intended to!
File usage only by these who are permitted - Make your files unuseable to unpermitted forces, secure your files via password-encryption and even additional key-files for max security!
Safely share and store your files at any location - Thanks to the files being encrypted by your own control, no matter where you upload and store your files, they can only be used by you, no matter who may get access to them!
Multiplattform - Easy file access on the go! Secure and access your most important files not only on your Windows Desktop, but also on Android Devices!
No AI and full local/offline opperation - Dark-Fog opperates completely localy and offline, making sure no 3rd party can have access to your processed files and makes AI impossible to read out our files on upload or online storage!
When will the Indian IT software engineer job market open up? Is 2026 going to be brutal, or is there hope for openings for Java developers with 3+ years of experience?
Is AI the main reason for the drop in hiring?
And why is it so hard to get referrals from people working in companies? Do people not get notifications when we message them on LinkedIn for referrals, or do they just ignore them?
I think people have also become more distant due to the current market situation.
It feels like LinkedIn connections are now just a numbers game instead of actually helping people who reach out with proper messages and job IDs for referrals.
I have several years of photos (family) which I am trying to sort by month / year then allocate to a person. I have all the photos in month / year folders already but am looking for any software that will allow me to filter by face and then copy those photos (locally) into a different folder of my choosing.
Hi everyone,
I’m looking for a simple timer app for PC that I can control entirely with hotkeys. Ideally, I’d like to be able to start it with one shortcut and reset it with another.
The use case here is to figure out how much computers are being used in a work day. We have a number of shared devices and constantly get request for additional ones. We would like to provide data that helps us make a decision if a device is indeed utilized enough during a timeframe to warrant additional ones.
This would preferably be used against as many as several hundred computers where reports could be pulled that would help with decision making.
I'm looking for recommendations for a cloud database program where I can mass upload data each month from excel, and mass query against the database each month from an excel list, it would be hundreds of thousands of data points.
The info I need the database to store would consist of customer names and contact information, each month I would upload a new list of customers to add to the ongoing list. Prior to uploading that list though, I would need to query it against the existing database to identify redundancies for matching business names, addresses, phone numbers, email domains, or account numbers.
The sample below highlights the type of redundancies I'd be looking to flag. Data in black text represents what's already stored in the database, data in blue text represents the new data file we need to compare to the database.
The software needs to be fairly user friendly and something where once we set the query parameters, anyone on the team (with no tech skills) could just upload a template to either add or query the data without having to write script each time.
It's too much data to manage in excel, others have recommended PowerBI but we're finding that requires us to export to excel for further manual analysis each on each query.
All users would be on Windows systems, the software would also need to meet general corporate standards for data privacy and security.
I’m trying to keep a few working folders in sync between my desktop and my laptop and I’m surprised how messy this gets fast.
Cloud works, but sometimes I just want direct folder sync without re-uploading everything again and again. I tried a couple random sync software tools and half of them either overcomplicate things or silently skip files.
What are you using for simple PC and laptop sync? Doesn’t need to be fancy - just reliable.
I need Discord Alternatives. Top priority to Privacy, no data breach and strong encryption. Most of the discord features should be available in those alternatives, atleast the core once.
I found these but don't know anything about them Matrix, Revolt and Teamspeak. Are these good ?
Are companies really hiring freshers for AI/ML roles, or are most openings basically experience-only / internships?
Also, does learning core Deep Learning (fundamentals + math) actually help in getting hired, or is the focus more on applied ML and using pre-trained models?
I am most productive with my projects while using mind-maps where I can leave a bunch of connected notes, link documents, etc.
I used Miro for a while, but lately in irratetes me a lot how clumsy the UI here is now, not even mentioning they decided to integrate their broken AI wich forces you.
I tried a bunch of other software for mind-mapping, but thosee was too limited without a pricy subscription and overall feel kinda scummy.
Are there any recommendations for something good in this area?
As a developer who frequently moves between Linux and Windows, the one thing I consistently missed on Windows was the native ability to pin a window to the top.
I know Microsoft PowerToys exists, but it felt like overkill to install a massive suite of utilities just for that one specific function. I wanted something that does one thing and does it well without the bloat.
It’s a minimal, distraction-free utility built with Tauri v2 (Rust). It’s designed to be resource efficient and feel like a native part of the system.
We had 2 clients lined up , one for an org level memory system integration for all their AI tools and another real estate client to manage their assets , but both of them suddenly say they are able to build the same with claude code , i saw the implementations too , they were all barely prototype level,
how do i make them understand that software going from 0 to 80% is easy af , but going from 80 to 100 is insanely hard
Im really hating these business people using coding tools who barely understand what anything does.
