Are you Still using Microsoft Office? Time to Move On. An Alternative.
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- čas přidán 21. 11. 2023
- Everything now from Microsoft 365 to Google Docs is in the cloud, which means someone can read your documents! Something that is pretty hard to justify on this privacy channel. There are many options available but we will discuss the only one choice that I fully recommend.
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I'm the Internet Privacy Guy. I'm a public interest technologist. I'm here to educate. You are losing your Internet privacy and Internet security every day if you don't fight for it. Your data is collected with endless permanent data mining. Learn about a TOR router, a VPN , antivirus, spyware, firewalls, IP address, wifi triangulation, data privacy regulation, backups and tech tools, and evading mass surveillance from NSA, CIA, FBI. Learn how to be anonymous on the Internet so you are not profiled. Learn to speak freely with pseudo anonymity. Learn more about the dangers of the inernet and the dangers of social media, dangers of email.
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there is no cloud,, it's just someone else's computer
I worked in IT for the past four years. An honestly the direction that Microsoft is moving is making me switch careers into plumbing. I love Linux, I now use Libreoffice and Linux os when possible on my personal time. Thank God for Steam Deck and thank God for people like you Rob. MS Sucks.
Yeah the company I work for has everything in the damn M$ cloud. I hate where this is headed.
I also hated MS in my IT career. I was a NetWare engineer before it went extinct.
@@MinisterRedPill Dude if you see it now, RUN!
At least plumbing is predictable! Thank you buddy
@MarzMindset - I totally agree with you. I haven't used MS products for at least 15 years now and would never go back to them. Linux all the way and LibreOffice! MS indeed sucks.
I heard somewhere: "There is no cloud, it's just someone else's computer on the internet"
"Cloud computing" is just the latest buzzword instead of saying client - server
I used to be an instrument rated pilot and I can confirm that clouds do not contain RAM. I once picked up insects in my pitot tube and had a wierd ASI reading on landing.
I'm old enough to know to never trust any "cloud". I use external drives, 3 of them.
OneDrive somehow took over all my personal files on my desktop anyway, and it took me a week of fighting to regain control of MY OWN STUFF!
Question everything. Everyone. Question why? There's an agenda that us pawns are not privy to. Money, the root of all evil. It breeds greed, jealousy and divide. Why do we worship it? IWhy do we SLAVE away most of our lives to make somebody else rich, whilst we (the SLAVE pawns) only make enough to force us back next week to do it all again. QUESTION EVERYTHING
Sooooo true.. My dad worked for NASA, Lincoln Labratories, MiT, and their teams saved everything externally. Locked it up. Even i the late 70s, data tapes were recorded and removed and stored in locked cabinets. To this day, he still he preaches that every thing you do on a pc can not be erased and can be traced.
Must be on Windows. This is one of the reason I quit using it. You have to keep turning one drive off in the update cycle.
@@Aprerem - nobody caring about what you do on YOUR computer - may be true to you 🤣🤣🤣 it's not true for most of us.
Same here after my MS account lock out for simply changing my email, I have moved as many of the files/folders on One Drive to a removable drive, BUT, one drive is refusing to allow copies of some of the remaining Files/Folders, so I have to find a work around. BUT for me One Drive is totally dead, and as soon as I can replace 365, I will do so, seriously looking at Linux as a replacement to MS.
I love that idea, what does Cloud really mean, a deployed solution to save all your important documents on some else's machine who has a priority for profit and selling information.
Someone I can't remember who put best like this: "cloud is just someone else's computer" -
which you have no idea who has access to, have no control who has access to it or when, and no accountability or responsibility for when things go wrong.
@@CnCDuneJust think of "the cloud" as a store display.
Its used to train AI models and people keep feeding into them.
Yes , we provide them information they make an income from and we also pay them for that privilege
We tried rolling out libre office at work for people to save money on office licenses. We use roundcube for our email client with a IMAP server and libre office as the office suite. People hate it. Endless complaints about little issues that IMO are pretty trivial. People don't like change and are generally not very computer literate. You can mess people up by renaming a shortcut on their desktop. This is why we ultimately paid the office licenses. People always prioritize convenience over security, especially when the security issue seems abstract to them.
Yep, same here. Such is the life of ICT support to business. If they can hire someone to get guaranteed results (i.e. someone who's only used to MS Office), they'll do it. As a result licenses must be paid.
This is the whole reason that it will never really be "the year of Linux" so many of us would love to see. People's lack of adaptability (combined with the astounding rate of change in the tech world already) keep us hamstrung to intrusive and clobbed together microsoft products.
Lol when nothing is superior to Microsoft Office. Talk about losers that force others into using inferior products that cost little to nothing with no support or progress over the years.
The problem is the saved format is not 100% comparable between MS and Libre. The issues are not trivial if a document is going to be passed around in the office and with clients.
That's why I'm excited for the AI takeover and automation of trivial jobs. If people don't like change, AI has no problem with that.
Nice video! But I did want to point out one error. I'm a former Sun employee and while Sun did acquire StarOffice in 1999, Oracle did not acquire Sun until Feb 2010 -- more than a decade later. Sun contributed a LOT of software to open-source.
One fun feature of OpenOffice/LibreOffice is the file format ... it is actually a .zip archive. You can open them with your favorite Zip utility (you might need to rename the extension if the zip utility is fussy). Inside you'll find several files -- some contain meta-data while others contain your actual data. This was done to allow end-users a way to programmatically access their document data outside of the office suite. Microsoft later copied the feature.
My source had inaccurate information on that. Thanks for the correction
Thank you for posting the correction; my eyes went really big when Rob mentioned the error.
I've been a Sun (yeah now Oracle) sysadmin since 1990 (back in the SunOS days!) and loved working on Sun gear and OS; the compnay was an awsome partner in my career. Oracle - not so mich! Really appreciate your content, Rob!
I use tar atta linux it will open just about any archive file. yeah micropuke copies everything. but what they REALLY need to copy is ext4. that'll put hackers atta business but guess what that puts Norton, McAfee and all other malware, ransomware, virus writers atta business as well. can't have that shit, now can we?
@@robbraxmantech Your source wasn't just inaccurate, it was totally wrong. In this video you give Oracle credit for developing OpenOffice, in actual fact in 2010 Oracle literally destroyed OpenOffice and was the reason for the LibreOffice fork. As soon as Oracle bought SUN, in 2010, they then set about winding up the SUN software, disposing of the devs (those that didn't just quit that is) and basically stopping all development on OOo. Oracle only bought SUN to kill MySQL (Also now forked as MariaDB) because it was a direct Open Source competitor to Oracle Database. IBM convinced Oracle to gift the OOo code to the Apache Foundation so that they could grab the code for their own Symphony Office suite, under the much more permissive Apache License, without then having to contribute back to the community. The LibreOffice Folks forked OOo to maintain the code under the GPL.
SUN Microsystems, despite hiccups along the way and community suspicion of the big corporate, was generally a good citizen of the Open Source Software community. Oracle on the other hand were arguably even worse than Microsoft and giving them any credit for the development of OpenOffice frankly grinds my gears and shows that your research was minimal if almost nonexistent and doesn't do your credibility any favours.
People used to tell me my head was in the clouds. Maybe that was prophetic. Like you did, I use all three as well. I used Libre back in the 90s and Open Office. Nice and simple. Thanks for the encouragement Rob.
MS Word only took off because it was WYSIWYG, whereas Word Perfect was not. Word Perfect, however, had FAR more features and was FAR more robust than Word. It was the default word processor that all legal firms used. But, people liked the idea of WYSIWYG in their word processor, as buggy as it was at the time. It took literally many years and many iterations before Word even started to approach reliability.
I still have my Ami Pro install discs 💜
Still have some law firm clients using Word Perfect!
I hated WordPerfect.
Granted, that puts Office miles ahead of Windows, where they fight tooth and nail not to even get started to approach reliability. 😋
WordPerfect has always been reliable. I was a professional WordPerfect user at a law firm. I am an expert in WordPerfect and Word. The windows version was fine from 5.1 on. I still only use WordPerfect on my home computer. There were always things that Bill Gates thought his users shouldn't be able to do, such as fractional font sizes. When I was working and needed to duplicate government forms so we could fill them in on the computer, only WordPerfect was up to the job. WordPerfect could do a 6.7 point font while Word was limited to just half sizes.
We've used a 2003 version of MS Office since we purchased it new - we don't have any reason to upload to the cloud, use it rarely (retired and not much call for composing documents any more) and I'm quite capable of doing my own grammar checks and editing.
2003???
LibreOffice Draw doubles as an excellent PDF editor, great for making quick changes where I don't have the original document or was exported from Adobe Illustrator, has Mac fonts, etc. It can edit most PDF files as if they were originally created in Draw, including its vector graphics.
I'm a developer in the Microsoft ecosystem and recently was shown by Microsoft their AI integration into Microsoft 365. There are some interesting features that might be quite useful but you definitely get the feeling that they are currently pushing a solution without a problem
Like they always did/do.... Working with Office/VB/VBA for over 25 years now and every year they come up with something 'better' - that takes new training, new licenses and then suddenly isn't compatible/supported any longer... They keep fixing what ain't broken, yet you still keep apps that crash...
I want NOTHING to do with Microsoft AI - that is the reason I switched all of my computers to Linux instead of "upgrading" to Windows 11. I don't trust Microsoft, and they are only getting less and less trustworthy.
Can't say it better.
@@user-hv9sg5pl8b what do you run now ? I'm considering the switch to debian.
Youre new to the industry.
MS has always pushed a solution without a problem you clown.
I self host Nextcloud and leverage the integrated office platform. Love it. I know what it is under the hood.
We thank Goodness......for Mr. Braxman......and other people around the world like him
for awakening people......not to ever lose our Natural ways of humanity.....meaning our freedom to choose.....and protection of that very nature
Because.....we are under a relentless attack......by the "elements" of pure.....crap trap and a handful of psychopaths
Those are just words. What changes have you made in the way you use computing devices because of the instructions that Rob has given you?
I love plain text editors for any writing, writing in Markdown then converting to any other format if needed. Currently use mix of Sublime Text and / or iA Writer. Super lightweight and no need for any cloud services.
Thank you so much! I got Libre Office right away! Enjoying the ease of use of the program already!
You can do pretty much anything you want to do on LO or Softmaker Office (Freeoffice with a price tag).
So the one thing that none of these alternates provides is a backup strategy that replicates the cloud solutions of O365 and GDocs. Some people will say self-hosted next cloud, but that's not easy to set up. Google and MS make it easy and that's what we need on the Open-source side.
Companies that provide email services should also begin offering NextCloud or OwnCloud services as well.
These cloud services offer much better multi user collabration than using old network shares or worse sending them by email
I have been using libreoffice for about 8 years. I don't create many documents ,but the word processor does everything I need. Calc is great and does everything I need. I usw draw to do basic .pdf stuff all the time .
Thank you for posting this helpful video. And Happy New Year!
It's about time somebody noticed this. The Remote Server, as it is known by it's real name, has been known to be a security risk from the beginning. Today we have the Gore DMCA to thank for this lack of security. The remote server was renamed to give it a harmless, adolescent image.
Or infantile ... ooo fluffy white clouds !😄
In MS 365 you can turn off cloud (except for outlook/hotmail emails) eg: "Connected Experiences". Open an Office App, go to Account, Account Privacy, Manage Settings, scroll down to "All connected experiences"and tick to turn off. Now no save to Onedrive is available, you can also uninstall OneDrive on a Windows PC but still use OneDrive as an encrypted 1TB storage space for 3rd party apps so MS can't read anything, some of these third party apps also have version history, delta sync and data de-duplication. Sounds secure and private to me while using MS 365, maybe I'm missing something.
Same here, I'm a longtime LibreOffice user who started back with OpenOffice over 20 years ago as an alternative to the overly expensive MS Office. My main use of OpenOffice and LibreOffice was in publishing scientific papers and producing technical documents. It wasn't quite as polished as MS Office with my favorite equation editor, but it got the job done adequately.
In the olden days, I had to fight to even get MS documents accepted. The standard back then was a cumbersome markup editor called LaTex and there was quite a bit of academic snobbery in the physics community to turn their noses up at anything that made scientific publishing more easily accessible to the average person.
I’m so thankful that we can now read scientific papers.
Snobbery was only one of the reasons they didn’t want ‘others’ to see 👁
@@nickieglazer7065 Reading a scientific paper requires more than just a particular software package or word processor, sorry but you'll have to acquire some subject expertise.
What are some of the other reasons?
@@videomaniac108 I read published scientific research papers before and after peer review.
Call me ‘old fashioned’ by all means and apologies if I misunderstood.
In order to read the scientist’s words;
I need my eyes and the software package & word processor that is my brain.
We are even closer to Neuralink than I had anticipated.
I want to take LaTeX anyday over other documents for scientific part. But, I totally get your frustration about the syntax and the difficulty to actually write the stuff. You needed to get classes to learn how to get even simple paper form out of it at start.
But, once you learn it, it became far nicer.
If one would have a dedicated keyboard with Function keys for the common parts, that you can just get it started (if not using a template) then it is not so bad for creating the few page white papers and technical documentation.
Same is with the ODF/OOXML, just create the templates that you want every student etc to use, and actually enforce that for acceptance.
It is not difficult once you have good templates to hand over and people can just WYSIWYG to fill the data as they would fill a form.
Same is still with LibreOffice Writer and MS Office Word. The GUI is not just great by default. Way too complicated and way too much stuff that isn't required, and functions order is against the purpose.
As in normal writing, people should first just enter the data (their text) and then add the additional data (images, pictures, logos etc) and only then start to take care of the formatting and all. It just so heavily made that people start to focus first to these small things, like font and where the image is and so on.
That is why I write mostly on just text editor, on terminal. And when I create the nice PDF's, I just copy data from files to the publishing application and I do the formatting there. There I can focus purely for the visual look, not at all to content anymore.
I just so wish that we could get away from HTML emails and as well webforums, as I welcome any day back the times of text-only emails (with attachments), newsgroups and IRC. Heck, even the basic wall and write for Unix terminal use are amazing tools to discuss quickly something to someone else on the network.
I originally used Lotus word pro way back when. Then to MS because I needed it for work. Then made the switch to Open Office. A few years ago I finally changed over to LibreOffice. That I can use it across a number of different platforms is a major plus for me.
Thanks for the info and warnings. More power to you.
I stopped using Windoze years ago. I now use Linux as an OS. In turn I even downloaded Libre Office onto my work computer. Works fine. Nobody wants to read my documents, but I get it. Great video, thanks. 👍❤️
Which linux? I just bought a new laptop, still in the box. Its windows but I want to switch to Linux day 1.
@@goathead3329Ubuntu, Mint, or what I use is Zorin. I tried Garuda Linux recently but switched back to Zorin rather quickly. It broke a lot of things in my case and for me Zorin OS just works. For someone just coming from Windows, I think Zorin OS or Linux Mint are about the easiest options for you.
@@goathead3329 Mint is what I use.
@@goathead3329 I always recommend Mint or Ubuntu, in that order, to new Linux users - they are geared to make your initial experience as easy as possible.
I use Linux Mint 20. I started 15 years ago with SUSE Linux. It became a lot easier once Ubuntu was developed.
I just want to point out that you can actually change the LibreOffice settings to automatically save documents as Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents.
Yes, sort of.... If you do any complex formatting or include graphs or images - good luck! LibreOffice just isn't completely compatible with MS office. I do engineering work and have to make reports with extensive graphics and I also publish in journals. If your needs are simple, or you don't have to exchange documents with others who us MS office - then LibreOffice will be OK.
I use Linux as my base OS. I then use a Virtualbox guest to run a copy of MS Windows 10 with Office on my LInux machine to communicate documents with those who use MS office. I recommend this setup because 1. You can backup the Virtualbox Windows system. 2. Linux offers filesystems (ZFS) that is far superior to anything on Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Server in my opinion.
I stuck it out with my trusty Office 2007 up until about a couple years ago before fully transitioning to Linux and LibreOffice.
I originally refused to update from 2007 because they were shilling the stupid "365" SAAS version at the time. Nowadays I don't even know or care what the latest version is, because modern Microsoft is all about data collection, telemetry, ads, and slapping their long-time customers in the face. I really do miss the days when they were all about money. We hated on them back then too, but damn, can we please have the lesser evil back? Late 90's, mid-2000's Microsoft was peak Microsoft.
Thank you ❤the show. I am not good with technology and this is so helpful
Thanks for the tip. I had been wondering about that myself.
Hi Brax,
The reason people say LO looks like office 2003 is because it still uses menus instead of ribbons. You can make it use ribbons though. There a setting for that.
Draw is comparable to Visio and it's well suited to flow charts and those types of diagrams.
The ribbon has become too cluttered in M$ apps. One can tweak the ribbon -- but the tweaks are not easily transferred between machines and I believe I have lost customizations in more than one M$ "upgrade." *_Personal Computing_* -- who wants that? I haven't found that M$ does. Resistance is futile -- you will be assimilated.
Agreed. I gave up on MS Office the moment that terrible ribbon interface appeared - I think it came out in Office 2007, wasn't it?
Heck no, not having ribbons is my no. 1 feature of LO. Office lost me in their inevitable attempt to fix what ain't broken in 2007. Eff ribbons. 👎
Use office 2003 or 2007 in Windows 7
@@artsmith1347 OMG so, so confusing. Clutter and mess. I can read, in fact I can also write, which is WHY I need a word processor ... Just give me f'n written menus
I just knew you were going to say LibreOffice. I am an advanced Excel user and would happily use it for everything if I could.
BTW, you CAN use macros in LO, but it takes a bit of time to learn, just like it took time for me to learn the old XL macros, and then the new VBA macros. What I miss about XL is the keyboard shortcuts. LO is CLUNKY. I remember using F5 for navigation, but now it doesn't do anything in LO. Maybe I'm thinking of a predecessor to XL. I started out in Syncalc on my 8-bit Atari, then used Q&A in Win3.11. WordPerfect was fun, but I never liked Word, so I created my documents in XL.
I'm glad you made this video. I've been using libre office for 30 + years.
I agree. The only problem is there is no app that can even remotely come close to Excels capabilities. So, if you are like most people and just create basic spreadsheets you are good. But if you truly use excels features, you have no choice.
Surely there's a way to pirate old Excel versions. If you collaborate with others however, your SOL.
@@wio2189 This is good but old versions eventually quite working on new OS versions so there is an eventual limit to the OS as well.
You can create any function you want in LO and Google office replicates much of Excel.
@@rrmackay If functions are all you need thats great but they are also a tiny part of the functionality. The fact is, there is so much in excel that people don't bother to learn and other spreadsheets don't have that excel functionality is just not matched by anything.
I have used instructions directly out of an MS365 manual in OnlyOffice and everything works 1:1 or extremely close to 1:1 as far as I can tell, including spreadsheets. I recommend OnlyOffice as much as I can to everyone I can now, as it is the only office suite that is fully 1:1 with Microsoft Office, and can read/export to MS Office formats with no format conversion issues, at least in my experience.
I LOVED Lotus 123😢
You can use M365 to replace an on-prem server. User authorization, file sharing, and computer management are possible if you have the Business Premium version of M365. It would be interesting if you would do a video on M365 replacement. One that can do all of the above listed. Would be nice to have MFA also.
I started using Open/Libre Office 25 years ago when I was asked to write a tech guide. At the time Word was buggy and hard to use. I switched to Open office which was more stable and easier to use.
Good work with the video Rob. More people need to be aware of alternatives to Microsoft. I've been using Libre Office on Linux Mint for years, as well as my Windows machine. Leave MS behind where you can.
If it all goes to the cloud zuck it. I'm bringing my typewriter out of the closet.
Hi Rob, the only thing I know that's a comparable to libre office draw is Microsoft office Visio... It's not located on the standard Microsoft office so you have to pay separately to get this piece of software.
I used Staroffice back in the early 2000s since I was working a lot with Sun Microsystems/Solaris. I really love Libre Office now as well, as it is as close as it gets to Microsoft Office.
Excellent content Rob. Thx for sharing your knowledge. 💯
Unfortunately there is no good app to manage contacts in Linux. Outlook is 10x better than Evolution or Thunderbird. My solution is to run Microsoft Office inside a Virtual Machine (VirtualBox) on my Li ux workstation. The virtual machine has no Internet access. I use the clipboard and a shared folder for sharing documents. Since the VM is reset every time it restarts, it is immune to viruses!
What happened to the saying "If you don't have to pay for the product, you are the product?"
Always true
Now, people also pay to be the product.
I've been a LibreOffice user and Open Office before that. The thing I love about Libre is that it doesn't force me into an unwanted template as Microsloth word does. I hate having to try to undo formatting before I can do my own writing.
This is good stuff. Our lives are now all about escaping big tech, without giving up our tech.
Gosh. If you're concerned about document security just don't save stuff in the cloud. Store it locally, right, with encryption and passwords. The files are all you care about, not the program doing the lifting. I've tried the alternatives you mentioned over the years - for whatever reason I just didn't like them. Just IMO of course.
The heaviest desktop version of Linux, Ubuntu has an average memory usage profile of somewhere between 2-4GB - assuming you've got a browser with a few tabs open and LibreOffice doing some "heavy lifting" with some big documents.
Windows 10 and 11 have a requirement for a minimum of 8GB RAM before you take anything else into account.
Windows Defender, Microsoft's built in anti-malware package, used to have a very poor reputation until the dawn of around Windows 8 when it suddenly improved in quality dramatically - mainly down to the fact that a lot of it resides in memory constantly scanning the contents of your PC (sorry, the PC that you paid for that Microsoft leases back to you once Windows is on it) and reporting back to Microsoft in real time of anything suspicious that it finds and comparing it to what is on the PCs of other users. Hence the memory usage profile of Windows is much higher.
So, in simple terms, if you seriously believe that storing your documents on your own PC is more secure than in the Cloud when you run Windows, you are very much mistaken - Microsoft still knows everything about you and what is on your PC at all times.
That's the confusing part about this video. I don't think Google or Microsoft wants to know what foods I eat or what document contains certain keywords that is already being typed on Google or Bing.
@@UrfriderPoro You're entitled to think what you like. Once I have given you information that I know is to the best of my ability and knowledge, then my job as a "good Internet citizen" is done and I can sleep soundly at night - whether you choose to take that advice on board or ignore it, that's up to you.
@@terrydaktyllus1320 I'm still going to use alternatives like Libre Office. But it's like monkey typed, any private information like my personal documents I wouldn't want on the cloud or backed up where hackers can steal it.
Giving big tech data on mainstream information isn't going hurt anyone.
MS Visio would be the equivalent of Draw. I used Visio extensively when I was working. We used it for creating drawings and reports with great detail.
I miss Visio Technical more than anything else. There isn't another program that rivals it. (...that I'm aware of)
You are the man. One of the most honest and upfront people on the Internet. Thank you my friend for revealing this company and its benefits and its stability. And especially for the product.
I have never, in all the years I've used Linux, had the computer crash. Libre Office is more than enough for my wordprocessing needs.
I've known about StarOffice since 1999, and I occasionally still use it. And for the past decade or so, I've switched back and forth between Open Office and Libre Office.
Its great, ms also listens on teams , I got video proposals based on internal company discussions. Basically the sell
I use Libre. I'm glad you "endorse" my using it. 👍
Office constantly tries to suggest I store everything in the cloud -- which I never do. You'd have to be a fool to store anything of value in the cloud for a range of reasons.
Sorry to hear MS is moving their flagship products to the cloud. I use a lot of the advanced features, even for personal nerd projects. My grocery list has VBA macros. I would think MS would keep a non-cloud version available for users like me who don't need AI. Or for that matter, anybody who uses a laptop and may not always have internet access. The pre-cloud office suite is a proven, mature product and it is a shame to destroy all that value by shutting it down. Eventually I'll have to leave MS and find a replacement, so thanks for this great video.
IF your grocery list was checked by AI, that's asking for trouble.... 2 years ago you bought the wrong food, you are overweight, you will go 6 months to a food camp. don't share your private stuff ( google does not respect your privacy)
I am using apple notes for grocery shopping
Could you please tell me which app you suggest?
@@ThePeterasd Apparently not. I've posted twice and both times the reply has vanished.
I don't need any AI
I still have access to my documents when not connected even though they are in the cloud. Its a setting where you can set a folder to be always available locally and the cloud keeps a copy.
Rob, I forgot the name but I can tell with 100% certainty that MS Office had a similar tool like Draw for a long time, I know this because I used it 5-10 years ago, I used it to make some data-diagrams. It is not in the basic version of MS Office but it is in the extended version of MS Office, the program was in the submenu of MS Office.
I believe it was Visio...
As a regular viewer of the 'Explaining Computers' CZcams channel, I opted to use LibreOffice long ago.
I use Libre Office in both Linux (personal) and Windows (work). For work it is primarily Writer and Impress. Have not had any issues opening .docx files and power point slides. But I don’t do anything very advanced.
Libre Office Calc works great for me in Linux Mint for all my personal needs.
The insane bit is that only the EU has some kind of personal data privacy laws (GDPR).
So, outside of the EU it is not only legal for companies to collect and read your data, but they are completely free to correlate it and sell it to marketing companies or even to any and all who are willing to pay for it.
What are our legislators waiting for???
Until then, whenever possible it is best to buy essential data services and software from the EU or even better Switzerland.
Whoever gives me the best security and privacy gets my money. 😊
They want your data.
Data is the new gold.
I live in the EU.
Data Protection only protects the corporations Not the individual.
The Bank, Hospital, Police st, Social security, Lawyers, Court etc. are allowed to record you when you walk in but you are not permitted to record them.
Perfect grounds for corruption.
LAW is not legislation.
I know my rights & I exercise my rights by not complying with Unlawful legislation.
Your Freedom is your responsibility.
The EU did allow to law to happen that makes possible for companies like Google and Microsoft to transfer data to USA, even when it was suppose to be so that the data can't be used or moved at all outside EU that is from EU citizens.
The whole thing is just such a nest of loopholes that makes it hateful to even think about.
I've used LibreOffice for a number of years (since before Apache Office), but for the most part, I only use Draw. It's great for quick vector-based graphics. (When I need real power, I use Inkscape.) For Word and Excel alternatives, I find WPS Office to be superior and less crash-prone than Libre Office.
I have MS Office 2010 on one PC. And that's enough for me.
Is WPS office secure? Are read that it's created by chinese company. since we're on the topic of privacy and security do you think it's safe to use . And what cloud service is actually secure nowadays and not reading your material?
@@ronbarton7799 Probably not... even after you close it, it stays running in the background (I use MATE System Monitor to force close it). BUT it is the ONLY true MS Office CLone. nothing comes close. However if you do not need MS Office Compatibility to be perfect (Most people dont as you are creating stuff from scratch) I advise SoftMaker FreeOffice 2018 or the paid version or SoftMaker Office 2024 (2018 does not allow sound or video in Powerpoint Presentations but WPS does).
@@ronbarton7799This.
What do you use for grammar checking?
@@blackjam2683 Softmaker Office and WPS Office both have them built in I think.
Hi Rob, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
So in regard to the draw module in MS PowerPoint... It's improved hugely over the years, to the point I can do some fair illustration using it, but of course it's NOT a real art program (my personal favorite is Canvas GFX Pro - an engineering draw program of considerable capacity that I use for technical illustration and cartooning mainly of the vector oriented sort, although some bit map art - like the paint programs and photo adjustment is also possible)... but the powerpoint draw module packs a bit more punch than it did in the past.
I do have an older copy of Apache Open Office on an old Macintosh and it's draw program is reasonably useful as long as you don't go off the edge - as I commonly do.
Hi Rob,
The primary reason I use Office is for Outlook. I need the ability to easily add domain-based email addresses/inboxes. I still yet to find an option that does this (free or paid).
Libre office is a bit naff. Softmaker office is great.
Just great information. Thank you.
LOVE Libre! I'm on a vendetta against the cloud nonsense, monthly subs, etc.
Unless things have changed recently, my biggest problem with Libre has been a lack of mobile support. Otherwise, it's good stuff.
Try google docs, meow.
Nobody does serious computing on a touchscreen phone or tablet - that's why babies like touchscreens on their Disney tablets in the back of their parents' car on long journeys.
@@terrydaktyllus1320 ah, now I know the one reason why babies like touchscreens. Thank you person who has all the answers to everything!
@@Dave-um7mw No, I don't have the answers to everything - for example, I have no interest in horse riding, so you won't find me hanging around equestrian channels on CZcams.
So stop making silly assumptions and put your "amateur Internet psychologist" books away - because you've never met me, if you passed me in the street you wouldn't know it, and therefore you're hardly qualified to discuss me as a topic.
Now do try to keep up and stay on topic, there's a good chap.
We were talking about computers... in your own time...
@@terrydaktyllus1320 TLDR. Anyway, your "no one does serious computing on a touchscreen phone or tablet" comment led me to believe you were trolling, so I responded in kind. The way-to-long-of-a-response you just wrote on the other hand, leads me to believe that you're serious about thinking people only use word processors or spreadsheets for "serious computing" and nothing else. Is this true?
Add to it that Microsoft now also goes for pushing Bitlocker "for your security" so when you get a corrupt disk they can just come back and say that you should have stored your documents in the cloud.
They locked me out of my computer. They stated that they gave me a Bitlocker recovery key. When I logged into Microsoft they said I never had one. Now I cannot use my computer.
Rob: Great video as usual. One thing I have occasionally marveled at while using MS Office in 365 is how several IT people can simultaneously edit a 60,000 row spreadsheet (each with complex data filters) with no threat of data corruption. I use Libre office for my personal needs because I have trust issues with MS Office and Office cloud stuff. By question is this: Has anyone tested LibreOffice with simultaneous use (multi users editing at the same time)? Thanks. vty Bob in VA.
I love the work you are doing I prefer Linux for actual work as I work in IT and Microsoft loves to charge an arm and a leg for a license, I do not mind paying for a product but some of their prices are insane, thanks so much for the video and keep up the good work!
CSV Import in LibreOffice is _way_ superior to that in Excel. I also use delimited text data files _a lot_ and LibreOffice beats everything else, hands down!
I 've switched to Libre even on Windows work computer. Not for privacy, but because of the MS ribbon interface and them dropping off a lot of hotkeys.
I'm not relearning stuff I already know and not reaching for a mouse when I could do it from keyboard in a previous version
Thanks for the recommendation. Will switch asap.
Please do more on mini pcs. I’m specifically interested in a budget fanless pc that’s low on power drain.
Thanks for sharing.
What about just using MS Office 2000 or 2003? It's not that any useful features were added afterwards. The UI is also more straightforward and looks cleaner than newer Office versions.
Yup. I still use Office 2007. Works just fine.
Many will learn, as i have, that even if you paid full price for earlier RETAIL office licenses - they will no longer activate these. In my mind this is an illegal practice and they need a class action suit so that people who paid good money for software that should otherwise run just fine today. Thats the problem with a too powerful monopoly.
Out of curiosity, how early are we talking about?
Had that issue with office 2016 that was purchased in 2016 and downloaded from their website.
Fast forward to 2023, and no longer can I download the software, and they claim to have no record of my purchase even though I forwarded them the email with the order number... then they hide their phone number, and any phone numbers you find just tell you to go to their website... I wouldn't buy anything from them just because the lack of support if you have a problem.
@@stephencooper3583 ms will no longer activate office professional 2007 or 2010. both of which i tried online method (after the horrible experience of speaking each number until it recognized all numbers - it basically told me too bad were not going to activate this), the phone in method (in which case it also told me they will not activate it), the speaking with a support person in india method (where he said the same thing) and attempging to use a passed around on the internet cscript KMS technology (in this case i feel it only didnt work because that product key had been abused by too many others like myself trying to get product they paid for to function). i did not bother to try activating my earlier 2003 or 2000 products as i need to use the newer 2007 file formats.
Absolutely! I use Microsoft products and services daily to complete my tasks I need to do.
I have used libre office for years, but I just got a new computer and am thinking to just use the installed word that automatically saves to one drive for easy back up. I feel trepidation at the loss of privacy, but relief as well as my old computer did not update my libre office docs to Dropbox consistently.
Let’s be frank: how many documents we deal with every day are really sensitive and should remain private? In my case, a small number. Those documents I store locally with multiple backups. For all the other non-sensitive documents privacy is a lesser issue than convenience.
I've been using Libre office for a year now. My work colleges are non the wiser 🤣🤣
My version of MicroSoft Office is 2007, nice to know that version of software is local to my computer.
I also like Libre but the biggest practical obstacle is having to tell people to remember to save as an Office document or live with the pain of others not being able to open your stuff. If you think it is easy to get people to change and add this extra step you are in a dream world
you can set it as default behaviour.
I still use MS Office 2003. When they went to Office 365 I was amazed that people bought it. I have used Libre office but I am used to the format of MS Office 2001. MY ALL TIME FAVORITE OFFICE SUITE WAS LOTUS 123.
Never thought I'd see that program name again. Seems that I was in the Navy in the early 80's and I had to learn to a use standalone microcomputer in a stand alone desk that ran Lotus 123 and Wordstar 2000.
Mine too!
The you can still use Jwalk chart Tools. JWalk provided the basic chart features Excel NEVER provided, and LOTUS123 provided from the very beginning.
I stopped upgrading after Office 2007. Have had no problems installing as recently as this year onto a new machine. Keep those original CDs!
For my personal matters I use Microsoft Onenote and love the ability to seamlessly synch between my phone, tablet and PC, is there an stand alone equivalent within LO, obviously I will have to forego the cloud synch piece
When I lived and worked in Germany, I used 'Star Office' in the early 90s - in the olden days of DOS.
I have never used Star Office. Used Word, then Word Perfect.
Also used Word Perfect, which I liked. You are right about sending our lives to the cloud - it's madness! I miss the early days before the internet became a 'reality' and we fell for the 'dream'.@@robbraxmantech
Microsoft Outlook equivalent app must be added to this suite to be complete!!!
Love the channel. Yes, MS Office cloud is scary, but in the range of privacy problems out there I think the chances of a person being damaged by a leak of documents from MS is relatively small compared to some of the colossal privacy transgressions going on out there. For example ms office meets HIPA requirements, at least in theory.
I was in military intelligence in the early 80s. Then we could collect about 10x the intelligence than we could physically analyze. Today you can probably collect a lot more intelligence than can be analyzed. The first thing to be analyzed is somebody has to care what you have to say. Very few things that are said in a business or home environment anybody at the government or Microsoft care about.
@@MarkDalbey-cv9sb
You needed actual people to analyze data then though. Now, AI can do it 24 hours a day, generate thorough risk assessment reports and mail them to "the appropriate authorities" in seconds. Soon, Robocop will just come blast you away for pirating movies. Kidding, It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you... sort of kidding about that part. But the AI part, not at all kidding. I'm not aware of AI being used for that, but I'd be very surprised if it isn't being tested!
The reason that you have not heard of artificial intelligence being tested, is there is no such thing. It is a marketing term. What they call artificial intelligence is really machine learning, only machine learning is too hard to explain to the average person. Machine learning is more or less feeding the computer lots of similar situations, sometimes millions. When the computer encounters a similar situation it knows to do this. Artificial intelligence is a computer thinking. Computers can't, and may never be able to think. No, machine learning can't be used to analyze data, only a human can do that. You can very efficiently sift through data with a computer, but in the end a human has to determine what it means. @@Mike_H76
Using Apache OpenOffice for home use right now... been using it in place of MS Office for a couple of years now due to the spying and licensing issues.
Can't wait to get back to Linux. The doc on my desktop is mine, made by me, but belongs to Windows etc in effect. This is complete bullshit. You are so right Rob.
Thank you for your videos. As a family business owner my wife who is the bookkeeper and myself have had real issues with Quick Books new updates . One being the escalating cost and pressure to also give up our privacy online/cloud. We where hijacked for 600 dollars last year after an update on our desktop. After trying to open our old program we used (and all we needed) fixed cost and finding nothing because the old in house program had been exposed to them online. We are now looking for an alternative. Can you help folks like us trying to protect our privacy by doing a video or suggesting another program for our bookkeeping? Thanks so much for your work!
I agree with your premise. The problem is that I have used Microsoft Office all of my adult life. All of my jobs require Microsoft Office. If I want to work, I have to use it.
The truth is the majority of offices use it and require their employees to use it.
I do appreciate this video.
Happy Holidays.
Using for work is no problem but I am not using it on my PC. Companies are tripping in the USA.
If you play your cards right, they will never know you are using WPS Office or SoftMaker Office if you dont need to share those documents.
@@eijentwun5509 He has a point, I dont like it but just claim you know it and use it in a vm if the company pays for a copy you can use. I think it should be illegal for companies to force you to actually buy a Product just to work for them but this is what working in the USA has come too.
The real problem, which he acts like isn't a thing, is that MS Office & 365 is far far better than AlLL other alternatives
@@007alztruli I would not know, I simply do not us it. My issue is not wether its better or worse but the fact that Micrsoft wants subscriptiom money to use it.
I've used Microsoft Office, Libre Office, OpenOffice.
They're all basically the same thing and all basically do the same stuff, yes. Except that some are free and some aren't.
But they're not fully interchangeable. Complex or custom formatting in any of them usually doesn't translate well into the others. If you switch office platforms then you'll always have at least a few documents which just aren't properly readable outside your old software.
The rest of the mainstream mindless world automatically uses Microsoft Office on Microsoft Windows. Without much care for reliability, stability, security, privacy, etc - since of course they'd be examining and comparing alternatives if they did really care about such things.
So the sad reality is that if you want to be fully compatible with the rest of the world then you need at least one machine running all the same stuff that everyone else uses.
WP and Lotus 123; were eclipsed by marketing agreements between business and Microsoft at pennies on the dollar. Lose money until you hook them, then raise price. Now it's mostly rental software, which I hate. Excellent video.
Libre Office has been a wonderful addition to my Opensource software collection. at least a decade of use.
The "equivalent" for Draw is MS Visio, which MS acquired from Visio Corporation in 2000. Visio is a dedicated diagramming product and has some features that are more akin to 2D CAD than Draw, but it is hardly a CAD program. The file format for Visio is proprietary VSD or VSDX, which Draw cannot read or write. Since I am largely a LibreOffice user and haven't used Visio since before MS acquired it I can't say if it is possible to copy/paste elements directly into Word, as is possible between Writer and Draw.
I was thinking the Microsoft equivalent of draw could be Publisher.
Lets face it, The reason most people use Office is for Outlook. Not sure that there is a great solution for email, and integration on our smart phones without it. I dislike Google, and MS Anything, but am stuck with some of their crap.
That situation is not actually bad, because Outlook you can host and run on your own cloud storage. The video is about people who let Microsoft and Google read their documents by uploading them to their own cloud services.
Mozilla Thunderbird is a great open source email app. It has been updated quite a bit over the past year.
Outlook is, and always has been, a single threaded and bloated piece of cr*p.
Great video. Would you make other videos with open source software suggestions?
Anything that can run on windows 11
Apple Pages & Numbers
Both are free and if you want to keep the contents of your documents private you can store them locally or on iCloud with advanced data protection turned on. Native export to pdf and compatible with docx and xlsx. Functionality was limited when i first used them in 2010 but in 2023 theres nothing missing that I use. Theres a powerpoint too but i’ve never used it.
I need something that can actually replace Outlook, including full Exchange and OME support. Until then, I'm with MSO.
I would love to hear your opinion on how much a phone with AI can impact your privacy and security. I ask because the new Pixel phones now have AI built in and I wonder whether at this point older (ie non AI pixels) may be a better communications solution.
My thought is that AI is doing nothing more than screening and taking input from your phone in real-time and uploading it to either private or government centers. Why does the AI portion of the chip need to take up more space than both the graphical and CPU portion allotted to the consumer. Aside from that, nobody asked for AI chip integration. It was just pushed to consumers.
I always hear people saying to get away from windows, use Linux, stop using office, etc. However, THE software for big business is usually MS Office tools. They ARE number one. Now while I agree that using the free options may be a nice idea (especially from a former hacker), however if you work in IT that is not a Linux environment, which most are not, then you need to have skills in all the MS tools including development. The government desktops and intranet run mainly windows. Companies that want government contracts have to use windows. Regardless of the latest iPhone OS, Android, Mac, Linux Distro etc. Windows desktop is not going away anytime soon so even if you prefer Linux, you better know Windows.
Thank you very much for the tip on LibreOffice. I have been using Apache Open Office for a couple of years to get away from 365, but was getting a new machine and wanted to make a switch, just not to 365 for the reasons you mention (Hey, hold my wallet, would you?). Apache was just too buggy for me and, even though I have just started using Libre, I like what I see and it has a better feel and addresses some of the chronic problems Apache has/.