Evidence-first research

Five Free Apps With No Telemetry & No Accounts That Do One Thing Well: TetherShot, Folder Forge, Image Fuel, doktor, and Kompakt

**TL;DR:** Five free, mostly open-source, no-telemetry Mac utilities from this week's testing: docktor (dock widgets + hover previews), Kompakt (drag-and-drop image/video compression), TetherShot (live iPhone screen capture over USB/Wi-Fi), FolderForge (rule-based folder icon styling), and ImageFuel (import-free folder browsing with RAW support). Each gets a free alternative below if you want to compare before committing. **Removing Irritation** My app testing time this week was spent on free apps, most of them open source and all privacy-respecting. No accounts needed. No telemetry. I've been looking for original, niche apps that do one thing well. [**docktor**](http://docktorapp.com/) docktor calls itself the dock you deserve. It's free, notarized, requires no account, and comes from a solo dev who regularly responds to users with new features and bug fixes. The app fills the unused side space on either end of the Dock with customizable widgets (music, calendar, weather, system stats) and adds hover previews of a running app's open windows without clicking. If you're a widget person, this gives you a few new options. **Alternative:** [HyperDock](https://bahoom.com/hyperdock/) has done Dock hover previews for years and is worth a look if that's the one feature you actually want, though it doesn't fill unused Dock space with widgets the way docktor does — check current macOS compatibility before buying, since I haven't tested it myself on this release. [**Kompakt**](https://k

@steren Getting normies to use a TWM is going to be a tall order. Even our developers who are computer power users to begin with had to be eased into it with window-snappers like Rectangle on macOS generally.

Warp builds self-improving agents on Claude

Vorssaint is a local-only macOS menu-bar toolkit bundling per-app audio, system monitoring, app and window switching, clipboard history, snippets, file handling, screen capture, display controls, cleaning, and uninstallation. It requires Ap

ple Silicon and macOS 14 Sonoma or newer, with features installed selectively and no account, telemetry, or subscription. https://t.co/xfjl9IJ732

Ask HN: How to break Claude Code addiction?

TL;DR: How can I break my workaholic Claude Code addiction? Hello HN users, I really appreciate you reading this. I can't think of a better audience for this question. If this issue has affected you in any way, I would be really thankful to you if you could leave a comment on this post. MY GOAL: to be able to consistently do an acceptable day's work as a professional software engineer, keeping a reasonably good understanding of the parts of the code that I changed that day, ending the day roughly on time, feeling like I did enough, feeling like I can forget about work until the next workday. MY PROBLEM: I find that as the workday goes on and time runs out, my style of programming gets further from LLM-assisted coding (me designing and writing code, talking to Claude Code only when I get stuck) and closer to pure vibe-coding (where I don't even review the code it writes until a big chunk has built up at which point I'm likely to abandon it, unless it's really useful in which case I'll painstakingly review it and try to understand it and usually have to make a lot of changes to get it how I want it - sometimes I'll still have to abandon it if it's too confusing or large). This leads to me spending hours and hours on vibe-coding sessions on workday evenings, after the workday is over. In the pre-Claude-Code era, working that late (with no external pressure) was much rarer for me. This leaves me feeling drained, frustrated, and with less time to look after myself and live my life

Silkwave Video: paste a YouTube link, get an on-device transcript with speaker labels and free ChatGPT summaries & chat. macOS 26+ only.

Hey everyone! 👋 Introducing **Silkwave Video**, a YouTube transcriber for Mac with speaker identification, AI chat and summaries, and a built-in video player. [https://www.silkwave.ai/silkwave-video](https://www.silkwave.ai/silkwave-video) # The problem I kept downloading YouTube videos with yt-dlp, then importing them into another app to transcribe, summarize, and chat with them. Usually to find the interesting ten minutes of a three-hour video, or pull out one specific thing someone said. Silkwave Video is that whole loop in one place. # Comparison MacWhisper does YouTube transcription, summaries, and chat, but it only pulls the audio. Silkwave Video downloads the video too, so when you do want to watch a section you don't have to go back to the browser. It also gives you ChatGPT summaries and chat for free: you install one Apple Shortcut, and the AI features run inside your existing Apple Intelligence quota. No API key, no subscription. # Features * Paste a YouTube link. Downloads and transcribes automatically. * On-device transcription in 10 languages. Apple's local speech models, fully offline, nothing uploaded. * Speaker identification. Panels and podcasts read like a script, processed locally. * AI chat and summaries. Key topics and takeaways through Apple Intelligence's ChatGPT extension and Apple Shortcuts, no API key needed. * Ask follow-up questions about any video, with history saved per video. * Full-text search across everything you've imported. * Synced playba

[OS]PaperScreen: Give your Mac's display a softer, paper-like feel

Hey Folks, As someone working in tech, I spend most of my days looking at screens - writing code, reviewing designs, debugging problems, reading documentation, and joining meetings. Over time, I noticed that the screen itself became one of the most exhausting parts of my workday. Modern displays are designed to be sharp, bright, and high contrast. While that is great for watching videos or viewing photos, spending 8–10+ hours every day in front of a glowing display can feel harsh, especially during long coding sessions or late-night work. I started looking for a simple solution, something that could make the screen feel more natural and comfortable without changing the colors of everything I see. Most existing solutions focused on blue-light reduction or color temperature changes, but I didn't want to distort the display. I wanted the feeling of looking at a matte paper surface. That idea became \[PaperScreen\]([https://github.com/Bearbobs/PaperScreen](https://github.com/Bearbobs/PaperScreen)). PaperScreen creates a subtle digital layer over your display that mimics the texture and softness of physical paper. Instead of applying a color filter, it uses procedurally generated textures to introduce a gentle grain and reduce perceived contrast. The result is a calmer viewing experience that keeps your original colors intact while reducing the harshness of a perfectly smooth digital display. PaperScreen is a lightweight macOS menu bar utility that transforms your screen into a mo

Show HN: DataZen – a local-first client for cross-database workflows

My company stopped allowing Navicat because of compliance policy. DBeaver worked, but I don't like it. I kept running into two recurring issues. First, production investigations often require several queries across different databases. I would query one table, copy an ID into another query, wait for the result, and repeat the process several times. I started wondering if there was a way to handle this without writing a separate script for every case. What if I had a simple form where I could enter the query parameters I already knew, and then run a sequence of SQL statements? Following that line of thought, I ended up building Workflow. Superset is a great tool, but as a developer who mostly needed to put together a few reports for my boss, deploying and maintaining a full Superset stack felt like overkill. So I ended up building a simple Dashboards feature for saved SQL queries and reports. When Navicat stopped being an option at work, I started looking for an open-source alternative. I also wanted to solve the two recurring problems described above. That eventually led me to build DataZen, a GPLv3-licensed desktop database client built with Tauri v2, Rust, React, and TypeScript. It also includes: - A SQL editor and schema browser - Natural-language SQL using the current schema as context - SQL error diagnosis and EXPLAIN analysis - Charts from query results - MCP server/client support - An extensible database driver API - Schema diff, data sync, and data transfer tools

Ask HN: How to break Claude Code addiction?

TL;DR: How can I break my workaholic Claude Code addiction? Hello HN users, I really appreciate you reading this. I can't think of a better audience for this question. If this issue has affected you in any way, I would be really thankful to you if you could leave a comment on this post. MY GOAL: to be able to consistently do an acceptable day's work as a professional software engineer, keeping a reasonably good understanding of the parts of the code that I changed that day, ending the day roughly on time, feeling like I did enough, feeling like I can forget about work until the next workday. MY PROBLEM: I find that as the workday goes on and time runs out, my style of programming gets further from LLM-assisted coding (me designing and writing code, talking to Claude Code only when I get stuck) and closer to pure vibe-coding (where I don't even review the code it writes until a big chunk has built up at which point I'm likely to abandon it, unless it's really useful in which case I'll painstakingly review it and try to understand it and usually have to make a lot of changes to get it how I want it - sometimes I'll still have to abandon it if it's too confusing or large). This leads to me spending hours and hours on vibe-coding sessions on workday evenings, after the workday is over. In the pre-Claude-Code era, working that late (with no external pressure) was much rarer for me. This leaves me feeling drained, frustrated, and with less time to look after myself and live my life

Silkwave Video: paste a YouTube link, get an on-device transcript with speaker labels and free ChatGPT summaries & chat. macOS 26+ only.

Hey everyone! 👋 Introducing **Silkwave Video**, a YouTube transcriber for Mac with speaker identification, AI chat and summaries, and a built-in video player. [https://www.silkwave.ai/silkwave-video](https://www.silkwave.ai/silkwave-video) # The problem I kept downloading YouTube videos with yt-dlp, then importing them into another app to transcribe, summarize, and chat with them. Usually to find the interesting ten minutes of a three-hour video, or pull out one specific thing someone said. Silkwave Video is that whole loop in one place. # Comparison MacWhisper does YouTube transcription, summaries, and chat, but it only pulls the audio. Silkwave Video downloads the video too, so when you do want to watch a section you don't have to go back to the browser. It also gives you ChatGPT summaries and chat for free: you install one Apple Shortcut, and the AI features run inside your existing Apple Intelligence quota. No API key, no subscription. # Features * Paste a YouTube link. Downloads and transcribes automatically. * On-device transcription in 10 languages. Apple's local speech models, fully offline, nothing uploaded. * Speaker identification. Panels and podcasts read like a script, processed locally. * AI chat and summaries. Key topics and takeaways through Apple Intelligence's ChatGPT extension and Apple Shortcuts, no API key needed. * Ask follow-up questions about any video, with history saved per video. * Full-text search across everything you've imported. * Synced playba

[OS]PaperScreen: Give your Mac's display a softer, paper-like feel

Hey Folks, As someone working in tech, I spend most of my days looking at screens - writing code, reviewing designs, debugging problems, reading documentation, and joining meetings. Over time, I noticed that the screen itself became one of the most exhausting parts of my workday. Modern displays are designed to be sharp, bright, and high contrast. While that is great for watching videos or viewing photos, spending 8–10+ hours every day in front of a glowing display can feel harsh, especially during long coding sessions or late-night work. I started looking for a simple solution, something that could make the screen feel more natural and comfortable without changing the colors of everything I see. Most existing solutions focused on blue-light reduction or color temperature changes, but I didn't want to distort the display. I wanted the feeling of looking at a matte paper surface. That idea became \[PaperScreen\]([https://github.com/Bearbobs/PaperScreen](https://github.com/Bearbobs/PaperScreen)). PaperScreen creates a subtle digital layer over your display that mimics the texture and softness of physical paper. Instead of applying a color filter, it uses procedurally generated textures to introduce a gentle grain and reduce perceived contrast. The result is a calmer viewing experience that keeps your original colors intact while reducing the harshness of a perfectly smooth digital display. PaperScreen is a lightweight macOS menu bar utility that transforms your screen into a mo

Show HN: DataZen – a local-first client for cross-database workflows

My company stopped allowing Navicat because of compliance policy. DBeaver worked, but I don't like it. I kept running into two recurring issues. First, production investigations often require several queries across different databases. I would query one table, copy an ID into another query, wait for the result, and repeat the process several times. I started wondering if there was a way to handle this without writing a separate script for every case. What if I had a simple form where I could enter the query parameters I already knew, and then run a sequence of SQL statements? Following that line of thought, I ended up building Workflow. Superset is a great tool, but as a developer who mostly needed to put together a few reports for my boss, deploying and maintaining a full Superset stack felt like overkill. So I ended up building a simple Dashboards feature for saved SQL queries and reports. When Navicat stopped being an option at work, I started looking for an open-source alternative. I also wanted to solve the two recurring problems described above. That eventually led me to build DataZen, a GPLv3-licensed desktop database client built with Tauri v2, Rust, React, and TypeScript. It also includes: - A SQL editor and schema browser - Natural-language SQL using the current schema as context - SQL error diagnosis and EXPLAIN analysis - Charts from query results - MCP server/client support - An extensible database driver API - Schema diff, data sync, and data transfer tools

Pasly — Make every ⌘V smarter. Everywhere (iOS, macOS)

## Problem Clipboard history is great when you’re working on one Mac. But the moment you switch devices, that history stays behind. You copy something on your Mac, grab your iPhone, and it’s not there. Or you move between two Macs and end up sending yourself a link, note, file, or snippet just to have it on the other device. I wanted Pasly to solve that too. Not just make ⌘V smarter, but make your clipboard follow you. ## Comparison Apple’s Universal Clipboard is great for quickly moving the last thing you copied between nearby devices. But I wanted something closer to having your actual clipboard history with you. Your devices shouldn’t need to be next to each other or even on the same network. As long as they’re connected to the internet, Pasly can keep your clipboard history available across them. And instead of running its own cloud infrastructure, Pasly uses **Apple's CloudKit** to sync your clipboard data between your devices. That became **Pasly Cloud**. ## Pasly Cloud Pasly Cloud syncs your clipboard history across your Macs and iOS devices using **Apple's CloudKit**. Your clipboard data is stored and synced through Apple's iCloud infrastructure rather than on Pasly's own servers. It works over the internet, so your Mac can be at home and your other Mac somewhere else. They don’t need to be nearby or on the same network for your clipboard history to sync. And now, **files are supported too**. Files copied on your Mac can sync through Pasly Cloud alongside the rest of

Saber NZB Downloader

Saber is a macOS Usenet client. I made this app why? Hey we all use SABnzbd for our stack but sometimes I just want an ad hoc download, connect your indexer and search directly in app and download. The previous app I used was Intel and I want silicon only. I didn’t want Rosetta. Connect your providers Cart RSS to collect your downloads automatically. [macOS App Store](https://apps.apple.com/au/app/saber/id6797222259?mt=12) I hope you enjoy

Since Grok didn’t answer here I asked directly in Grok and this was the answer: Top reasons people actually use it 1. Arch power without the weekend of config You get rolling Arch, pacman, AUR-adjacent workflows, LUKS, btrfs — but Hyprland,

bar, launcher, themes, Neovim, terminal, fonts, and keybindings arrive coherent. Reviewers who bounced off raw Hyprland keep saying this is the first time it felt like a daily driver instead of a side project. 2. Keyboard-first, “omakase” desktop Omakase = chef’s choice. Super+Space launcher, Super+Alt+Space system menu, tiling by default, synchronized themes. It does not try to look like Windows or macOS. DHH’s line is that a beautiful system is a motivating one, and productivity follows motivation. 3. First-class AI coding agents (the 2026 hook) Quattro treats agents as OS citizens: Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Grok, Copilot, OpenCode, etc. ship as lazy-loaded launchers (nothing downloads until you run one). That’s why YouTube titles like “If you use AI, switch to Omarchy immediately” exist. It’s aimed at people who live in terminals and agents, not at “Linux for Grandma.” 4. Curated, immediately usable stack Neovim, Chromium, Obsidian, LibreOffice, Docker, OBS, Kdenlive, plus some unapologetically commercial apps (Discord, WhatsApp, Zoom, 1Password). Gaming got a real pass in 3.7 (Steam, RetroArch, Lutris, Heroic, Moonlight). You can be productive the first hour instead of assembling a workstation. 5. One shell instead of seven Wayland d

Researcher Tricked Claude, Codex and Hermes into Running Malware