Creating a workflow on a ChromeOS device is the first hurdle in full time adoption.
Over the last few years I’ve moved to using the following software.
This is the software I’ve ended up using in my daily workflow, this might be handy for someone. If its not handy for you, just close the tab and move on. Thats fine…
As with all posts, the spelling and grammar are not perfect, its a post with content, not the lost works of shakespear.
Text Editing
For basic Notepad like text editing I use codepad, its quick and easy, its native to ChromeOS and if i need to create a bash script or a yaml file it will also help with those. Out of the box its actually a fully featured code editor for multiple languages.
When I’m doing some homelab development and using git and other features however I use the Linux .deb version of VSCode in the Linux shell. Its very stable, works well and has plenty of plugins to either visually enhance your code or workflow the code for testing.
Photos
I find over a very packed space Polarr to be the standout and most thought out editor on the platform for my needs. I love not only that its a nattive ChromeOS App but that it works offline as well. There is a good help system and the interface is well designed.
Google LLC
While Polarr is great, i’m also a big Snapseed user on the phone, as both of my ChromeOS devices are touch screen I do have Snapseed around for some quick colour edits and filters. It is a bit fiddly navigating the files menu however the app works well.
Readdle Inc.
This ones a bit strange as this app is available for my Acer Chromebook Spin 713 but not on the HP Chromebook X2. I use the Android app on the Spin, my phone and historically on Apple Macs as well. Its two features which do it for me are the ability to single login to the app and all my mail accounts (4) are already setup and on the Spin it scales properly on a second screen.
On the HP X2 i’ve ended up using the PWA for Outlook and the Gmail apps in the browser.
Note Taking
For the type of notes i was using Keep for i ended up moving to the Bundled notes app on my Android phone and the web browser for. Its a simple note taking app, with everything stored to the cloud. Uses a google login to login to the service.
A specific feature i like about the application other than the way it (as its name suggests) creates groups (Bundled) of notes is the built in Kanban board feature. This makes creating simple shopping lists and todo lists for the week really easy
I covered the application in a previous post here
David Field
I use evernote for filing of bills, documents, papers, anything which comes in paper form gets scanned in and put into Evernot. the webapp works like a dream and cannot fault the new (for me, as i’ve come back to evernote) design works well.
Chat
Chat apps are a difficult one as they are only useful to you if you have people to talk to on them. These are the ones i use the most.
The only people i communicate with on WhatsApp are family, i made a personal choice to keep as far away from Facebook as i could, however the “Family group chat” won’t migrate to signal or telegram so i’m stuck with it. Of all the Whats App web apps i’ve tried this on has been the most stable for me.
I’ve just found discord because of the ChromeOS/Reddit channel and I love to hang out there, help where I can and because of that I added Space which tells me when there is a live Space Launch on Youtube or something cool happening like a space walk. I use it only in the text capacity however am looking to have discord channel for this blog so researching what I can do with it.
I host my own Rocket chat server and again its the web interface in Chrome all the way here. this was a replacement after Slack got bought out by salesforce and I have to say its simple to run, got 2FA and it links really well with JitsiMeet for Video calls when needed on the fly
While most would see this as an SMS app, Google are using it and promoting features in it which put it firmly into the chat realm. However with the release in ChromeOS 89 of the Phone hub i’m not sure how long i’ll have a need for this.
Storage
As a Google One and Google Workspace subscriber the only place i work on documents is within Google Drive. I’ve got plenty of space to do so.
Nextcloud
However I’m also acutely aware Google will at the spin of a hat possibly change all of that. So I also sync all the documents to a self hosted NextCloud server.
I do the sync using CloudHQ as an off site sync once a week to pull all the new Docs from Google and Google Workspace over to the Nextcloud server.
I covered how to do this here.
David Field
Office Suite
While Microsoft does a good job at offering methods for linking to the Office web apps, and Google Docs is what i personally use. the world has it bad for Office365 right now. Only office runs in the Linux shell and is the only Office suite i’ve found outside of Microsoft Office to open all the documents I’d need to.
the Linux app scales well, its very stable and will work with Nextcloud if you have the integrations setup.
File Management
While I use the Chrome Filemanager for many things I recently started having issues with SSH mounts and started using Solid Explorer the Android App.
NeatBytes
This app scales well on the screen, works well on ChromeOS with a mouse or the touchscreen and supports a lot of remote service types out of the box
Connectivity
I’ve tried a lot of Remote access software from TeamViewer to RemotePC.com and what i’ve learned is I acutally only ever need to be able to gain access to 1 desktop on my network and the Chrome Remote Desktop lets me do that. Its quick over public Wifi, it just works and with a few tweaks Copy and paste works..
The main reason for only using 1 desktop is i spend most of the time on servers which run SSH and a VPN/Termius is the way forward for me here. Termius has the same killer feature as spark email in so much as you setup the environment, lock it behind a cloud login and 2FA and Termius can be installed on any device I have Android, Mac, windows Linux and i’m ready to go.
On ChromeOS i run the Linux Deb of this app as it’s more native feeling (somehow) then the Android App.
VPN
The Only VPN I connect to is via home, I don’t run a public facing VPN, when I did I ran ExpressVPN which works well on chrome via the Android app
To connect back home I use TwinGate and while its by the letter of the law not a VPN, it fits into this section for remote access. The “free” account will serve most well and it can be setup natively on most OS or in a Docker/K8s container.
I cover it in a bit more detail here
David Field
I also have WireGuard setup on OpnSense for a Hardware Wifi dongle I have which when it powers up connects stright to my WireGuarl VPN at home wo when i’m in a hotel room or on tethered to my phone, I can be sure the connection is secure.
That being said the Android Wireguard app works faultlessly in ChromeOS.
Final Thoughts.
This is just my world, some will agree, have other suggestions and thats amazing, i’ll always look to see if there is a better alternative for me out there, thats how I got this far with bits of software and hardware.