[achikin]

Glad that you have the list of best options for every task, but as you say - it took you several years to figure it out. That would be great to have some sane defaults for most of common everyday tasks without the need of long research and learning, so one can concentrate on what he really cares about(like IDE or image editor) rather than bein stuck choosing a media player that err..plays the media.

[AdmiralAsshat]

With all due respect, when have the stock apps ever been good enough on any OS? I spent 20 years using Windows, and the first thing I did upon getting any new desktop/laptop was immediately go and grab a bunch of apps that I needed. They weren't necessarily the "best" apps, either; my old Windows 7 laptop is still running Winamp as my music player because I've used it since 1998 and it still does what I need it to do.

One's preference for programs is really a matter of personal taste. You can try to make the stock programs "suck less", but I doubt you're ever going to really eliminate the need for third party programs. Distros like KaOS (KDE with all-QT apps) have tried, with limited success. The best thing any distro can do, IMO, is to have an extensive App Center and use a flexible packaging format such that it encourages more apps to support that format.

[HeavyStorm]

Still using Winamp as well.

At work, people get awed all the time - "wow, is that Winamp?" :D

And I keep thinking, what the hell are people using these days?

[SnowingXIV]

Spotify, Google Music, Apple Music, Pandora?

Before I had to worry about space and moving my music around. Now it's on every device. Has all my playlists, all the music I listened to + discover new stuff, friends can send me songs I might like, can even download for offline if I'm worried about not having internet, etc.

It's been a much better solution than playing everything in Winamp which I used forever or iTunes.

[user5994461]

I was about to answer VLC and then I red your answer and realized I'm lagging 10 years behind.

[wuschel]

VLC is one of the best open source programs ever written. I use it on mobile+notebook for video and music (320-encoded files on a 128 GB SD card). Youtube/many other apps are just not OK in quality.