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Best Open Source Tools For Developers πŸ› 

Sarthak Sharma on August 22, 2018

Are you as excited as I am? In my quest to find some of the best apps for you, I myself discovered some absolutely brilliant tools. The best thing ...
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cjbrooks12 profile image
Casey Brooks

I've never really liked using Postman, the UI just seemed so unintuitive and difficult to use. But I've never needed to use it enough (read: been frustrated enough with it) to go find an alternative. But with just one request sent in Insomnia, I already like it better than Postman, thanks for the recommendation!

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biros profile image
Boris Jamot ✊ /

Insomnia looks pretty simple in comparison with Postman.

But Postman isn't just an HTTP requester with JSON pretty-print.
Postman has variables support, environments support, tests support, load tests support, cloud support, swagger support, and many other essential features for the everyday's life of a developer.

How do you integrate Insomnia in your CI ?

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itsasine profile image
ItsASine (Kayla) • Edited

Glad I wasn’t the only one who thought this.

In Postman, I make an OAuth call, which sets the token value to my environment variables, which then are used to auth all my subsequent calls (which were imported from Swagger). That’s a huge part of my manual testing workflow now that I wouldn’t want to lose.

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gschier profile image
Gregory Schier • Edited

You don't lose this with Insomnia. Insomnia supports first-party OAuth authentication. However, if you want to do it manually as you mentioned, you can also use Request Chaining to reference values from other request's responses. support.insomnia.rest/article/43-c...

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gschier profile image
Gregory Schier

Just want to point out that Insomnia also has variables, environments, cloud support (end-to-end encrypted) and even a few other things that Postman doesn't like plugins, GraphQL support, and wider choice authentication methods.

To your point though, Insomnia does not support non-http-client functionality like load testing, testing, or mock endpoints, nor does it plan to support these features in the future (unless through community plugins).

  • Greg (Insomnia developer)
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zemuldo profile image
Danstan Otieno Onyango

Does insomnia support cloud storage/sync of data without premium subscription?

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Rob Sherling

Liked the post because of insomnia. Just discovered it, GraphQL support means never having to say you're sorry

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Panchatcharam

The same goes here. I really liked Insomnia over postman. It even retains the response on the response window forever.

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Liyas Thomas

If you're looking for a much faster, simple postman alternative, you should checkout postwoman.io

  • used by 300k+ developers
  • 20.4k+ GitHub stars
  • 3,000+ daily users

we ❀️ open source: github.com/liyasthomas/postwoman

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Glad could help 😊

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juliankoehn profile image
Julian

Thanks for sharing Insomnia!

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ĐÑ quý An An

Thanks for sharing Insomnia! + 1 =)))

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daviddesloovere profile image
Deef

Might have to give Insomnia another shot. Thanks.

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Andre Vasconcelos

I know right? And I love how you can save frequent requests so that you can have them handy when to test again. Great tool that I just can't live without anymore :)

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Jacob Samuel G. • Edited

I've been using Insomnia for quite some time, since Postman stopped being a Chrome extension. For some reason the native version of Postman worked very slowly on my Windows 10, now I do not miss it. Insomnia supplies the main needs when working with APIs. Something that "I do not like" is that it is updated automatically, but hey, all Electron applications seem to do the same.

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Sean Bolton

Some great suggestions above. I recently discovered iTerm2 which is a big improvement over the default terminal on mac, especially when paired with oh my zsh

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Daniel Lo Nigro

On Windows, Cmder is a good replacement for the default terminal.

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Mandar Vaze

Or, if you are on Windows 10, get "real" terminal via WSL ?

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daniel15 profile image
Daniel Lo Nigro

WSL is a shell, not a terminal/console. You can run WSL inside Cmder :)

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Mandar Vaze

umm... Right.

I am a macOS user (considering moving to Windows+WSL+Ubuntu) So you are probably right (Haven't used Windows in several years)

If and when I move to windows, I'll give Cmder a try. Read good things about it (and how people use it with WSL)

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daniel15 profile image
Daniel Lo Nigro • Edited

Sorry, I should have posted more details in my comment!

A terminal emulator (sometimes referred to as a "terminal" or "console") is the app that gives you the interface to type commands into and see their output. For example, iTerm2 and Terminal are terminal emulators on MacOS.

The shell is the app that processes the commands. For example, bash and zsh are shells.

You run a shell inside a terminal emulator. When you run iTerm2, it runs bash (or whatever) inside it :)

Technically WSL is neither... It's a compatibility layer that allows Linux apps to run on Windows. It converts Linux API calls to native Windows API calls - Basically the opposite of the WINE project (which lets you run Windows apps on Linux). However, WSL comes with Bash, so when people "run WSL", they're running Bash (the shell) in CONHOST.exe (Console Window Host, the default Windows terminal emulator, the same one that CMD.exe uses).

Cmder is a replacement for conhost/cmd.exe. It can run the default Windows shell (cmd.exe) and WSL within it. Similar to how iTerm2 is an improvement over Terminal.app, Cmder is an improvement over conhost, providing features like tabs. You still run all the same shells (just like how you can run bash in either iTerm2 or Terminal), it's just running within a different terminal emulator.

If you do try Windows, try PowerShell in addition to WSL. It has its own unique set of features, and you may like it. PowerShell can run inside Cmder too. I even use PowerShell on Linux now, due to how powerful it is. The key difference with PowerShell is that it treats command output as objects rather than strings, so you very rarely need to parse command line output using grep/sed/cut like you do on Linux. Instead, you simply access properties on objects.

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dallgoot profile image
dallgoot

i 've set up something (i'm not the only one) that really makes me enjoy CLI on Windows 10 :

  • install Debian as WLS
  • install CMDER

Run Debian WLS, install fishshell.

Run CMDER set up a new task with command "debian.exe"

---> Enjoy Fishshell in a Debian env on Windows 10 :)

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Jack Harner πŸš€

I don't think it's open source, but I am a huge fan of LightShot. It takes over the Print Screen key and makes it useful.

Pretty much two clicks and you can have a screenshot of anything

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Tiago de Noronha

Hey, if you're looking for something that takes over the printscreen key, there is an awesome open source app called Katana. If you're looking for a Windows app, i would suggest Screenpresso. ( Yes I know, it isn't open source :) )

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arafel profile image
Paul Walker

I can recommend Greenshot too - open source Windows screen grabber, though that doesn’t really do it justice. Integrated upload to imgur and other places, all that stuff.

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tiagodenoronha profile image
Tiago de Noronha

They already have a mac version aswell! :)

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arafel profile image
Paul Walker

Ah - somehow I'd missed that when downloading the PC version at work. Thanks, I'll go grab it now. :)

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Jack Harner πŸš€

I'm pretty happy with LightShot at the moment, but I'll definitely check those out!

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daniel15 profile image
Daniel Lo Nigro

For Windows, I'd highly recommend ShareX. It's open source!

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Nannooskeeska

Just to add to the discussion: I've been using ShareX for a couple years now and I absolutely love it. It's open source, customizable, doesn't bog down my machine, can automatically upload screenshots and videos to almost any site (even Gfycat!) you can imagine, and so much more. I can't sing its praises enough.

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Ben Sinclair

There are plenty of screenshot tools which are open source, though.

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lepinekong

My best except it doesn't have an option for specifying size

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Jonas StrΓΈmsodd

If you're into CLI-based tools, httpie, and its partners in crime: http-prompt and jq, are worth checking out 😎

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David Wickes

If you like httpie, you should definitely try curl! It's just like httpie, except that it is more flexible (not just for HTTP), and leaves things like syntax highlighting up to you (just pipe the output into your favourite program - like jq for instance!).

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Jonas StrΓΈmsodd

I use httpie if it happens to be installed, like on my development laptop(s), otherwise it's curl all the way πŸ‘πŸ»

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Sarthak Sharma

Thanks a lot, Jonas 😊

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Ben Sinclair

I just tried Mark Text and I don't like it because of the way it autocompletes closing symbols without being smart enough to let you overwrite them.
For instance, if I type [words it adds a ] after the cursor, and if I want to complete the section I have to use the arrow keys to move past its "helpful" insertion. The convention in most text editing software is that if you do helpful stuff like that, then pressing ] will be handled smartly, but in Mark Text, you end up with [words]] instead. I didn't spend enough time to see whether I could switch it off.

On a Mac, MacDown (which is also open source) gives you separate markdown and preview panes and makes a lot more sense to me if I want to see a preview. Usually I don't care about the preview anyway, though - the point of things like Markdown is that you're writing what you mean, not worrying about how it looks to someone who happens to be using exactly the same renderer as you. I think these "rich" Markdown editors are a step backwards.

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

I would say, preferences. 😊

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RΓ©mi Lavedrine

A big thank you for Marktext.
So I get to know mermaid and its flowchart.
And the app I am using to get some notes, Boosnote, supports this.

So it is going to be very useful for me.

I really love that this kind of reading and sharing experiences can lead to great things.

Thank you.

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Glad could help 😊

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Jeff Dickey

Mark Text has Issuesβ„’ on large Retina screens; working in Source Code mode wastes prodigious amounts of screen space.

Alternatives worth consideration:

  • Twig. Just what you need for editing and preview; themes are simply CSS style sheets, and it ships with a lot;
  • MacDown. Install via brew cask install macdown. Featureful and stable under load. Like Twig, also supports side-by-side edit and preview;
  • Markoff. Not an editor, but a great previewer (it's from ThoughtBot, natch) that integrates with your editor.

Several good plugins for Visual Studio Code as well.

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AarΓ³n

I just discovered Mark text. Lots of thanks!!!

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Glad could help 😊

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Amit Merchant

If you're looking for something simple, check Markdownify.

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ama profile image
Adrian Matei • Edited

Hey @Sarthak, nice list. Maybe you should consider adding Codever to your list - it's a bookmarks and snippets manager for developers. It's open-source and free. Maybe you can have a look. I'd love to hear your thoughts...

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Agus Arias

Great list, will check out insomnia!

I would like to add Flycut to this list, it's a great OOS clipboard manager.

github.com/TermiT/Flycut

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Lisa Dziuba

Great list! I would add Cerbos, an open-source tool for handling authorization and permission management. It's a language-agnostic, scalable authorization solution that makes user permissions and authorization simple to implement and manage by writing context-aware access control policies.

It's useful for all the developers who build products and need to think about access controls (who can do what) inside their products.

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stephxolee

I don't know if you already updated this article (it's been a while) but also wanted to add MergeFreeze to your list!

mergefreeze.com

It's free for open source projects. Basically a Github app to block and schedule merging. If you've worked with dev teams, you know code merges can be a bit of a pain on weekends.

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LucaGabi

Hi, are you aware of some tools that can help with code generation in asp net core ? Something that can generate controllers and views and models with relations and in the UI something like PyroCMS or Voyager for PHP ?

Thanks.

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nguyenletan profile image
nguyen

Nice article!

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Thanks

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rpalo profile image
Ryan Palo

I didn't know about Mark Text. That's cool! Have you used Typora? How does it compare?

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Well for starters Mark Text is Open Source πŸ˜€

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

Didn't know either, seems cool!

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kip13 profile image
kip • Edited

Joplin is a good tool to take notes and is OSS

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Juan Ignacio Carrozzo • Edited

Man! Insomnia 😍😍!! i've been using Postman for at least 3 years and, call me lazy, but never actually looked for alternatives, even when i'm always complaining about it!
Thanks for the post!

PS. Im totally in for some JS projects!.. let me know

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Chandu J S

Ill recommend AND.CO for a freelancer. They have many awesome features and its completely free.

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jodyshop profile image
Waleed Barakat

Awesome! Thanks for sharing such great tools! I already know some of it :)

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david_j_eddy profile image
David J Eddy

If a picture is worth a thousand words...how much is a screen cast? Screen casts have saved days of frustration.

I would submit GiT is a great OSS tool for devs as well :)

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Thanks for suggestion 😊

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kr428 profile image
Kristian R.

Interesting, I really liked reading through this article. Being a rather "old" kid on the blog here, I have been using open-source tools for my development works ever since the late 1990s and so far my toolbox looked considerably different and more "old-school". :) Liked seeing Brave on that list - just out of curiosity: Why Brave and not Firefox? ;)

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Mary Krivokhat

Sarthak Sharma, thank you for the great article!)

The company I am working at, in January-February 2020 starts the open-source project for Node.js developers (microservices)!
Warm welcomeπŸ₯³
Spectrum: spectrum.chat/yap?tab=posts (community chat)
GitBook: manual.youngapp.co/community-edition/ (docs)
Twitter: twitter.com/youngapp_pf (News)
GitHub: github.com/youngapp/yap(docs)
(click🌟star to support us and stay connectedπŸ™Œ)

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arafel profile image
Paul Walker

Some good tools to investigate there, thanks. :) I’ve just started building some web stuff (on my own time), for the first time, so I’m looking for useful tools like Insomnia. πŸ‘πŸ»

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hardy613 profile image
Scott Hardy

I want to try vmd, thanks!

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jshamg profile image
jshamg

big thanks for MarkText. Never really looked for a markdown editor but this one is awesome to write content with. luv it.

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darksmile92 profile image
Robin Kretzschmar

I actually contributed to Manta and can confirm that this is very mature and in the meantime there are enough contributors to react fast on errors and enhance it even faster.

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Wow, Must say man a great Application. πŸ‘πŸΌ

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onmyway133 profile image
Khoa Pham

Even I have Paw, I still use Insomnia, powerful and open source. And thanks for mentioning IconGenerator ❀️

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zimski profile image
CHADDA Chakib

Oh man, you save me from this pain when generating icons for the ios.
thx !

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

I know man πŸ˜€

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enriqueedelberto profile image
Edelberto Enrique Reyes

Thanks for sharing. It's really interesting

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Jake Varness

I need to try Brave!

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ashawe profile image
Harsh Saglani

BTW... Screencat is available only for MACOS

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agusnavce profile image
Agustin Navcevich

Great tools! Nice Article

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Tiago Brito

Thanks for sharing mate, definitely will check them out. πŸ˜‰πŸ€™

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Glad you liked it 😊

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Miguel Ruiz

For markdown I use VIsual Studio Code. It has an option to see md results. It's not the best but just works for the sake of not having too many programs for everything.

Postman sucks ++

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Well Said

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philnickel profile image
Phil

Thanks man. Now I will look to Manta.

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Glad you liked it 😊

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goku132 profile image
Michael

That a great list. Will definitely look into using some of these. Thanks for sharing.

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sarthology profile image
Sarthak Sharma

Glad you liked it 😊

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Shubham Arora

I actually liked screreencat and also it is in electron js so.. Just awesome

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anthonydelgado profile image
Anthony Delgado

Nice

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hamzaanis profile image
Hamza Anis

Nice article.

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Jose Ruzafa

I use paw for me it's more complete

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theme_selection profile image
ThemeSelection • Edited

Great list. 🀩 We have also prepared the list of Best Open Source Web Development Tools.

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labib profile image
Asif

And I am in love with brave browser !!

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venom02 profile image
venom02

any linux alternative for icon generator?

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Pak Public News

Hello,
Thanks for that post it relay very helpful for us.
pakpublicnews.com/prime-minister-i...

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newfrontendweekly profile image
Newfrontendweekly

Hi!
Can I reprint the translation into Chinese and share it with Chinese developers?
I will point out the source and author.

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anayooleru profile image
Anayo Samson Oleru

Here is another beautiful productivity tool, contains starters that help developers start new projects quickly and easily without having to worry about the setup.

quicksi-bot.now.sh/

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Melia

Brave is a great browser in this use case. But I also recommend this vpn browser xnxubdvpnbrowserapk.net