While "regular" users might be afraid of using the command line, it doesn't have to be scary to use. There are plenty of applications out there that started as command-line tools, and there are still a lot of command-line tools out there that are better than their graphical alternatives. If you get to grips with even just using the applications you want to use, the command line can be a freeing experience that gives you a lot of control over what you want to do.

The benefit of the command line is that there's no ambiguity about your intention. A UI can be confusing, or you can click the wrong thing, but that can't happen with a command-line tool. What you type is what you get, and you can dictate a very clear intent when typing commands. Sure, there's more to learn and you might need to remember some things, but you'll quickly find yourself becoming more efficient for certain tasks.

4 YouTube-DL/YouTube-DLP

Download videos from anywhere

Despite the name, this tool isn't just for YouTube. It's a tool that you can use to download videos from many different websites online, and the DLP version supports even more sites than the regular DL version.

For reference, here are some of the websites that work across both tools:

YouTube

Adobe TV

BBC

Vimeo

CNN

HowStuffWorks

and many, many more. This tool alone is fantastic, and it's much better than any of the frankly dodgy alternatives you might find online for downloading videos from sites like YouTube. Honestly, having YouTube in the name is a misnomer at this point, because this tool can download from basically anywhere.

3 Ffmpeg

Universally convert any file

If you want to convert media files to any other format, any graphical tool that you use has a decent chance of simply using ffmpeg under the hood. It's a command-line application that supports basically anything and can even grab footage from live-streaming devices (think cameras, for example) and convert it to another file format.

Honestly, ffmpeg is one of the best tools out there in general for what you get. It's completely free, it's easy to use, and all you need to do is look up the command to convert from one format to another whenever you need to. You don't need to learn anything, and you'll get up to speed on it pretty quickly.

I use ffmpeg all the time for converting files, and it's better than any graphical alternative because of the fact that it does basically every file format imaginable. It's irreplaceable in my arsenal of tools at this point, and I think that anyone who works with media files will have the same experience as I have.

2 Tickrs

Track the stock market in your terminal

If you want a quick and easy way to keep up with the stock market, Tickrs is one of the best command-line options out there. Simply typing "tickrs" will launch the application in your terminal, where you can then type out the name of the ticker you want to track. From there, it'll automatically show you today's statistics, and you can go back up to five years to see stock valuations.

On top of the current value, it'll show you the highest and lowest values that the stock has had during the highlighted time period. You can view the volumes bought or sold, and a good bit more, too. If you like to keep up with the stock market, Tickrs is a quick and easy way to do just that.

1 fzf

Search for files with ease

If you find yourself looking for files on your computer, fzf is the best way to do it. It's a filter application for searching files on your computer, and it runs in your terminal. There's nothing too difficult to understand about it: install it, run it, then type what you want to search for.

fzf uses what's known as a "fuzzy" matching algorithm, meaning that you can type patterns with some characters omitted and it'll still pick up files with similar names, just in case you don't have the exact name right. It's by far the best way to search for files on your computer, and there are some very advanced usages you can get with it if you're comfortable, too.

These are better than graphical alternatives

All of these items on this list are, in my opinion, better than any graphical alternative. They're incredibly powerful tools, and they should at least make you reconsider using the graphical tools that you use to achieve the same thing. What's even better is that you can keep these tools up in the background at all times and they'll use fewer resources than graphical alternatives too. The command line doesn't have to be scary, and hopefully, these applications prove it!