• bash -> zsh
• Gnome terminal -> Ghostty/Alacritty
• Adwaita -> My custom adwaita build with smaller sizes
• Default UI/Mono Font -> Inter/Meslo
• Default browser -> Zen Browser

There isn't much in a default Gentoo install to replace. In most of the cases where a decision is possible, you make it during the install process. Thus, I have nothing to remove afterwards (but a lot to add!)

I uninstall Firefox and install Brave and Chromium.

Konsole - kitty Firefox - librewolf Bash - fish Juk - mpv

Kinda in the Pop!_OS - NixOS club but Zen Browser here.

I think one of the few default things I've technically replaced on my laptop right now is Libreoffice's powerpoint software with the OpenOffice one because I am too dumb to figure out how to make it so Libreoffice's powerpoint software doesn't immediately default to every character having basically 0 spacing between each other every time I either make a new document or slide. That, and I can almost never find the right number of points to make the text look good no matter the font.

Also, I do have the Librewolf appimage, but I use it a little less than my slightly tweaked default Firefox install.

Otherwise I'm normally fine with defaults, besides installing gridplayer to watch things off my external HD so I can watch and resize my shows in a way I can't with other video players.

Firefox -> Zen Browser

I’ve recently started using https://www.nushell.sh/, and while it’s not bash compatible, which can lead to some annoyances, it’s really excellent for working with terminal data in a clean and useful manner

On Ubuntu, replacing Firefox/Thunderbird snap version with actual deb version.

I use MPV as movie and general media player with my custom config as well as auto-crop and URI copy/paste scripts. It works better than any other media player I tried in the last 10 years. I only use VLC for DVD menus, but it sucks even at that task, because the cursor gets stuck and the menus lag even when playing from SSD folder.

I use Tauon Music Box as music player because of its design, easy playlist/library customizability and Jellyfin integration. I also pay for spotify and use spicetify with custom skins if the songs are available there.

Kröhnkite as real auto-tiling solution with KDE Plasma.

But I'm on Arch btw., so there is not much default software apart from what the KDE meta packages contain.

1. VLC with SMPlayer. I don't understand why they keep shipping VLC as default. It sucks.
2. Kate with KWrite.
3. Nano with Vim in *buntu variants
4. Elisa, Rhythmbox, etc. with Strawberry. Although I mostly just use Spotify nowadays.
5. Calculator with calc.

Everything else works just fine, unless the distro made an insane choice like having XTerm as the default terminal emulator.

Firefox gets switched to Zen Browser (and before that, Floorp).

I also always download Okular for PDFs. It always seems to be better than whatever the default is.

I typically also substitute OnlyOffice for Libra Office.

I remove anything by KDE and find an alternative from the 21st century.

I also install Janus as my text file editor, which is a Windows Notepad clone.

I use gentoo: I only install what I like/want/need...

I replace Spectacle with Flameshot.

Ooh, not a "hot take" answer. I rather like MusikCube. It plays nice with putting my music on my NAS and running it from both my personal machines and my Windows/work machine too. I'm not specifically excited by it as a TUI, but it also works just fine as a basic-'03-iTunes-style-navigation clone. It's super boring in the most usable of ways.

My more "hot take" answer is that I replace the terminal program in Fedora with the boring arsed "Gnome Console" from vanilla Gnome. It does all the stuff I want it to do and nothing more. If I was slightly more different than me I might be upset that it doesn't do enough terminal things but I'm just me. :)

I don’t. I install a distro with sane defaults and get to work.

Found myself replacing the broken file roller flatpak by the file roller from thr APT repo.

The desktop linux feels more and more like windows as time goes on. The things that worked fine for years are being broken in new and innovative ways.