- JSpell: A free browser-based spelling (and basic English grammar) checker. Also has French, Spanish, Italian and German modes.
- Java Word Counter: Quick and dirty way to get an idea of a word count of a piece; be aware Google Docs and some other online editors may give you a different (usually higher) count than this will. (See also Wordcounter and Count Wordsworth )
- UK Spell Checker: Easy way for US writers to convert a piece to British English conventions
- Readability Score: Gives a rough idea of the education level (expressed in terms of grade) needed to read a given piece.
- Carnegie-Mellon Sentence Diagrammer
- LanguageTool : Preposition & literature metrics tracker, checks grammar and style in multiple languages
- ASCII Code Table
Search Tools
- Archive.org: Searchable out-of-copyright and public domain text, videos and audio files.
- WebCite: Create your own "snapshot" page citation from any URL.
- SciHub : Access academic articles that are usually paywalled.
- Annas Archive: Books and academic papers
- LibGen: Books
- Introduction to Searching Public Records
- Tools for bypassing newspaper paywalls (don't always work): Outline / Bypass Paywalls / 12ft
- Youtube browsing without ads and with added features - Vanced / NewPipe
- List of web archiving services
- Conifer - Free webpage archiving service
- SearchMySite - Engine that only indexes hobbyist/independent sites
- Teclis - Searches only ad-free web pages
- Oldest Search - Shows the oldest available results
- Million Short - Can be set to automatically remove the top 100 to top 1 million results from search
- Wiby - "Web 1.0" search engine meant to reflect the 90s/early 00s search experience and only indexes similarly simple pages
- Old'aVista - Site for searching existing Geocities, Angelfire, Tripod etc. pages still available on the web
- HigherIntellect - Archive of old text files
- Overview of search engines with their own indexes (see also Wikipedia's list of global search engines)
Sources of Royalty-Free Images, Music and Sound
- Pixabay
- Unsplash
- Creative Commons
- Pexels
- Google Advanced Search - filter for Commercial Reuse
- PXHere
- VisualHunt
- GraphicBurger - more design elements than stock photos
- Envato Elements Monthly Free Templates
- Canva
- PicFont - Add text to pictures quickly
- TPDNE
- NARH
- Image Background Remover
- PhotoFunia
Sources of royalty-free music
Free Image and Video Tools
- Audacity - Free sound editor
- OBS - Free software for basic screencasting / video streaming
- List of screencasting software
- Recommendations on open source video editors
- AVIDemux - Simple and free video editor
- Classic Windows Movie Maker (found in Windows Live Essentials 2012, can be installed without the other stuff in the package, great for quick and simple videos and basic trimming/editing)
Contracts and Invoices
Free Publishing Platforms
- About.me - Free basic one-page websites
- Let's Encrypt - Free SSL certificates for websites
- PeerTube - Alternative to YouTube that is peer-hosted and uncensored
Communications
- FaxZero - Send short faxes over the web for free, around $2 for longer faxes via PayPal
- Chromium - Web browser useful when clients have some janky CMS that only works right in Chrome for some reason, but you don't want to install it and have to worry about what kind of spyware Google is planting in the background. Chromium is open source Chrome with the spyware stuff ripped out.
- Waterfox - Alternative anti-spying version of Firefox
- ReactOS - Free open-source Windows emulator
- Oracle PDF Import Extension - Free option for editing PDF files, use with any version of OpenOffice prior to 4.0
- Spreadsheets without MS Office or Excel - Zoho Online Excel Viewer and Google Sheets
- Lumen Privacy Monitor for Android devices
- Acapela Box - text to speech
General Advice & Resources
Tricks for accessing paywalled sites - the classic is to put a "." after the ".com" part of the URL, but a lot of sites are onto this now. Still, if it blocks client side this can still work if you add the ".", refresh the page then quickly hit ESC or the "Stop" button in the browser before it loads in the blocking layer.
Another option is to plug the URL into archive.is, and your local library card can often get you access to these sites if you log into the library website first
Incorporating / Forming an LLC
Issuing A DMCA Takedown
Who Pays Video Game Writers?
Ways to Build Mobile Apps Without Programming
K-Lite Codec Pack - Allows you to play all sorts of video files in Windows
IRS Taxpayer Bill of Rights
Tips for dealing with plagiarism
Social Media
- How To Create Twitter Cards
- TweetDeck - Schedule tweets in advance directly through Twitter, no third party software
- YouTubeDL - Downloads videos from quite a few of the "tube" sites
- UndeleteParent - Recover deleted Reddit comments (see also Removeddit)
- VRedditDownloader - Download Reddit videos
- ThisVid - Download Twitter videos
- UnblockList - See if your Twitter account is on any block lists
Sourcing and Collaboration
Virus Scanning / Protection
VirusTotal - Online scanning
MalwareBytes - Offline scanning
ProtonVPN - Reputable free VPN service (from ProtonMail), will usually slow down your traffic somewhat and can't be used for streaming, but works in a pinch for securing hotel/restaurant wifi etc. connections if you need to do logins on them
Alternative Operating Systems and Tools
WPD Windows Privacy Dashboard: shuts down unwanted Windows updates and telemetry - Optimization tips
Windows 10 Pro Superlite (buyer beware, not screened for malware)
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