A Comprehensive List of Useful Free Stuff Online [Work in Progress]
Rik_Kirtaniya
Member Posts: 1,742
As the title says, the aim of this post is to provide a comprehensive list of useful resources that you can find online for free. These may be information resources or links to free (and obviously legal) software or free digital assets and so on. Before I begin, I would mention a few things about this. No to 3 Ps - no piracy, no porn, no paid stuff (some of the free software linked here might have paid versions, but something that is exclusively paid or something that is free only under a trial version has no place under this list). I will try to provide a brief description for each resource so you can know what you are looking at. Also, if you have suggestions for stuff that I should add to this list (provided it follows the above mentioned criteria) feel free to mention them in the comments and I'll append them to the main list. One more thing that I should mention is that I am in no way affiliated to any of the parties who provide these resources and that all the links provided here are direct links to their respective website homepages.
1. The Internet Archive - https://archive.org/ - It is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. The best place ever to find stuff. It is also home to the Wayback Machine, which shows you the history of over 439 billion web pages on the Internet.
2. Project Gutenberg - https://www.gutenberg.org/ - It is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks, most of which are in the public domain.
3. W3Schools - https://www.w3schools.com/ - If you are looking for information and tutorials about various programming and web development languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, C, C++, C#, Python, Java and so on, all for free, there is no better place to look to.
4. Wikipedia - https://www.wikipedia.org/ - Everyone knows what Wikipedia is. Still, I included it in this list just to pay it my respects.
5. Our World in Data - https://ourworldindata.org/ - An amazing website that provides data on various global issues. It has 3522 charts across 297 topics. All of them are free, with open access and open source.
6. Gapminder - https://gapminder.org/ - Another great site very similar to "Our World in Data", which lets you see how the world has changed over time and how countries differ in aspects like income and life expectancy.
1. Pixabay - https://pixabay.com/ - It provides over 1.7 million free images and royalty free stock photos.
2. Google Fonts - https://fonts.google.com/ - I am generally suspicious of Google products, but they say these fonts are all free and open source.
3. 1001 Fonts - https://www.1001fonts.com/ - Another repository of free fonts, but note that some are free only for personal use while there are others that allow free use for commercial purposes. Remember to check that in the tags beside each font. You can also search by category.
4. flaticon - https://www.flaticon.com/ - It is a database of about 2,909,500 free icons available in PNG, SVG, EPS, PSD and BASE 64 formats.
5. Freesound - https://freesound.org/ - It is a collaborative database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds. Enjoy.
6. ZapSplat - https://www.zapsplat.com/ - Another library of free sounds and royalty free music, but this one has a few restrictions (like you have to credit them and few other stuff), so please check the licensing section of the website.
7. icons8 - https://icons8.com/ - It is a repository of free icons, photos, vectors, music and tools. It also has a premium library for premium stuff, but here in this post , we'll only bother about the free part.
8. VST 4 FREE - http://www.vst4free.com/ - A repository for a large number of free VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plug-ins to be used with a DAW (Digital Audio Workshop).
1. EZGIF - https://ezgif.com/ - It is a free online GIF maker and image editor. Got lots of nifty features in it.
2. HTML Color Codes - https://htmlcolorcodes.com/ - It gives you colors for weird number codes and gives you weird number codes for colors. Web development folks and those who like to use color in their posts will know how to harness its full potential.
3. Compress PNG - https://compresspng.com/ - Does what its name says, for free. It also has links at the bottom of the page that directs you to similar free online tools for PNG-JPG inter-conversion and SVG to PNG conversion. Didn't link them individually here so as to save space.
4. Cool Fonts Online - https://coolfont.org/ - Allows you to write ????? ???? ƚԋιʂ. Also sʇnɟɟ lıʞǝ ʇɥıs. Also has emojis and...
5. The Scale of the Universe 2 - http://htwins.net/scale2/ - An interesting site that lets you compare the sizes of different things and read comments on them. You need to let it run Adobe Flash Player in order to view the site.
6. Google Ngram Viewer - https://books.google.com/ngrams - Lets you see how often words or phrases have appeared in books over time. You can have some fun playing around with it, trying different words. It's also one of the few ways you can do original research without leaving your house!
1. Audacity - https://www.audacityteam.org/ - It is a free, open source, cross-platform audio software, that allows you to record audio and do lots of stuff with it. Probably the best one I've seen.
2. Paint.NET - https://www.getpaint.net/ - Poor man's Photoshop, but still really powerful. The free download link is on the top right of their page (you can also support them by donating or buying it on Microsoft Store).
3. Notepad ++ - https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ - It is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Windows only.
4. Cakewalk by Bandlab - https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk - It is a relaunch of the award winning SONAR Digital Audio Workshop. It is a really powerful and versatile DAW, and most importantly it's free. You just have to install the Bandlab Assistant (also free) and then you are all set to download and use this.
5. LMMS - https://lmms.io/ - It is a free, open source, multiplatform digital audio workstation. Pretty amazing.
6. Blender - https://www.blender.org/ - The website says: "Open source 3D creation. Free to use for any purpose, forever." Nice. It allows you to create 3D models and animate them and do other stuff.
7. VLC Media Player - https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ - It is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
8. Twine - http://twinery.org/ - It is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. Basically you can make interactive text adventure games and choice based stories with this. Have fun!
9. DOSBox - https://www.dosbox.com/ - It's an x86 emulator with DOS. For those who like retro games but can't play them on Windows 10.
10. VirtualBox - https://www.virtualbox.org/ - It is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use, that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.
11. Net Speed Monitor - https://www.softpedia.com/get/Network-Tools/Bandwidth-Tools/NetSpeedMonitor.shtml - (Can't find any conventional "homepage" for this, sorry.) This is a free toolbar which you can add to your Windows taskbar to monitor download and upload speeds, daily and monthly data traffic, as well as the various connections that apps in your PC have made with the internet. It's lightweight, customisable and pretty accurate, but has limited support for vertical toolbars.
12. XMeters - https://entropy6.com/xmeters/ - It is another toolbar that shows all the vital stats of your PC on the taskbar. It is Windows only and free for personal use. The only limitation with the free version is that the minimum refresh rate is limited to 3 seconds, but that isn't too shabby.
13. Free Download Manager - https://www.freedownloadmanager.org/ - Tired of Chrome botching your downloads and also that you can't resume downloads of large files after a restart? This beast catches file downloads from your browser, accelerates them, and makes sure you can pause and resume them later, even after a system restart. You just have to install a corresponding extension of the software for your browser, so that it can catch the downloads. It's amazing, reliable and awesome.
14. GIMP (GNU Image Manipulator) - https://www.gimp.org/ - It is a free, cross-platform, open source image editor for high quality image manipulation, and also allows many customization options and 3rd party plugins.
15. Krita - https://krita.org/ - It is a professional free and open source painting program, which is useful for making concept art, textures, illustrations and comics, and also has limited animation capabilities.
16. DAZ 3D - https://www.daz3d.com/ - It is a 3D art creation studio, for posing and creating scenes, with capability to render animations with post processing options.
17. ImageGlass - https://imageglass.org/ - It is a totally free, lightweight, open source (GNU GPL v3.0), versatile, image viewer, that can open and view a large number of different file formats. Definitely tons better than Windows 10's crappy inbuilt Photo Viewer.
18. Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) - https://obsproject.com/ - It is a free and open source software for live streaming and video recording, and works on Windows, Mac and Linux. It's a very powerful and versatile tool and is a popular choice among streamers and video content creators alike.
19. 7-Zip - https://www.7-zip.org/ - It is a free and open source file archiver with a high compression ratio. Very powerful, very light-weight, and tons better than WinRAR.
That's about as much as I can remember off my head right now. Will add more as and when I remember or find them, or according to your suggestions (provided they meet the criteria mentioned above). Till then, enjoy these!
Information and Media Resources
1. The Internet Archive - https://archive.org/ - It is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. The best place ever to find stuff. It is also home to the Wayback Machine, which shows you the history of over 439 billion web pages on the Internet.
2. Project Gutenberg - https://www.gutenberg.org/ - It is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks, most of which are in the public domain.
3. W3Schools - https://www.w3schools.com/ - If you are looking for information and tutorials about various programming and web development languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, C, C++, C#, Python, Java and so on, all for free, there is no better place to look to.
4. Wikipedia - https://www.wikipedia.org/ - Everyone knows what Wikipedia is. Still, I included it in this list just to pay it my respects.
5. Our World in Data - https://ourworldindata.org/ - An amazing website that provides data on various global issues. It has 3522 charts across 297 topics. All of them are free, with open access and open source.
6. Gapminder - https://gapminder.org/ - Another great site very similar to "Our World in Data", which lets you see how the world has changed over time and how countries differ in aspects like income and life expectancy.
Asset Resources
1. Pixabay - https://pixabay.com/ - It provides over 1.7 million free images and royalty free stock photos.
2. Google Fonts - https://fonts.google.com/ - I am generally suspicious of Google products, but they say these fonts are all free and open source.
3. 1001 Fonts - https://www.1001fonts.com/ - Another repository of free fonts, but note that some are free only for personal use while there are others that allow free use for commercial purposes. Remember to check that in the tags beside each font. You can also search by category.
4. flaticon - https://www.flaticon.com/ - It is a database of about 2,909,500 free icons available in PNG, SVG, EPS, PSD and BASE 64 formats.
5. Freesound - https://freesound.org/ - It is a collaborative database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds. Enjoy.
6. ZapSplat - https://www.zapsplat.com/ - Another library of free sounds and royalty free music, but this one has a few restrictions (like you have to credit them and few other stuff), so please check the licensing section of the website.
7. icons8 - https://icons8.com/ - It is a repository of free icons, photos, vectors, music and tools. It also has a premium library for premium stuff, but here in this post , we'll only bother about the free part.
8. VST 4 FREE - http://www.vst4free.com/ - A repository for a large number of free VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plug-ins to be used with a DAW (Digital Audio Workshop).
Free Online Tools
1. EZGIF - https://ezgif.com/ - It is a free online GIF maker and image editor. Got lots of nifty features in it.
2. HTML Color Codes - https://htmlcolorcodes.com/ - It gives you colors for weird number codes and gives you weird number codes for colors. Web development folks and those who like to use color in their posts will know how to harness its full potential.
3. Compress PNG - https://compresspng.com/ - Does what its name says, for free. It also has links at the bottom of the page that directs you to similar free online tools for PNG-JPG inter-conversion and SVG to PNG conversion. Didn't link them individually here so as to save space.
4. Cool Fonts Online - https://coolfont.org/ - Allows you to write ????? ???? ƚԋιʂ. Also sʇnɟɟ lıʞǝ ʇɥıs. Also has emojis and...
... stuff like this!
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5. The Scale of the Universe 2 - http://htwins.net/scale2/ - An interesting site that lets you compare the sizes of different things and read comments on them. You need to let it run Adobe Flash Player in order to view the site.
6. Google Ngram Viewer - https://books.google.com/ngrams - Lets you see how often words or phrases have appeared in books over time. You can have some fun playing around with it, trying different words. It's also one of the few ways you can do original research without leaving your house!
Free Downloadable Software
1. Audacity - https://www.audacityteam.org/ - It is a free, open source, cross-platform audio software, that allows you to record audio and do lots of stuff with it. Probably the best one I've seen.
2. Paint.NET - https://www.getpaint.net/ - Poor man's Photoshop, but still really powerful. The free download link is on the top right of their page (you can also support them by donating or buying it on Microsoft Store).
3. Notepad ++ - https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ - It is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Windows only.
4. Cakewalk by Bandlab - https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk - It is a relaunch of the award winning SONAR Digital Audio Workshop. It is a really powerful and versatile DAW, and most importantly it's free. You just have to install the Bandlab Assistant (also free) and then you are all set to download and use this.
5. LMMS - https://lmms.io/ - It is a free, open source, multiplatform digital audio workstation. Pretty amazing.
6. Blender - https://www.blender.org/ - The website says: "Open source 3D creation. Free to use for any purpose, forever." Nice. It allows you to create 3D models and animate them and do other stuff.
7. VLC Media Player - https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ - It is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
8. Twine - http://twinery.org/ - It is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. Basically you can make interactive text adventure games and choice based stories with this. Have fun!
9. DOSBox - https://www.dosbox.com/ - It's an x86 emulator with DOS. For those who like retro games but can't play them on Windows 10.
10. VirtualBox - https://www.virtualbox.org/ - It is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use, that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.
11. Net Speed Monitor - https://www.softpedia.com/get/Network-Tools/Bandwidth-Tools/NetSpeedMonitor.shtml - (Can't find any conventional "homepage" for this, sorry.) This is a free toolbar which you can add to your Windows taskbar to monitor download and upload speeds, daily and monthly data traffic, as well as the various connections that apps in your PC have made with the internet. It's lightweight, customisable and pretty accurate, but has limited support for vertical toolbars.
12. XMeters - https://entropy6.com/xmeters/ - It is another toolbar that shows all the vital stats of your PC on the taskbar. It is Windows only and free for personal use. The only limitation with the free version is that the minimum refresh rate is limited to 3 seconds, but that isn't too shabby.
13. Free Download Manager - https://www.freedownloadmanager.org/ - Tired of Chrome botching your downloads and also that you can't resume downloads of large files after a restart? This beast catches file downloads from your browser, accelerates them, and makes sure you can pause and resume them later, even after a system restart. You just have to install a corresponding extension of the software for your browser, so that it can catch the downloads. It's amazing, reliable and awesome.
14. GIMP (GNU Image Manipulator) - https://www.gimp.org/ - It is a free, cross-platform, open source image editor for high quality image manipulation, and also allows many customization options and 3rd party plugins.
15. Krita - https://krita.org/ - It is a professional free and open source painting program, which is useful for making concept art, textures, illustrations and comics, and also has limited animation capabilities.
16. DAZ 3D - https://www.daz3d.com/ - It is a 3D art creation studio, for posing and creating scenes, with capability to render animations with post processing options.
17. ImageGlass - https://imageglass.org/ - It is a totally free, lightweight, open source (GNU GPL v3.0), versatile, image viewer, that can open and view a large number of different file formats. Definitely tons better than Windows 10's crappy inbuilt Photo Viewer.
18. Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) - https://obsproject.com/ - It is a free and open source software for live streaming and video recording, and works on Windows, Mac and Linux. It's a very powerful and versatile tool and is a popular choice among streamers and video content creators alike.
19. 7-Zip - https://www.7-zip.org/ - It is a free and open source file archiver with a high compression ratio. Very powerful, very light-weight, and tons better than WinRAR.
That's about as much as I can remember off my head right now. Will add more as and when I remember or find them, or according to your suggestions (provided they meet the criteria mentioned above). Till then, enjoy these!
Post edited by Rik_Kirtaniya on
9
Comments
It's a free and open-source image editor with a lot of similarities to Photoshop in how it functions.
https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/
3d posing and rendering programs,
DAZ 3-D Incomprehensive program for posing and creating scenes it's free but has buyable assets to it.
https://www.daz3d.com/
Figurosity is also a free posing websites that use 3d models, it doesn't let you change manipulate individual pose like you would and Daz, but it gives you zoom, rotate, 4 different view types( nude, anatomical, clothes, and grey mannequin) and is free with plan options.
https://figurosity.com/
Are we also looking talking about free stock imagea here as well?
I saw the free plan of this one and it says it gives you "access to 8375 poses" and "unlimited access for 3 days". I wanted to ask if the free version after the initial 3 days is decently functional. I mean, does the free plan allow you to work on something effectively, or do they lock out important features that effectively forces you to buy the premium plans? Would like to know your opinion on it.
Oh yes, sure! If it's free (free for personal use is nice, free for commercial use is even better), as well as royalty free, then you can definitely suggest anything that fits the criteria.
I plan to make this list so it can serve as a helpful reference to people looking for free alternatives that also offer decent functionality (and not just a very feature-limited trial version).
Honestly I felt little difference between the free and paid subscription. I bought the 5 dollar figurosity for a while but then stopped and really didn't see much of a big difference. I also cutr ntly dont use it as much now so some things couldve changed.
Our World in Data - https://ourworldindata.org/ - An amazing site that provides data on big global issues.
Gapminder - https://gapminder.org/ - Another great site very similar to Our World in Data, which lets you see how the world has changed over time and how countries differ in aspects like income and life expectancy.
Google Ngram Viewer - https://books.google.com/ngrams - Lets you see how often words or phrases have appeared in books over time. You can have some fun playing around with it, trying different words. It's also one of the few ways you can do original research without leaving your house!
I'm not sure if these sites are everyone's thing, but I really enjoy them!
https://obsproject.com/