Do you know of any obscure useful websites?
SEO has essentially destroyed search engines, what are some very useful websites that you might not get given by Google?
SEO has essentially destroyed search engines, what are some very useful websites that you might not get given by Google?
This To That tells you what type of adhesive to use to glue different materials together. It's handy for Halloween when suddenly you need to figure out how to attach vinyl to styrofoam or something (hot glue)
Useless in every country except one though. Never heard of these brands
A small instance of USDefaultism, but I appriciate OP's thought.
Seems to be Canadian, not US
I agree it would be better if the site included brands from other countries too, but it can still be used as a starting point. I'm sure you could Google the item and figure out the equivalent where you're from.
https://favicon.io/favicon-converter/ - Convert an image to a favicon file in many formats.
https://ninite.com/ - Easiest way to set up a new Windows PC with the latest common applications without toolbars, prompts, or anything like that. Not necessarily obscure but I like to peddle it.
https://www.printablepaper.net/ - Need a check register? Graph paper? Lined paper? College ruled or wide ruled? Dot paper? Calendars? If it's on paper, chances are you can find it and print it here.
https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ - Need a good bedtime story? This site is best read right before falling asleep.
"bedtime story" 🤣🤣🤣
SCP-7311 🥺
FYI: Ninite has largely been superseded by Chocolatey
Chocolatey isn't really made for the DIYer setting up their computer for a one-off install - for that I always recommend Ninite. Chocolatey is useful for enterprises and advanced DIYers though.
idk, it's just one line to install every program you need and has a LOT more selection.
Ninite has like 20 programs to choose from, whereas Chocolatey has official and community repositories which are enabled by default and contain (as of writing this) 9872 programs. You don't need to be a master hacker to use chocolatey. It's literally one powershell command to install it, and then:
And to update existing programs (something which ninite can't do)
I agree that Ninite might be useful for your 64yr old grandma who only uses Google Chrome and gets the spooks when she sees the command-line, but chocolatey is the go-to tool if you've got any needs more advanced than that.
Another FYI:
winget
is usable if you wish to use a native solution. It has its shortcomings over choco, but usable.MS learn page
Winget is the best thing added to the windows ecosystem in a long time. I just wish it worked out of the box on Server :(
Though isnt chocolatey a paid service? Ninite is free...
Nope, you can use chocolatey completely for free, even if you're an enterprise! In fact, the choco CLI is FOSS.
They do offer a special "business plan", which has special features for IT departments which they could find very handy due to their special needs when handling thousands of software updates at a time. But you as an individual probably have no need for those paid features, so you can use it for free :)
I've used it for free for years
my favourite place to generate nightmares
https://realfavicongenerator.net/
It's very magical in that it creates a favicon for a website for nearly all major platforms and includes the manifests. You literally drag and drop and you got a pro configuration for free.
It's great for developing for mobile apps, web, and PWAs all at once.
I like the last one. Have you read about the penis tree?
What
What tree?
WAIT! Is the SCP wiki the inspiration for Control?
Definitely
Want to know something about published science fiction or fantasy? Forget Goodreads or Wikipedia bibliographies, the ISFDB has ridiculously comprehensive details about every book, author or magazine I've looked up.
https://www.isfdb.org/
Google will give you ISFDB results if you search for an author or title plus "isfdb" but it's not nearly as high in the rankings as it should be.
Awesome!! Hadn't seen this before.
I think this goes on some list I've started of old-style fecking awesome web pages that represent exactly what us old timers are talking about when we say the internet has lost something vital. No frills, community driven, information rich and dense web page producing long lasting value. Just compare this to some recipe page with flocks of ads.
https://port87.com
An email service that uses addresses like yourname-appname@port87.com to organize all your email into a folder for every app/service.
You can also make these addresses screen senders before their email goes through, for something like yourname-friends@port87.com.
You can mark them as public and they’ll be included in a list if someone emails the bare address (yourname@port87.com), so you can share your bare address all over the internet without getting spam.
(Full disclosure: I created and operate this service.)
So, you can do this with gmail already. What's your pitch on why someone should use Port87 instead of Gmail (besides the obvious Google is evil, etc.)?
A lot of services have stopped accepting + addresses as valid, or even stripping them before saving. So at least for a while, - addresses could be more useful
For nerds like us there's a cool article at https://people.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/plus-signs-in-email-addresses.html that covers this in detail.
You can also do it with Protonmail. myname@protonmail.com turns into myname+service@protonmail.com
I think outlook also accepts it.
Personally I just bought a domain and have a catch all that redirects everything to my email.
Was that hard to setup? Do you need to pay for server hosting or anything? That sounds pretty useful.
If all you want is to receive emails and forward them to another email (like Gmail), it's straightforward and free. If you want to send using your domain, you usually have to pay someone or spend a bunch of time learning how to set up a mail server on your own and how to get your mails out of people's spam box. Or you have to find an easy-to-use workaround (I know there is one for Gmail but it's a bit annoying to set up and use)
Here are the steps to setting up a catch-all using Cloudflare:
you can also just buy your own domain and set it up your gmail/whatever as the catchall, then use appname@mydomain.com
Last I saw, Google charges for this. More than this guy's service.
Also, it seems like his service is about automatically having username-category email addresses. Definitely not hard to replicate, but it circumvents the common blocking of plus-signs in email addresses you see nowadays. And while not hard, it's a bit less trivial to catch any old email with a dash in it and "magically" convert it to a category in the main inbox.
Google doesn't even factor into this. Go to your registrar of choice (namecheap, etc), buy a domain, and setup that domain to forward all emails to your email address.
So if you have abraxas@gmail.com and you just bought abraxas.me, in namecheap you can setup *@abraxas.me to go to your gmail account, and then sign up for sites using whatever@abraxas.me you want. There's no + or - involved, use any word you want. Signing up for lemmy.world? lemmyworld@abraxas.me will go right to your gmail (or whatever email you use)
Fair point. That is free. I guess it would boil down to what the mail categorization would look like in this guy's service. I will say I thought it was odd that it isn't just mail middleware with the guy struggling with having to build his IMAP in node.js.
Are you able to differentiate between emails as they come in? E.g., seeing an email was sent to lemmyworld@abraxas.me vs spammynewsletter@abracas.me?
indeed. It comes in as reallyshadywebsite@squidspinachfootball.xyz, so not only can you easily filter/label them, but you can immediately tell who had a security breach and/or sold your email.
It's not Google. I'm sold.
It is trivial to strip +xyz from all of the email addresses in a list.
Same for -xyz...
Buy a domain, set up a catch-all and use servicename@yourdomain. Boom.
If you read the website they have a workaround. Email sent to the bare address will Be denied and receive an automated response.
Where is the pricing?
I don’t have it on the promotional site right now, but here’s the breakdown:
There are upcoming features that I haven’t done the market research and cost analysis for yet to determine pricing, but these are the features that are still in development:
* The reason for charging $1/month to send email is so that spammers won’t use my service to send spam. A spammer is very unlikely to divulge their real payment information.
That sounds reasonable! Though personally, I definitely wouldn't use an e-mail service without IMAP support.
I feel you. Technically, the service is in a public beta test, only because I don’t have all the features complete yet.
I have the IMAP spec printed out in a binder at my desk. I have to write the server myself because of how Port87 works (I can’t just use an off-the-shelf server, like Dovecot). But I’m working hard to get IMAP support out soon! :)
PS: also, once I do write it, the IMAP server will be open source, just like the CardDAV server I’m working on.
This site will show you how to tackle any stain.
This wording always has me imagining beefy American footballers tackling stained carpets.
Sadly, today I was greeted with this message: We have discontinued our stain solution website.
How much does the "textile world" change? How does a method of cleaning fabric become outdated? I have so many questions!
to keep up to date on zoomer slang: Bruh.News
"Study Finds That No One Really Knows What They're Doing" can relate.
Right? Like half the site is nothing but Onion News headlines lol.
Came for the slang, stayed for the music!
DAMNED
If you need a bed or bedding, https://www.sleeplikethedead.com/ collects and distills online reviews from everywhere about it.
If you need earbuds, http://www.scarbir.com/ does similar.
This guy is gold! I've bought a few pairs of cheap headphones after reading his comparisons and reviews, and all have been spot on! He tests on both iPhone and Android, and he explains the differences in sound quality if very approachable and concise ways. When I need headphones again, his site is my no 1 stop.
Also for earbuds, Crinacle
For those in school:
https://www.desmos.com/scientific - badass scientific calculator. Desmos has a mobile app as well.
https://www.madeintext.com/subscript-generator/ - Helpful for typing out shit like: Na₂HPO₄ + H⁺ → NaH₂PO₄ + Na⁺
Also Windows Key + Period will open up a menu with a shit on of emojis and special characters, for things like that → arrow.
^note that it's got tabs on both the top and bottom of the menu
Man, this made me remember that the win+period -window used to have a search bar in it. Loved it. Then suddenly I guess Microsoft thought that it was too convenient because it vanished.
It simply uses the text field you use it in as the search bar, you can just start typing and get results.
Oh wait really! Shit I need to try it out, thanks!
It still -kind of- does, it's just not super intuitive anymore. Open the menu, select the tab, then just start typing your search. The text you type will appear in the text field you were typing in before opening the win+. menu, but as you type it'll filter the emojis and symbols down to the ones that match your input, and then replace your input when you click one.
Really should just have a search bar. -_-
also win+; for emoji!
https://www.desmos.com/calculator is what I use every time I have to plot any graph
just tried it, Windows/Meta + Period also works on KDE Plasma 5. 😀
Free Media Heck Yeah. The largest collection of Free stuff on the Internet
https://fmhy.net
This is amazing. I am in love with this site already. Thanks for sharing!
No problem! So many resources on that site.
Idk how obscure it is but Paul’s Online Math Notes https://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/ are the best math guide I’ve ever had. It got me through an engineering degree
Looks like its down for the moment
Lemmy hug of death
Works for me.
probably just less traffic now with the thread being a bit older
https://it-tools.tech/
Bonus points is you can host yourself with docker. It has a bunch of handy tools for computer related projects.
For Windows, you can use devtoys for an offline version of this https://devtoys.app/
I love this!
This is awesome!
What does it mean to host oneself? Is that like being a guest in your own house?
You can set it up on your computer to run as a local website. You access it by going to your local computer IP address followed by the port it's on.
I set mine to run on port 8084.
192.168.1.10:8084
If I put that into my browser it loads the website directly from the computer I'm hosting it from.
https://www.whatfontis.com/
Figures out what the font is from an uploaded image. I've used it multiple times.
There's also WhatFont add on/browser extension that lets you highlight text on a website and it'll tell you what font it is!
I always use https://whatthefont.com/ although mostly cos the name's funny which makes it easy to remember. Any idea which is better?
seirdy.one has this great index of google alternatives that can be used.
Anna's Archive and z-library are the best way I've found to pirate books
Don't forget about Libgen and all its instances. I heard they pull books from z-lib but I'm not sure how it works anymore.
Anna's archive is a meta indexer, pointing to libgen as the sources.
Mobilism dot org has been my saviour for well over a decade for books
Audiobooks too?
No, but !lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy recommends audioaz.com as a good source of pirated Audiobooks
https://Audiobookbay.nl works pretty well (best public tracker I think) for audiobooks but the absolute best source for audiobooks and ebooks is the private tracker https://myanonamouse.net
http://remove.bg is a website that makes removing backgrounds from photos or artwork a lot easier! I think it uses A.I or something, it's been super helpful for me a couple times.
privacyguides.org has a ton of awesome tips on how to navigate technology these days without becoming a walking data point for everything you have contact with.
The first and foremost thing that comes to mind is the wayback machine. It lets you archive and immortalize any moment in a website's history.
Though I may be cheating a little here because it's actually a toolbar, another obscure, highly useful "website" is the Hypothesis toolbar. It adds a comment section to any webpage merely by existing.
Do the comments come from only other Hypothesis users?
On Hypothesis, only someone else logged into Hypothesis can comment, if that's what you mean. If you notice someone on there with the name ThisInstrumentalBreak, that's me (you may notice me having used it to comment on this thread).
https://live.sympy.org/
It's basically an interactive Python session using a Python interpreter compiled to WebAssembly and which then runs locally on your device via your browser without having to install anything on your end.
It's very cool to check some calculation out very quickly on your phone or tablet.
Or if you want a full local Jupyterlab experience using the same WebAssembly tech: https://jupyterlite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/_static/lab/index.html (based on the JupyterLite project: https://github.com/jupyterlite/jupyterlite)
This is super helpful!
https://wiby.me/
Searches for web pages without JavaScript. The Surprise me! option is fun for finding random ass old sites too
edit: https://mapfight.xyz/
Compare the size of any two landmasses.
Love to take some wiby dives from time to time.
This time I landed on this cute little page for a married couple that posted newsletters and stuff for family and friends. Basically, they made their own Facebook page and bought a domain with their name and everything, been running it since like the mid 2000s it looks like. Even a whole ham radio section the husband put together. I was enjoying it till it became increasingly clear these two are fairly wealthy and I lost interest.
Thanks for that wilby link. Wow, this takes me back. What a joy to read the web like this once again!
I have had a lot of fun with the surprise me option.
Surprise me: http://batheinmymilk.com/
Um.......wtf......
You only get one shot. Do not miss your chance to bathe. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, Dave.
Better email her right away!
Edit: I clicked the link, it's a comedian's Patreon. Alan Wagner, never heard of him.
It wants me to pee standing up for some reason: http://mapsu.org/
Taking a chemistry class? ptable.com is the best Periodic Table site by far, packed with info and ways to visualize the relationships between elements.
Interested in what class doesn't teach you about the elements? Theodore Gray's Wooden Periodic Table Table website has a ton of very high resolution shots of the best samples you'll find, along with detailed backstory on where each one came from or how it was used.
No idea if this is obscure or not, but for creating diagrams I've found draw.io a very useful free website/tool (there's an offline version).
The ability to hide the entire model inside the png is really neat. You can upload the png in a wiki and later on just import it to alter it again.
Excalidraw is my favourite. Make diagrams look like sketches so that people don't take them too seriously.
That looks quite interesting. Draw.io has a sketch option but they always look the same. This one really makes unique shapes every time create an object. Could be quite handy for quick throwaway designs. Thank you for the recommendation.
I'm gonna try this one today, thanks!
When I watch movies or TV shows, I constantly wonder how old an actor or actress is during the filming of it:
MovieAges.com
3d models of the human body, I use this a lot to troubleshoot which muscle I'm having tension/tightness in:
Human.biodigital.com
🙇🙇🙇 thank you for the human.bio link! I'm amazed this is free. What a gift.
ty for the human bio link! that will be great for sculpting
If you have to write Objective-C for some unfortunate reason - http://fuckingblocksyntax.com/
If you have to write Objective-C for some unfortunate reason and your IT infrastructure doesn't like fun - http://goshdarnblocksyntax.com/
There's something wonky about the css on the second site. There's significant horizontal scrolling, but I can't zoom out.
You might be able to find this website on Google, but if you are in the US, this can help you get the freshest produce. I use it all the time. https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/resources/nutrition-education-materials/seasonal-produce-guide
Huh. Apples are always in season.
I did some searching and it turns out some apples survive up to a year in a controlled atmosphere, so they are fresh year round. Pretty nuts.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/11/26/668256349/thanks-to-science-you-can-eat-an-apple-every-day
Yeah that seems a bit strange
Noclip.website isn't all that useful, but insanely cool. Allows you to fly around maps of n64, GameCube and Wii games in 3d, rendered in your browser
Radio Garden - Listen to hundreds of radios around the globe (with a pretty interface to find your favorite radio station). Having lived in several countries, I have a list of radio stations I grew to like, and now I can have easy access to all of them.
With 20k GitHub stars not really obscure I suppose, but maybe someone doesn't know it:
https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/
Works offline and you can chain recipes.
I spend a lot of time trying to figure out obscure undocumented data formats and cyberchef is absolutely incredible for that. Here's a fun little preview of what that looks like
[Fixed link](https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/#recipe=URL_Decode\(\)Regular_expression('User%20defined','sysparm_properties%3D(.*?\)%26',false,false,false,false,false,false,'List%20capture%20groups'\)From_Base64('A-Za-z0-9%2B/%3D',true,false\)Gunzip(\)XML_Beautify('%5C%5Ct'\)Syntax_highlighter('xml'\)&input=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)
You have to escape all the ")" otherwise it ends the link.
I don't know what platform you're on, but from the web frontend my link works as-is. Here's what the escaped version you sent looks like:
If you're using a mobile app, I would suggest that you report the link rendering issue as a bug
You're right. The rendering in my app is broken.
I've been using https://squoosh.app/ a lot recently. Found it in a similar thread
EDIT: It is an image compression site where the images never leave your device. Or so the privacy policy says anyway. It took some tweaking, but i've had some images with an 80%+ size reducrion with almost no perceivable quality loss.
can you edit in a description of what it does? (I mean it's pretty evident when you visit at first glance but just for others convenience)
in the mean time, for anyone reading, it's an image compression site
Done, thanks for the suggestion. I forget things like that sometimes.
thanks :D
I'd also like to highlight TinyPNG. It does compress images pretty well and does batching of up to 20 images of 5 mb each for free.
https://tinypng.com/
And, of course, its counterpart SVG OMG with super fine grain controls.
https://svgomg.net/
Microwave Watt?? Converts cooking instructions to whatever your actual microwave is (mine’s a shitty 700w beast so I have to add about 50% cooking time to most things). http://www.microwavewatt.com/
I use that all the time. I have so many friends who just give it however long it says on the packaging and then complain their microwaves suck.
The only thing that can still throw me off course is when the packaging says: "microwave for about 7-9 minutes depending on your microwave". Bro, what am I supposed to do with this information? I'm ready to go watt for watt, I don't want to keep an eye on my microwave. I just wanna hear the bing and know it's done.
https://thistothat.com/
How to glue things together
brutalist.report The day's headlines delivered to you without bullshit.
If you often post links to music then Songwhip is invaluable. Give it a song and it generates a page with links to many common streaming services.
Here's an example.
It's not obscure, but i love APKpure to download beta versions of whatsapp
Why would you want to use beta versions of WhatsApp? Genuinely curious.
Perhaps to get betta insight? 😜
Here... Have a cookie 🍪
When they add a new feature i consider to be good i download the beta
A lot longer ago Whatsapp wasn't a Facebook property
Check out c/internetisbeautiful
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !internetisbeautiful@lemmy.world
Good bot.
Erowid.org
You can't mention Erowid without mentioning similar organizations like Dancesafe, MAPS and Bluelight. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that I am only here today because of those sites. I am literally where I am today because of my time on Bluelight.
I'm in my 40's. Erowid has been with me since I was a teen. I don't really know about the rest, but ty.
https://www.oglaf.com/
I'm insanely confused.
Maybe they started on Erowid, took some stuff, and ended up there?
Maybe. Fair.
https://flagid.org/
This site lets you identify flags by color, shape, charges etc.
Jesus Christ that's a lot of ads
Does it have a lot of them? I have a blocker so I didn't know.
Opening it through an app with no blocker, yeah it's a lot and very obtrusive too
I use Blokada on my phone. Works out pretty well for me, and they may service more than mobile devices.
Adaway if you dont like the turn they took with blokada 4 or 5, cant remember
somafm.com
A good selection of internet radio stations that has been around for many many years
Good opportunity to specifically recommend radioparadise.com - been supporting them for a very, very long time.
https://curlconverter.com/ converts browser requests to code, huge time saver
The Dev tools in Firefox (and probably other browsers) can do this, too. Not just curl, also fetch and other formats
Yeah I'm copying those requests to curl and then put it inside the website to have a working Python code
https://maki-chan.de/preventclose.htm
If you have a tendency to accidentally X out of your entire browser with all its tabs by an errant flick of the mouse, then this site as one of your tabs (need to click one for Chrome, as it notes) will have a popup asking if you're sure you want to close everything, letting you prevent that.
or you can just hit cntr shift t
Or reopen your browser and have it restore the history. Yes, I know. But this helps you avoid even that minor hassle from happening at all.
I must clarify one thing though for anyone reading this, it sadly doesn't prevent browsers from crashing. Sorry to everyone who has Firefox or Opera as their main.
For all my fellow mechanical engineers out there, Custom Parts is an incredible tool for estimating tooling and production costs for injection molding, die casting, stamping, you name it. For runs all the way from 50 parts to 2 million I've found the estimates there to be consistently within 10% of the quotes we've gotten from suppliers
Edit: Corrected link, that's what I get for going off memory lol
Do you mean https://www.custompartnet.com/ ?
I did indeed haha. Thanks
The only way I see to fix this issue is to use a different search engine which doesn't rely on google or bing. I only know of one which is brave but please let me know if there are any others.
The reason I say this is because it will increase competition and is better for users.
I use Kagi
SearX NG
Ah, you were 9mins faster than me ;-)
SearX installed could be a solution
justtherecipe.com
Extracts recipes from blogspam
https://thestarman.pcministry.com/ This website has very thorough information about BIOS, MBR and other topics from DOS era.
No, do you?