I’ll start by plugging Harvard’s free courses catalog as well as Udemy
Edit: Gonna add 2 more I remembered-
Blender - I wish I had more time to learn it, but I did start the infamous “Donut Tutorial” once!
Watch Cartoons Online - Lots of good older stuff!
CBC Gem, which is our country’s public news corporation’s streaming service which is a catalog of Canadian television. There’s also CBC Music which is the radio app, and you can even listen to the live streams of the Metropolitan Opera on Saturdays.
Syncthing.
Connect any two devices’ folders together wirelessly, from anywhere.
Don’t have a server? You don’t need one. Every device is an individual node.
Backup? If you do have a server, offload some of your content and keep on rolling, or set scripts to move files by age.
Libraries. Most even rent video games, power tools, audio/video hardware, baking utensils…SO MUCH STUFF. All free.
Even if you don’t go to the actual library the ebook apps are great.
On a whim I googled my city’s library and “tools” and I found a non-profit society that specializes in lending of hand and power tools! This is incredible and I wouldn’t have known about it without this prompt: thank you!
My local library loans dongles! Now if I can just manage to check one out without snickering …
Can you share the name of this non profit society, is it a part of your local public library or it’s own independent thing?.
I need a spanner for like single hex nut and I don’t want to buy one for it to collect dust in my drawer lol
Yeah mine was called the [City Name] Tool Library, and it was a non-profit that was independent of our local library. I imagine that they receive donated tools from contractors and companies around the city.
As an example, I googled a random city name (Calgary) and found one for them as well: https://calgarytoollibrary.org/
There are likely tons of similar organizations throughout Canada (and probably your country as well!)
Thanks I was able to find one in Chicago called The Chicago Tool Library
👍
Our library loans out state parks passes for a month so you can go to parks for free. It also loans out hiking gear, provides immigration resources, and oddly, a ukulele.
Ours lends them out for all the city museums! And my old local library had a seed library, the deal is that you saved seed from whatever you grew and gave some back.
This is amazing, I had no idea.
I have questions
Technically not free, but because so many people think it is it’s a great poster child for proper use of tax dollars and socialist programs. Libraries rock.
I once rented a whole reflector telescope.
That is…fucking crazy awesome.
Adding the library-libby nexus. Most libraries have an eBook collection connected through Libby. I’ve got a Kindle and zero books bought from Amazon. It’s great.
Protip, if you went to any form of formal education (college) then you probably have alumni library account access. My Libby has three library cards logged in. I never wait for a book.
Nope. 15 Euro a year (Freiburg, Germany), which doesn’t automatically renew and it’s a bloody pain.
Yeah, Germany is quite backwards in this aspect.
Free Office Suite which is excellent for personal use. If you are on mobile Collabora Office if you want an Android/iOS version
I’ve been using it for over a decade. Prior to that I used open office but it quickly became clear Openoffice couldn’t match the development of LibreOffice. There is no concrete reason to buy microsoft’s bloated ever changing garbage.
OnlyOffice is even better in several ways.
It’s Russian software so yeah… 🤢
It’s also worse in that they hide the fact it’s made in Russia.
wow thanks! I haven’t been able to use LibreOffice as it is hands down one of the ugliest pieces of software I’ve looked at, and despite retrying for years, I genuinely could not tolerate it. OnlyOffice looks so great!
I hear you. It’a almost as bad as Gimp vs Krita.
How so? I’ve been moving between the two for years.
I find it faster, more stable, and just generally FEELS better than LibreOffice. Which I’m sure is because it isn’t carrying 30 years of Java baggage with it from the Star office/OpenOffice.org days. And ive had better luck with document compatibility in some cases.
The only complaint ive heard about it is just a smaller feature set than LibreOffice. But it does everything I want it to do.
Both are great, though.
Awesome thanks!
Porn
People that pay for porn on the Internet are like people that pay for WinRAR
Holding the entire “product” together?
Perfect comparison 👌
Well, yeah, if you’re lucky enough to find an old magazine in the woods, but that doesn’t count, because it’s not usually free otherwise.
I know you’re trolling but the idea of someone not knowing about free internet porn and paying for it while somehow being on lemmy is so funny to me
You gents have convinced me to click around a bit more. I have my research cut out for me this evening.
How goes the research? I’m genuinely mind blown by this haha
That’s not the only thing that’s gonna blow this evening 🤭
How did you know my plans??
If you can’t find something to get off to for free you’re either incompetent or a degenerate
Where!? Are you peeping on folks?
gestures broadly at the internet
or, you know, isn’t a cis dude and wants some representation that isn’t disgustingly fetishized.
The cats and dogs out in the street are free. You can just bring a friend home. /hj
/hj = hand job?
I’ve like never seen this abbreviation used any other way 🧐
HUEHUEHUE please do NOT give stray cats and dogs handjobs.
But as the other poster said – It means “half joking”
I believe it’s “half joking”.
Your local city college may or may not offer free classes (in San Francisco, you just need to show proof that you live in the city with some legal status).
Some public transportation is free for certain groups (youth and folks experiencing homelessness can get free passes here).
“First X of the month” at the zoo/a museum/whatever — lots of venues have free events.
A jog, bike ride, hike — lots of great stuff outside!
I live in the Philly area. Senior citizens can use SEPTA (buses and commuter trains) for $1 a ride.
I second the biking … but that shit ain’t free. Even used bikes cost some money to buy and maintain, and brand new bicycles are solidly in the “insane” category these days.
Good point — it is “incrementally free,” although I guess if you count tire wear and tear that’s not even true.
Public Transport is always free for everybody.
Hugs
KDE Connect. its an app that lets you share lots of different things between your devices, and it does this over your home network without needing any “cloud”
- send files from one device to another
- share the clipboard. handy for copying text or a link to your phone
- get notifications from your phone on your laptop
- have music playing on your laptop and pause or change the track from your phone
- control your laptop from your phone, move the cursor around, left/right click etc
In California (and Connecticut), you don’t have to pay to use the air pumps at gas stations. You can just go inside and ask them to turn on the air pump, and they legally have to.
Not free as in freedom, but gratis. Also only works for people who are on Discord - FreeStuff Bot will notify you every time a game on one of the popular PC platforms is available for free.
Me
This is a great thread!
Not foss, but PortSwigger Burp Community
I know its a major security tool widely used but it bugs me it’s not open sourced
Bugs me, too. I only use it when I absolutely have to. But it is free.
Got to say Keepass, Open source Password Manager. And Internet Archive, a non-profit library of millions of free texts, movies, software, music, websites, and more 😊
MIT has; https://ocw.mit.edu/
