The Internet has paved the way for many excellent services, and some of them are offered for free. Below are 10 free services that everyone should know about.
1. Class Central
Did you know that many of the top universities in the world offer a portion of their courses online for free? Harvard, Yale, MIT, and many more.
Class Central makes finding these courses easy. There is no registration required. You simply specify the topics you’re interested in, as well as the universities, and Class Central shows you the results. The interface is very slick and intuitive. There are courses on just about everything; economics, photography, computer science, engineering, etc. I highly recommend you check it out.
2. Documentary Heaven
This website has a huge collection of free documentaries, with new ones being uploaded each day. It’s easy to find something you’re interested in. I personally like to watch the ones listed under “Top 100” – the most popular documentaries, as voted by users.
The site allows users to vote on their favorite documentaries, so finding high quality films is a breeze.
3. Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg has over 53,000 free eBooks! You can read them online or download them for free. No registration required. This service keeps track of books that enter the public domain, which means its collection grows each year. The layout of the website is a little lackluster, but you should be able to figure it out quickly.
Free eBooks, what more could you want?
4. Duolingo
I love Duolingo. Seriously, it’s incredible. Duolingo is a free service that teaches people to speak different languages. I used it in the past to brush up on my Spanish; they offer several languages. Their approach to teaching is what makes it to valuable. They use a combination of typing, listening, and images to maximize your time. I could never learn Spanish in high school, but this service made it fun.
I could track my daily progress and I began to feel invested in it. If you don’t want to spend the money on other expensive systems, then Duolingo is a great alternative.
5. RetailMeNot
The days of cutting out coupons in magazines are over! RetailMeNot makes finding coupons as simple as ever. They have a huge selection – Over 500,000 coupons for 50,000 stores. That’s just impressive.
Everyone likes saving money. I see no downside here.
6. Codeacademy
Many of the top careers in the world involve knowing how to write code. Codeacademy offers high quality tutorials and classes for many languages.
Have you ever wanted to make your own website? How about a mobile app? Codeacademy has raised over $40 million in crowd funding, and has over 16 million registered users.
7. Ted
Ted is a platform that allows highly intelligent people to share their lectures and presentation with the world, all for free. The videos, aptly called “Ted Talks” have been a major success. The average Ted Talk is around 12 minutes; they get right to the point.
They can be motivational and often insightful. Ted talks are my favorite way to kill time.
8. 7cups
This one is genius. 7cups is a website where people can get free therapy and counseling. Sometimes we just need someone to talk to. It’s completely free and anonymous.
If you are feeling overwhelmed and need someone to listen, or if you think you can help someone, then 7cups is a great service to checkout. There have been over 13 million conversations so far.
9. OpenOffice
Are you unable to buy the Microsoft Office software, like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint? You should checkout OpenOffice! It’s a free “version” of Microsoft Office. It is not as powerful, or visually appealing, but it’s likely the best alternative. There's not much to say about the service. Think about a watered down, yet still functionaing, version of Microsoft Office.
10. Freecycle.org
Freecycle is a place where you can find people giving away their stuff for free. You type in your city (or a city near you), and you can find listings for items people want to give away.
I typed in my city and someone was giving away a working treadmill! It’s a great service in my opinion. These items would likely end up in a landfill otherwise. It works best in large cities, but it’s worth checking out. You never know what might pop up.
Honorable Mentions:
https://postimage.io/ - free image upload service
https://pixlr.com/ - free photo editing program
Have you used some of the services on this list? Do you have another free service that you believe should be on this list? Comment below and please considering following for continued content. Thanks for reading!