The Internet is a vast place that truly offers the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are over 1 billion sites on the web. I don’t know about you but that is a number that boggles my mind. That is a lot of information at our fingertips. A challenge with all of this can be finding the best sites when there are so many to choose from. In this post I am offering you the 99 most useful sites on the Internet. I hope that you will find some of them helpful.
COVID-19
- Bing COVID-19 Tracker – A COVID map/tracker. The Bing COVID-19 Tracker gives you data on cases, death count, and recoveries. You can access global, national, and local numbers.
- COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool – Thinking about attending an event where there will be a group of people and want to know the infection risk? With the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool you can submit what the event size will be and this tool will tell you what the risk will be for your area. This tool is from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Activism
- Causes – Causes provides information to help you understand issues, streamlines contacting lawmakers, allows you to sound off about issues that you care about, and lets you create your own causes.
- Change.org – Start campaigns, mobilize supporters, and work with decision makers to drive solutions.
Directions and Geography
- Google Earth – Google Earth is an interactive map that allows you to explore anywhere on Earth.
- Google Maps – Maps, directions, local information, and much more. You also get a variety of views to work with.
- My Maps – Create your own personalized maps powered by Google Maps.
eBooks
- Manybooks – Over 50,000 free eBooks.
- Project Gutenberg – Over 60,000 free eBooks.
- Wikibooks – Over 3,000 open-content textbooks.
Emojis and Symbols that You Can Copy and Paste
- Getemoji.com – A huge list of emojis that you can copy and paste anywhere on the Internet.
- CopyChar – A list of emojis and special characters that you can copy and paste anywhere on the Internet.
Entertainment
- IMDB – IMDb is the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content, designed to help fans explore the world of movies and shows and decide what to watch. Their searchable database includes millions of movies, TV and entertainment programs, and cast and crew members. They also allow you to stream some titles.
- Is My Show Cancelled – Wondering if a show you like has been cancelled? You can find out right here.
- JustWatch – Look up shows and movies, find where you can stream them, and get personal recommendations.
- Radio Garden – Listen to radio stations from all over the world.
- Spotify Web Player – Stream your favorite artists and make playlists.
- YouTube – An endless supply of original content, music, and movies that you can rent or watch for free. YouTube is also a great place to learn almost anything.
Finance
- Credit Karma – Check and monitor your credit score for free. You can see the accounts that are on your credit report and how much you owe. See changes in your score. One great thing is with Credit Karma you can check your credit score as often as you like without it having a negative impact.
Fun and Games
- Can You RUN it – Tell it a game you want to play and this site will let you know if it will run on your computer. I have found that it works with the majority of games that I tried.
- Game Jolt – A massive collection of indie games to play. There are a lot of fun titles here and many are free.
- HowLongToBeat – Want to know how long it will take to play through a game? Find out here.
- MINICLIP – A massive collection of games for you to play.
- PAPERTOYS – Just like the name says, it shows you how to make paper toys.
- The Air Horner – Try it and see what happens.
- Web Sudoku – If you like sudoku then this one is for you. You can even set it at different difficulty levels.
Graphics
- Canva – Easily design an Instagram post, logo, social media cover, YouTube graphics, and much more. Canva is great and allows you to produce professional looking designs.
- Giphy – Find, upload, and create GIFs. Gighy has a huge collection of GIFs to choose from.
- Google Images – I love Google Images. Yes you can find images there, but you can also do so much more. It has a fantastic reverse image search. When searching for images it also provides filters to help you find what you are looking for. I personally love the ability to filter images by usage rights.
- PIXLR – A fantastic and simple to use online image editor.
- removebg – Want to remove the background from a photo? If so, then this site is what you need.
- Screenshot Guru – Easily take high-resolution screen captures of websites and tweets.
- Squoosh – Compress images.
- TinEye – A powerful and easy reverse image search.
Icons
- Iconfinder – Find icons for you to use. They have over 5,000,000 to choose from.
Learn
- Codecademy – Learn how to code. Learn everything from creating websites to making games. There are a vast number of languages that you can learn here and many of the courses are free.
- Duolingo – Learn another language for free.
- Highbrow – Online courses. Each morning, wake up to a new 5-minute lesson delivered to your email inbox. Choose from 300+ topics.
- HowStuffWorks – Learn how things work. This site covers a huge number of topics. Just choose a topic and you will be on your way.
- IFIXIT – iFixit is a wiki-based site that teaches people how to fix almost anything. Anyone can create a repair manual for a device, and anyone can also edit the existing set of manuals to improve them.
- Instructables – Learn how to make anything, one step at a time.
- Khan Academy – A nonprofit with a vast amount of courses.
- Memrise – Another great way to learn languages. They claim they are the fastest way to learn and that they make it fun.
- Snopes – One of my all time favorite websites. Snopes is one of the best fact checking sites I have ever come across.
Productivity
- Create QR Code – Want to create a QR code? You can do it for free and easily right here.
- Diagrams.net – A simple site that lets you make a large variety of diagrams.
- faxZERO – Send faxes for free in the USA and Canada.
- GetHuman – The mission of this website is pretty straight forward. It allows you to get to a human when you need to call a company. Let’s face it, no one likes being stuck going through menu after menu in an automated system when all they want to do is contact a business to get a problem resolved or question answered. At GetHuman all you have to do is enter the name of the company, hit the search button, and follow the instructions.
- Google Docs – This is Google’s cloud based office suite. It is a suite that you can access from any computer. One nice thing about it is that you can download your files in a Microsoft Office file format.
- Google Keep – A great note taking and memo tool. Check it out and have whatever information that you save there available wherever you are.
- Google Translate – Google translate simply translates text (including full documents) from one language to another. I have used it many times.
- Hemingway Editor – This one is pretty interesting and very useful if you like to write. Enter your text in the editor and the Hemingway Editor will give you recommendations on readability and grammar.
- Infogram – This one allows you to make infographics online.
- Dupli Checker – Another good one for writers. This site checks your work for plagiarism.
- Capitalize My Title – This will help you get your title capitalization right. You can set it to APA, Chicago, AP, MLA, NY Times, Wikipedia, and Email.
- Trello – Trello is the easy, free, flexible, and visual way to manage your projects and organize anything.
- Feedly – Feedly is a great way to keep up with the information that you care about. It is a feed reader. With Feedly you can keep up with your favorite blogs and news sites.
Recipes
- Allrecipes – This is a massive database of recipes. Allrecipes has recipes for almost any dish you can think of.
- SuperCook – If you add the ingredients that you have this website will find recipes that you can make with what you have on hand.
Self-Improvement
- 750 Words – This website gets you into the habit of writing everyday. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day.
- Eat This Much – Eat This Much creates personalized meal plans based on your food preferences, budget, and schedule.
- Eventbrite – This is a great site site for finding online events and seminars.
- Lifehacker – The blog that helps you hack your life. They write about a lot of useful content.
- Sleepy Time – This site helps you get the sleep you need by calculating when you should go to bed or get up.
- stickK – The site that helps you achieve your goals through Commitment Contracts.
- Urban Dictionary – Yes, this is a dictionary. But it is much more than any run of the mill dictionary. Urban dictionary will give you the definition of slang words and phrases.
Self-Promotion
- about.me – A place to showcase you. You can promote who you are and what you do in one link.
- Anchor – Start your own podcast.
Tech and Security
- 10 Minute Mail – 10 Minute Mail gives you a throw away email address that expires after 10 minutes. This is great for the times that you want to sign in to a website to access information online but don’t want to share your personal email address.
- AccountKiller – Just like the name says, AccountKiller tells you how to cancel accounts.
- AlternaticeTo – Find alternatives to any app that you search for on the site.
- BugMeNot – Find shared logins. This can be handy to access a website for an article or other information without having to sign up for an account.
- Google Find My Device – This one can be a lifesaver if you are an Android user. If you lose your Android device just head to Google Find My Device and it will help you find it. It gives you options to find your device, have it make noise, lock it, and even erase the information on it.
- GetNotify – With Get Notify you will be informed when a recipient reads an email you sent them.
- My Google Activity – Check and even delete your Google activity. You can also change some privacy settings here.
- ‘;–have i been pwned? – Put in an email address to see if you or someone you care about has been a victim of a data breach.
- Is It Down Right Now – Check to see if a site is down or if there is a problem on your end.
- is.gd – This one allows you to shorten URLs. You can even customize the shortened URL.
- Ninite – Ninite allows you to install or update many programs at once. This can be a real time saver.
- ProtonMail – Secure encrypted email from a reliable provider that is based in a country that respects privacy. It is the email provider that I prefer and personally use.
- Privnote – Sent others notes that self-destruct after being read.
- No More Ransom – The people at No More Ransom will try to help you if you are a victim of ransomware.
- VirusTotal – A free on demand online virus scanner. You have the option to scan files or URLs.
- WeTransfer – Send files up to 2 GB is size to others.
- Wheregoes – Ever notice at some websites how you are sent through multiple redirects? With Wheregoes you can see the full path that those redirects are taking you through.
- YouConvertIt – Free online file conversion.
Travel
- FlightAware – Flight tracking.
- Kayak – Search cars, flights, hotels, and more. A great resource if you are planning a trip.
- SeatGuru – Choose the best seat for your next flight.
- Skyscanner – Search for cheap flights.
- Student.com – Find housing for students.
Video
- YouTube – A site that I think we are all familiar with. With YouTube you can find music, music, entertainment, tutorials on how to do anything, and so much more.
- Moovly – With Moovly you can get started making your own videos.
Video Chat
- Google Duo – Easy to use video chat from Google.
- Skype – Make video calls on the web with Skype.
- Dead Simple Screen Sharing – Screen Sharing and audio/video conferencing right from your browser.
I hope you found some of the sites listed above useful. The web has so many resources to offer that can entertain, empower, and organize that there is something out there to answer many of the issues that we face everyday. Let me know if there are any sites I missed that you have found useful.