WEBAPPS / BROWSER ADD-ONS
- - - What runs in the browser.
DUCKDUCKGO
DuckDuckGo is a search engine designed for privacy, but it's also packed with delicious easter eggs. If you're a nerd or a noob programmer you could really use some of these. Here's a list of those secondary/easter eggs functions that I've been using. Note: stuff in square brackets are the parameters, you don't have to type the brackets.
- HTML / JavaScript beautifier, self-explanatory.
- [programming language name] cheatsheet, self-explanatory.
- base64 [string], encode a string into base64 code, "base64 encode" + [string] works as well. "base64 decode" + [string] decodes a base64 string.
- URL encode / URL escape [string], encode or escape a string into URL-safe strings. "URL decode" + [string] decode an URL string.
- is [url] down?, find out if a website is down. Note: it might depend on your browser. Last time Codepen was down on Safari for me (even the embedded code snippets crashed) and when I checked with DDG it returned that Codepen is down, but according to isitdownrightnow.com Codepen was up and functioning. Codepen functioned normally on GG Chrome that day.
- !cache [url], search for a Google cache of a website. Can be used to see the last cached version of a page before it went down, to see pages that are blocked in your region, or to bypass a paywall.
- !expand [url], used to expand a shortened URL. Save you from a hefty amount of rick rolls
- !w [something], search from Wikipedia's search engine
- !csst [something], // from CSS Tricks engine
- !scidir [something], // from Science Direct search engine
- see more bangs here
Bangs:
Markup, note, chart
StackEdit (2013). A Markdown editor that support HTML, LaTEX, mermaid and more. Can be synchronized with GG Drive, GitHub, GitLab... Available offline, uses browser’s storage (not cache storage), has GitHub-like syntax highlighting for codeblocks, exports HTML and Jekyll site just like any static site generator. You can also paste formatted text into StackEdit and it will be converted to Markdown syntax. I can go on. As you can see, this is a fairly robust text/markdown editor and it doesn't take years to initialize like... uhh, MiCrOsOfT WoRd. I use it to write a lot of things other than code.
https://stackedit.io/app#
Markdown to HTML. Self-explanatory. Works offline for me, maybe because my browser saved a cache of it.
https://markdowntohtml.com/
mermaid, a Markdown-like syntax to create simple charts & diagrams. Writing mermaid on StackEdit is fast and all but the support is broken sometimes and also the design on mermaid live is much better.
https://mermaid.live/
SankeyMATIC. And while you’re at it, why not build a Sankey diagram too?
https://www.sankeymatic.com/build/
CSS, JS, code
Simple background patterns in CSS: Grid, dotgrid, stripes, crosshatch etc...
https://iros.github.io/patternfills/sample_css.html -- b&w patterns in XML + base64 SVG
https://www.magicpattern.design/tools/css-backgrounds -- pure CSS pattern generator
Simple shapes in pure CSS: some of these are not even near simple though.
https://css-tricks.com/the-shapes-of-css/
CSS Gradient, discovered this from the 88x31 button maker
https://cssgradient.io/
CSS Lisible (2015). Format and order your CSS based on Raphaël Goetter’s CSS rules (french)
https://csslisible.com
Flexbox Playground. The most detailed flexbox generator, also allows you to resize your flex items by dragging.
https://catchmyfame.github.io/flexboxplayground/
Codepen.io and JSFiddle, real-time preview of HTML, CSS and JS code for website makers. Codepen also host embedded code snippets. Sign-up not required but you might want to do so to save progress.
https://codepen.io/
https://jsfiddle.net
One compiler, compile and run code from 60+ languages. Codepen is better at saving big projects and displaying whole webpages with different files, this one is better at testing single files. I use this mainly to quickly run a few lines of JavaScript or Lua.
https://onecompiler.com/javascript
Image manipulation
Photopea (2013), in-browser Photoshop. It’s not as robust as Pts, but can get most basic tasks done and can open almost any type of file (.psd, .xcf, .ai, .sketch…) and do so without taking 2 minutes to buffer. Contains ads unless you pay for the pro version.
https://www.photopea.com/
PNG Panda (~2014), literally everybody needs to know about this tool. It compresses your image into index colors, which reduces the weight significantly. I often compress my images and index-color them manually in Pts before running them again in PNG Panda but it’s because I’m psychotic about keeping them lightweight. Only support PNG, JPEG or WebP though.
https://tinypng.com/
Bitmap converter, convert your images in to BMP files, can also resize and index-color it. Dies out in the middle of conversion sometimes, but when I'm too lazy to open Pts I use this.
https://online-converting.com/image/convert2bmp/
Bypass Paywall
12ft Ladder, bypass paywall using Google crawler cache, just like DDG's !cache bang.
https://12ft.io/
The Wayback Machine can be used for more than just bypassing paywall, but here we are.
https://archive.org/web/
If all else fail, Bypass paywall clean is the best Chrome extension. This works with local Finnish & EU newspapers too.
https://github.com/qnoum/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean-magnolia1234
Sci-Hub, fetching scientific articles from direct links or DOI
https://sci-hub.st/
Help you read the Web
Outline, gives you the properly formatted version of any eye-straining article that are bloated with ads. Cons: no dark mode, and too much spacing (for my taste). On Safari simply opening the Reader could've replaced this.
https://outline.com
Wikiwand, a readable interface for Wikipedia. Cons: doesn't have a native search engine. But I guess because it's more like a third-party Wikipedia reader than a mirror of the actual site.
https://www.wikiwand.com
Mercury Reader, a Chrome extension that works the same as Outline but with more customization + dark mode.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mercury-reader/oknpjjbmpnndlpmnhmekjpocelpnlfdi
Miscellaneous
µTorrent Web, a very tiny Torrent client. P2P and decentralized.
https://help.utorrent.com/support/solutions/29000034387
Protopage. Customize your own homepage, curate your own news.
https://www.protopage.com/