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.

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/


CLI SOFTWARES

- - - What runs in the terminal / command line.


"Why don't you just use man [software] in the terminal" Because the man utility doesn't always get the right manual page and it's also not very human readable okay.

NETBSD SOFTWARES (or derivatives)


- - Comes with MacOS

sips, scriptable image processing system. man page

iconutil, used to create .icns files for MacOS apps. man page

- - Others

fortune and cowsay, the inner joke among terminal users. Best used together.
https://linux.die.net/man/6/fortune
https://linux.die.net/man/1/cowsay

FIGlet, where I got most of my ASCII font from.
https://linux.die.net/man/6/figlet

OTHER


homebrew, a package manager for MacOS & Linux. I downloaded most CLI apps through this.
https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage

phetch, a Gopher client.
https://github.com/xvxx/phetch

mdBook (2015), a command line tool to create books with Markdown. Written in Rust
https://rust-lang.github.io/mdBook/index.html


PROTOCOLS


Matrix (2019), a chatting protocol.
https://matrix.org/

E2E encrypted, free and open-sourced, lots of different clients from webapp to windows/apple to CLI. One popular client is Elements (formerly known as Riot), which basically functions like Discord but with more features.

- - -

Gopher (1991, Floodgap from 1999), a plain text internet protocol.
gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/

Honestly, even the most basic personal blogs I’ve found from Gopher users are 10 times more well-written than most of the things you’d find on the Web. I connect to gopher through phetch, a terminal-base client.

The “readme.html” we all need:
http://jumpjet.info/Offbeat-Internet/Gopher/archive.htm

Web proxies:

- - -

Gemini (seems down??), a middle child protocol sitting between Gopher and the World Wide Web. I’ve personally found awesome blogs there.
https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

Web proxies:


ODD SHITS

- - - Some are functional, others serve little purposes, but all of them are odds.

Geocitiesizer. Instead of making webpages more readable, how about take your page mod game a bit further and bastardize them? Try this on sites like http://www.floodgap.com/ to experience true web nightmare.
http://www.wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/index.php

Catbox Moe, one of the decent pomf.se clones. Free online storage, up to 200MB. This is super functional, I’m only putting this in the “Odd shits” section because of the rest of the pomf.se clones. Online file hosting is awesome and it has existed since forever, but to see the mass rise of these waifu-themed file hosting is some real odd shits.
https://catbox.moe/

Beads, the epitome of skeuomorphic websites. Make a friendship bracelet!
https://o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o.net/

Taft Test: Replace all the images on a page with images of William Howard Taft. Works as a bookmarklet.
https://tafttest.com/