The Internet Still Has Good Corners

A collection of useful tools, odd little websites and things worth keeping open in a tab.

This started with Zoho and Cloudflare. Two useful finds, without the usual bill shock. Then the list kept growing. Design tools. Video tools. A radio globe. A painting that never stops zooming.

I picked up Raindrop, HandBrake and Bitwarden along the way. The rest are here so I don't lose them in a chat.

Most are free to use or have a free tier. Some have paid extras. A few are paid services worth comparing. Check the plan and licence before using anything for client work.

For the designer brain

Fontshare - Free fonts from Indian Type Foundry, with enough variety to get out of a font rut.
Tally - Build a contact form, project brief or survey without turning it into another project.
Squoosh - Compress images in the browser and compare the result before saving.
Photopea - Edit images and open PSD files in the browser when you don't have Photoshop handy.
Excalidraw - A simple whiteboard for rough ideas, diagrams and sketches.
Awwwards - Browse websites when you need ideas for layout, type or motion.
Laws of UX - Short explanations of the psychology behind interface decisions.
Growth.Design - Product and UX lessons told through comics.
Brandfetch - Find brand logos, colours and assets, then check the brand's own rules before using them.
SVGL - A library of SVG logos, useful when a blurry PNG won't do.
Shots - Put a screenshot into a mockup without building the whole scene yourself.
Milanote - Arrange notes, images and references on a board when a folder feels too flat.
Penpot - An open-source tool for interface design and prototypes.
Flexbox Froggy - Learn CSS layout by moving frogs into place. Better than staring at a diagram.

Passwords, email and the boring useful stuff

One bad password can turn a quiet evening into a mess. These are less exciting than a radio globe, but worth setting up first.

Bitwarden - Keep different passwords for different accounts, with a free plan that works across devices.
Have I Been Pwned - Check whether your email appears in known data breaches. A clean result isn't a guarantee.
SimpleLogin - Use email aliases for sign-ups and switch one off when it attracts spam. The free plan gives you 10 aliases.
Zoho Mail - A custom-domain email service worth comparing with the bigger providers.
Cloudflare Registrar - Register and renew supported domains at cost, without a registrar markup.
LocalSend - Send files between nearby phones and computers on the same local network.
ShareX - Screenshots, screen recordings and small capture jobs on Windows.
PowerToys - Microsoft's free Windows tools for things like bulk renaming and window layouts.
Raindrop.io - Save links in collections instead of hoping you'll find them in your browser history.
Hemingway Editor - Spot long sentences and awkward writing. Treat its suggestions as suggestions, not rules.

For video and image work

HandBrake - Convert and compress video when a file is too large or in the wrong format.
LosslessCut - Trim supported video and audio without a full re-encode. Some cuts are limited by keyframes.
Shutter Encoder - A free converter with plenty of video, audio and editing options in one place.
Upscayl - A free desktop image upscaler that runs locally. The cloud service is a separate offering.
Mixkit - Free stock video, music and templates. Check the licence on the asset you pick.
Bunny.net - Paid video hosting and delivery worth comparing if you want to host your own showreels.

Music, noise and doing nothing for a while

Radio Garden - Spin a globe and listen to radio stations from different cities.
Radiooooo - Explore music by country and decade. An easy way to leave your usual playlist.
Drive & Listen - Watch a drive through another city with local radio playing alongside it.
myNoise - Adjustable soundscapes for working, resting or covering the noise around you.
Every Noise at Once - Explore a map of music genres. It's an older dataset now, not a live map of everything.
Patatap - Turn key presses into sounds and moving shapes. Contains flashing images.
Zoomquilt - A painting that keeps zooming into itself. That's the whole idea, and it works.

For the gamer side

HowLongToBeat - Player-reported playtime estimates before you commit to another long game.
GG.deals - Compare game prices. Check the shop, region and key restrictions before buying.
PCGamingWiki - Community notes and fixes for PC games that refuse to behave.
Playnite - Bring games from different stores into one desktop library.
SteamGridDB - Custom artwork for a game library that needs tidying up.
Backloggd - Log, rate and organise the games you've played or want to play.
itch.io - Indie games and small experiments, with plenty of free and pay-what-you-want finds.
Internet Arcade - Old arcade games preserved for browser play by the Internet Archive.
The Cutting Room Floor - A wiki of unused content and leftover material hidden inside games.

Weird tabs worth opening

Neal.fun - Small browser games and experiments, including The Password Game.
Monkeytype - A clean, customisable typing test that makes practice less dull.
Hacker Typer - Tap random keys and get movie-style code. No actual hacking involved.
FutureMe - Write a letter to yourself and choose when it should arrive.
TimeGuessr - Guess where and when a photograph was taken.
The Wiki Game - Find your way between Wikipedia pages by following their links.
OldWeb.today - Browse live or archived pages through old browser emulators.
Windows93 - A strange pretend desktop full of little apps and jokes.
Space Jam, 1996 - The old movie website is still there. A small piece of the early web.
Motherfucking Website - A very sweary argument for keeping websites simple.

A little perspective

If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel - Scroll through a scale model of the solar system and feel how much empty space there is.
NASA Eyes on the Solar System - Explore planets and spacecraft in an interactive 3D view.
Flightradar24 - Watch tracked flights on a map and see where they're going. Coverage isn't complete.
OCEARCH Shark Tracker - Follow reported locations of tagged sharks. The dots are tracking updates, not a constant live feed.

For the reading pile

The StoryGraph - Track your reading and look for your next book by mood and theme.
Standard Ebooks - Carefully formatted editions of public-domain books. Check copyright rules where you live.

That's the list for now. Some tabs help me finish work. Some just make the internet feel less like the same five apps.

Links checked in October 2026. Plans, features and availability can change.