Free Online Browser tools: Big list of free In Browser, Single Use tools
August 29, 2023 9:15 AM Subscribe
You need to do a thing - NOW! For when you need to calculate a thing, or look up a thing, or be able to do the thing in your Browser without any faff.
Most of the tools listed are NOT from https://freetinytools.com/ but I had to put a link in the description....
As far as I can tell none of the links herein ask you to:
Got a suggestion? Please share with a comment!
Sometimes you just need to be able to Do the Thing, in a browser, without any of the faff (something that takes a lot of effort, for minimal reward, or causes slight problems)
Enjoy.
As far as I can tell none of the links herein ask you to:
- Pay for anything
- Involve A.I
- Ask you to sign up for anything, or provide and email address
Got a suggestion? Please share with a comment!
Sometimes you just need to be able to Do the Thing, in a browser, without any of the faff (something that takes a lot of effort, for minimal reward, or causes slight problems)
Enjoy.
- Standard countdown timer: DuckDuckGo version, Google Version
- Webpage to remember what you are doing "Right Now" can be edited right on the page
- Egg timer - You can specify any amount of time, even pomodoro sessions
- Linux Commands Cheat Sheet
- Linux Commands Cheat Sheet: Colour Coded
- Barcode Generator
- Time Converter
- Temperature Converter
- Weight Converter
- Multi-date Currency Convertor for Excel and Google spreadsheets
- Percentage Caluclator
- PixelPaper: Online Whiteboard for cocreating with other people
- Hash (as in secure cryptographic value) Generator
- Git Command Explorer
- Drawio.com Diagramming For teams
- Electric Circuit Simulator
- Convert any webpage or image to pdf
- Convert any webpage to a printable PDF and edit the final output before printing !
- Earth.fm : Immersive Natural Soundscapes
- 12ft.io shows paywalled pages, without the paywall. Does not work with New York Times (pre presumably any NYT affiliates?)
- Create, save and share flowcharts
- Probability Calculator
- A whole page full of free tiny tools!
FANFUCKINGTASTIC!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:30 AM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:30 AM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Two related ones, c/o a Metafilter comment by flabdablet:
Random string generator (customizable string length and complexity)
Password strength estimator
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:36 AM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Random string generator (customizable string length and complexity)
Password strength estimator
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:36 AM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Getting all kinds of security warnings on that freetinytools.com link :/
posted by slater at 9:38 AM on August 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by slater at 9:38 AM on August 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
Need A Zero Width Space On Your Clipboard?
βπππ πππππͺ π¦ππππ ππ π₯ππ©π₯?
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:38 AM on August 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
βπππ πππππͺ π¦ππππ ππ π₯ππ©π₯?
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:38 AM on August 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
... and I was so hyper focused on making sure the Url's were correct of course I made a spelling mistake in the title.
Of course.
::Facepalm::
lits should be list!
posted by Faintdreams at 9:42 AM on August 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
Of course.
::Facepalm::
lits should be list!
posted by Faintdreams at 9:42 AM on August 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
That list is lit!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:50 AM on August 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:50 AM on August 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
I lean on the simple tools from sciweavers a lot for PDF merge/split and misc image conversion. Via 2011(!) Metafilter post
posted by mcstayinskool at 9:50 AM on August 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by mcstayinskool at 9:50 AM on August 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Need A Zero Width Space On Your Clipboard?
Is it wrong that I'm contemplating aβlβl kβiβnβdβs of ways to sneak this into my source code? I'm already abusing non-breaking spaces as delimiters, but have the string literals in code all commented...
posted by Foosnark at 10:19 AM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Is it wrong that I'm contemplating aβlβl kβiβnβdβs of ways to sneak this into my source code? I'm already abusing non-breaking spaces as delimiters, but have the string literals in code all commented...
posted by Foosnark at 10:19 AM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
You're making a request to grab your tool to do a thing, but what if the tool is just... the information you wanted in the first place? Can we go tinier?
- ip.neolane.net is an IPv4 and IPv6 capable endpoint that returns, in plain text, the IP address of the requestor. Most of the other well-known tools that do this (like checkip.amazonaws.com) are IPv4-only endpoints with no AAAA record, so you will never get your IPv6 address back if you have one.
- worldtimeapi.org will return the current time and date in a blob of plain text with a bit of tzdata mess, or a neat little parcel of JSON if you chop off ".txt" from the URL. Just pass your TZ string in the URL.
https://www.base64decode.org/
https://wttr.in/:help
posted by Clowder of bats at 11:05 AM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
https://wttr.in/:help
posted by Clowder of bats at 11:05 AM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
This thing is wonderful, but I did not see my most common conversion: bits to bytes and vice versa.
Our computers live in a world of bytes, yet all the ISPs insist on talking to us in bits. Itβs maddening.
posted by papineau at 11:05 AM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Our computers live in a world of bytes, yet all the ISPs insist on talking to us in bits. Itβs maddening.
posted by papineau at 11:05 AM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
84 104 105 115 32 105 115 32 103 114 101 97 116 33
Oh, sorry, let me convert that:
This is great!
posted by UN at 11:21 AM on August 29, 2023
Oh, sorry, let me convert that:
This is great!
posted by UN at 11:21 AM on August 29, 2023
A PixelPaper link for all of our beanplating needs:
https://pixelpaper.io/paper/open/?room=3f4310c0-f827-42e7-9367-45b059b7935f
posted by Reverend John at 11:23 AM on August 29, 2023
https://pixelpaper.io/paper/open/?room=3f4310c0-f827-42e7-9367-45b059b7935f
posted by Reverend John at 11:23 AM on August 29, 2023
Need A Zero Width Space On Your Clipboard?
Is it wrong that I'm contemplating aβlβl kβiβnβdβs of ways to sneak this into my source code?
Do you want anyone to collaborate with you ever again? Do you want to be considered a genuine monster by your peers? If you put a laxative in someone's hot chocolate, would anyone ever trust you around food again?
posted by treepour at 11:24 AM on August 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
Is it wrong that I'm contemplating aβlβl kβiβnβdβs of ways to sneak this into my source code?
Do you want anyone to collaborate with you ever again? Do you want to be considered a genuine monster by your peers? If you put a laxative in someone's hot chocolate, would anyone ever trust you around food again?
posted by treepour at 11:24 AM on August 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
There's a whole fleet of these, but these are the only two I know and use off the top of my head:
https://jsfiddle.net for fooling around with javascript ideas
https://regex101.com for when you stare deep into the old ones and forget how to get back
posted by Kyol at 11:26 AM on August 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
https://jsfiddle.net for fooling around with javascript ideas
https://regex101.com for when you stare deep into the old ones and forget how to get back
posted by Kyol at 11:26 AM on August 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Whoops, maybe that should have been a link, huh?
https://pixelpaper.io/paper/open/?room=3f4310c0-f827-42e7-9367-45b059b7935f
posted by Reverend John at 11:42 AM on August 29, 2023
https://pixelpaper.io/paper/open/?room=3f4310c0-f827-42e7-9367-45b059b7935f
posted by Reverend John at 11:42 AM on August 29, 2023
CyberChef (from our friends at GCHQ) is a multipurpose data munging tool- (de)compression, (de)encryption, file type detection, etc.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:53 AM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by BungaDunga at 11:53 AM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Some great resources here, though it's making me pine for the days when bookmarklets were all the rage. I'm weird, and tend to want even meaningless computer transactions happen locally rather than over the internet.
posted by talking leaf at 12:01 PM on August 29, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by talking leaf at 12:01 PM on August 29, 2023 [8 favorites]
ASCII Graphics maker. Perfect for enhancing your /etc/motd file on Unix and Linux systems.
posted by fings at 12:04 PM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by fings at 12:04 PM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Any other fun (non-nefarious) uses for zero-width spaces? I use them so that I can prevent Facebook from mucking up my text. Say I want to use an old-fashioned smiley: can't do it, they turn :-) into βΊοΈ. But a zero-width space works a charm! Also I like to use lettered lists:
A) my first point
π my second
C) my third β wtf ^%*&^$*^& facebook!
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:06 PM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
A) my first point
π my second
C) my third β wtf ^%*&^$*^& facebook!
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:06 PM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Free Tiny Tools won't load for me either right now ("An error occurred during a connection to freetinytools.com. PR_CONNECT_ABORTED_ERROR"), but here are a couple I use on the regular:
Generic syllabus maker: generates a list of dates for a day or days of the week for a certain period
ics Converter webapp: converts a spreadsheet of events into a digital calendar file
posted by fogovonslack at 12:24 PM on August 29, 2023
Generic syllabus maker: generates a list of dates for a day or days of the week for a certain period
ics Converter webapp: converts a spreadsheet of events into a digital calendar file
posted by fogovonslack at 12:24 PM on August 29, 2023
ics Converter webapp: converts a spreadsheet of events into a digital calendar file
OMG, I had to teach myself to write .ics files by hand several years ago because our in-house Microsoft super geniuses can't or won't put all the university's holidays into every user's calendar (or even make them optionally available).
Now, every autumn when the calendar is released with next year's holidays, I edit my folder full of .ics files to have the new dates and then send them out to the department.
To the IT department, that is, in which I work, who are the very people who can't do this with all their superuser access. *cue exaggerated, theatrical eye-rolling*
posted by wenestvedt at 12:50 PM on August 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
OMG, I had to teach myself to write .ics files by hand several years ago because our in-house Microsoft super geniuses can't or won't put all the university's holidays into every user's calendar (or even make them optionally available).
Now, every autumn when the calendar is released with next year's holidays, I edit my folder full of .ics files to have the new dates and then send them out to the department.
To the IT department, that is, in which I work, who are the very people who can't do this with all their superuser access. *cue exaggerated, theatrical eye-rolling*
posted by wenestvedt at 12:50 PM on August 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Epoch Converter
"I'll just timestamp every log message with epoch and then I don't have to worry about time zone ambiguities"
- some (redacted) developer upstream in time from me.
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:54 PM on August 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
"I'll just timestamp every log message with epoch and then I don't have to worry about time zone ambiguities"
- some (redacted) developer upstream in time from me.
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:54 PM on August 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
I use https://allblackscreen.com to make my laptop screen black when I am cleaning it.
I use this https://barcode.tec-it.com/en/ISBN13 to generate barcodes for books because it will output vector if you want.
I use https://coolors.co for finding colors. You can can enter a specific color and lock it, then quickly flip through many other colors.
posted by snofoam at 1:30 PM on August 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
I use this https://barcode.tec-it.com/en/ISBN13 to generate barcodes for books because it will output vector if you want.
I use https://coolors.co for finding colors. You can can enter a specific color and lock it, then quickly flip through many other colors.
posted by snofoam at 1:30 PM on August 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
https://archive.ph/ will show paywalled pages, without the paywall including the New York Times.
posted by ellieBOA at 1:40 PM on August 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by ellieBOA at 1:40 PM on August 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
Getting all kinds of security warnings on that freetinytools.com link :/
I tried to click the links on my work machine and they got stomped on by our NannyBot, clicker emptor
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:50 PM on August 29, 2023
I tried to click the links on my work machine and they got stomped on by our NannyBot, clicker emptor
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:50 PM on August 29, 2023
https://www.unicodeit.net/
Converts LaTeX expressions to copy/pastable unicode. Not everything works of course but pretty handy if you want to include math stuff in a comment somewhere where Mathjax or similar isn't available.
It's β neat.
posted by Mister_Sleight_of_Hand at 1:50 PM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Converts LaTeX expressions to copy/pastable unicode. Not everything works of course but pretty handy if you want to include math stuff in a comment somewhere where Mathjax or similar isn't available.
It's β neat.
posted by Mister_Sleight_of_Hand at 1:50 PM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
If you need specialty graph paper in PDF form, this is a great place to get it.
Also, there's a trick to converting 8-bit binary ASCII into text in your head. If you ever see text (e.g. on a T-shirt or poster or somewhere else) that looks like a bunch of octets where the first bits are almost always 01, it's very likely hiding a message. For example:
01001101 01100101 01000110 01101001
They all begin "01", which is a dead giveaway (things starting with 00 are spaces and punctuation, so you seldom need to worry about those in a message). Just look at the last 5 bits of each one:
01101 00101 00110 01001
If you can convert 5-bit binary to decimal in your head (which takes a little practice but isn't hard to learn), these become:
13 5 6 9
And then the usual A=1, B=2, C=3,... Z=26 encoding gives you:
M E F I
In this case, the "e" and "i" were actually lowercase, but you don't need to worry about that if you're just trying to read a message.
posted by wanderingmind at 1:59 PM on August 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Also, there's a trick to converting 8-bit binary ASCII into text in your head. If you ever see text (e.g. on a T-shirt or poster or somewhere else) that looks like a bunch of octets where the first bits are almost always 01, it's very likely hiding a message. For example:
01001101 01100101 01000110 01101001
They all begin "01", which is a dead giveaway (things starting with 00 are spaces and punctuation, so you seldom need to worry about those in a message). Just look at the last 5 bits of each one:
01101 00101 00110 01001
If you can convert 5-bit binary to decimal in your head (which takes a little practice but isn't hard to learn), these become:
13 5 6 9
And then the usual A=1, B=2, C=3,... Z=26 encoding gives you:
M E F I
In this case, the "e" and "i" were actually lowercase, but you don't need to worry about that if you're just trying to read a message.
posted by wanderingmind at 1:59 PM on August 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
This might be a little bit niche but I found it very handy when apartment hunting : BatchGeo
To use it, you just need a labeled and formatted CSV / XLS file (they have a sample file on the site) and when you upload your file, it will make a custom map with all the data points helpfully pinned on the map.
Sample use cases :
- Do what I did and paste in the address for each property you're looking at. Now you've got a handy-dandy map to plan a route to see them all in one day
- Make a spreadsheet of roadside attractions for your next road trip
- (did this one recently) for a game night with friends, use it to figure out which place is the most "fair to all" to convene at, minimizing travel for all involved
They have a (free) mobile app for iOS (iPhone and iPad), and shareable links as well. Might not be quite the "tiny tool" but I thought I'd pass it along cause it's really quite neat.
posted by revmitcz at 2:08 PM on August 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
To use it, you just need a labeled and formatted CSV / XLS file (they have a sample file on the site) and when you upload your file, it will make a custom map with all the data points helpfully pinned on the map.
Sample use cases :
- Do what I did and paste in the address for each property you're looking at. Now you've got a handy-dandy map to plan a route to see them all in one day
- Make a spreadsheet of roadside attractions for your next road trip
- (did this one recently) for a game night with friends, use it to figure out which place is the most "fair to all" to convene at, minimizing travel for all involved
They have a (free) mobile app for iOS (iPhone and iPad), and shareable links as well. Might not be quite the "tiny tool" but I thought I'd pass it along cause it's really quite neat.
posted by revmitcz at 2:08 PM on August 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Great list, but I want to note that 12ft.io works for me much less than it used to. For a recent site I tried (theathletic.com) it served me a page that simply said "12ft has been disabled for this site", which sounds to me like a payoff.
posted by achrise at 2:27 PM on August 29, 2023
posted by achrise at 2:27 PM on August 29, 2023
Epoch Converter
Because I live the "WTF is that log timestamp, even?" life as well, I have years and years of reflexive motor memory for the GNU date command to do this easily: date -d @1693348075
On a BSD userland such as macOS, with its more bizarre syntax, it's a lot fussier and I have to look it up every time: date -j -f"%s" 1693348075
Or, in reality, just use gdate
Maybe the tiniest tools are the ones you already have in your hand?
posted by majick at 3:42 PM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Because I live the "WTF is that log timestamp, even?" life as well, I have years and years of reflexive motor memory for the GNU date command to do this easily: date -d @1693348075
On a BSD userland such as macOS, with its more bizarre syntax, it's a lot fussier and I have to look it up every time: date -j -f"%s" 1693348075
Or, in reality, just use gdate
Maybe the tiniest tools are the ones you already have in your hand?
posted by majick at 3:42 PM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
One I use regularly, since acids are sold as a %, and I need them as a certain molarity: Acid & Base Normality and Molarity Calculator
posted by Canageek at 5:22 PM on August 29, 2023
posted by Canageek at 5:22 PM on August 29, 2023
I have used Eric Meyerβs url encoder and decoder literally thousands of times.
posted by rockindata at 5:59 PM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by rockindata at 5:59 PM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
molarity
Whenever I see that word, all I can think of is either moles or molΓ©, depending on how hungry I am.
mmmm, moles in molΓ©...
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:02 PM on August 29, 2023
Whenever I see that word, all I can think of is either moles or molΓ©, depending on how hungry I am.
mmmm, moles in molΓ©...
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:02 PM on August 29, 2023
> either moles or molΓ©, depending on how hungry I am
funny, i went for toothiness.
posted by Clowder of bats at 10:17 PM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
funny, i went for toothiness.
posted by Clowder of bats at 10:17 PM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
>>mmmm, moles in molΓ©...
Hey! Hey! Easy on the chocolate sauce there buddy!
posted by Molesome at 2:34 AM on August 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Hey! Hey! Easy on the chocolate sauce there buddy!
posted by Molesome at 2:34 AM on August 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Fixed that typo in the OP!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (staff) at 4:06 AM on August 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (staff) at 4:06 AM on August 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Here's a bunch of front end / accessibility-focused ones:
- Browser Default Styles shows you the default styles used for the HTML element of your choice in popular desktop browsers.
- Can I Use details browser support for all manner of things: CSS, JS, HTML and more.
- CanInclude is for answering the question "Can I legitimately include this HTML tag in that one?"
- RGB to Hex colour converter does what it says on the tin. So does Hex to RGB.
- WebAIM Contrast Checker lets you make sure your text is sufficiently high-contrast against its background to be legible.
- Who can use this colour combination? tells you and shows you roughly how usable your colour pair is for people with various forms of colour blindness... and people working in direct sunlight, and people using Night Mode.
Thank you for fixing my typo and blank link :)
posted by Faintdreams at 4:35 AM on August 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Faintdreams at 4:35 AM on August 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you want to know if you need a jacket, there's doineedajacket.com
posted by The Half Language Plant at 6:17 AM on August 30, 2023
posted by The Half Language Plant at 6:17 AM on August 30, 2023
I don't see this mentioned yet: Photopea, a pure javascript, almost feature complete clone of photoshop running entirely in your browser.
posted by kmt at 1:13 PM on August 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by kmt at 1:13 PM on August 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
If you want to know if you need a jacket, there's doineedajacket.com
Will this let me know whether a restaurant will allow me to dine in shirt sleeves?
posted by straight at 6:15 PM on August 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Will this let me know whether a restaurant will allow me to dine in shirt sleeves?
posted by straight at 6:15 PM on August 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
I use the various code development tools at Code Beautify all the time.
posted by gible at 11:29 PM on September 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by gible at 11:29 PM on September 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: btw, this post has been added to the sidebar.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:58 AM on September 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 12:58 AM on September 4, 2023 [3 favorites]
This post was mentioned by the editor of TheVerge.com - David Pierce - in his weekly newsletter.
Last link in 'The Drop' Section.
[squeee.]
posted by Faintdreams at 6:52 AM on September 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Last link in 'The Drop' Section.
[squeee.]
posted by Faintdreams at 6:52 AM on September 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by Greg_Ace at 9:30 AM on August 29, 2023 [2 favorites]