The latest articles on DEV Community by Artur (@artur_a6fc4e0d871d0d12dfc). https://dev.to/artur_a6fc4e0d871d0d12dfc https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4086426%2F6b3ab040-2ea1-43e2-85fa-80709cbb0d44.png https://dev.to/artur_a6fc4e0d871d0d12dfc en Artur Thu, 20 Aug 2026 10:22:16 +0000 https://dev.to/artur_a6fc4e0d871d0d12dfc/websites-for-when-you-need-to-get-things-done-220g https://dev.to/artur_a6fc4e0d871d0d12dfc/websites-for-when-you-need-to-get-things-done-220g <p>A practical collection of useful websites and online tools for research, learning, development, design, productivity, privacy, entertainment, and everyday tasks.</p> <p>The list is organized by purpose, making it easy to find the right tool when you need it. Some are well-known, while others are smaller and more specialized sites that are worth keeping around.</p> <p>Think of it as a personal toolbox for the web - places to check when you need to research something, build something, solve a problem, or simply find a better way to get something done.</p> <h2> Research and Learning </h2> <ul> <li> <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org" rel="noopener noreferrer">gutenberg.org</a> - Project Gutenberg: over 70,000 public domain books, free to read.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.openculture.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">openculture.com</a> - Free courses from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and other universities.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.wolframalpha.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">wolframalpha.com</a> - Solves math, physics, and engineering problems and shows its work.</li> <li> <a href="https://elicit.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">elicit.com</a> (moved from elicit.org) - An AI research assistant that searches 138 million papers, summarizes them, and pulls the data into tables with source links.</li> <li> <a href="https://consensus.app" rel="noopener noreferrer">consensus.app</a> - Answers research questions with a straight yes, no, or it's complicated, based on peer-reviewed papers.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.connectedpapers.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">connectedpapers.com</a> - Maps the citation links between papers as a visual graph, handy for finding related work.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org" rel="noopener noreferrer">semanticscholar.org</a> - Free academic search engine, built by the Allen Institute for AI.</li> <li> <a href="https://scispace.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">scispace.com</a> (formerly Typeset.io) - Helps you work through a dense paper: explains terms, finds related work, pulls out data.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.summarize.tech" rel="noopener noreferrer">summarize.tech</a> - Turns a long YouTube video into a timestamped text summary.</li> </ul> <h2> Developer Tools </h2> <ul> <li> <a href="https://carbon.now.sh" rel="noopener noreferrer">carbon.now.sh</a> - Turns code into nice-looking images for tweets or slides, dozens of themes.</li> <li> <a href="https://ray.so" rel="noopener noreferrer">ray.so</a> - Same idea, from Raycast: sharp-looking code screenshots.</li> <li> <a href="https://regex101.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">regex101.com</a> - Test regular expressions online, with a breakdown of what each part does.</li> <li> <a href="https://codebeautify.org" rel="noopener noreferrer">codebeautify.org</a> - Formats and minifies code in dozens of languages.</li> <li> <a href="https://jsonformatter.org" rel="noopener noreferrer">jsonformatter.org</a> - Makes JSON readable and checks it for errors.</li> <li> <a href="https://explainshell.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">explainshell.com</a> - Breaks a terminal command down piece by piece and explains every flag.</li> </ul> <h2> Design and Presentation </h2> <ul> <li> <a href="https://shots.so" rel="noopener noreferrer">shots.so</a> - Free device mockups for showing off apps and websites.</li> <li> <a href="https://smartmockups.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">smartmockups.com</a> - Mockups without touching Photoshop, free tier available.</li> </ul> <h2> Security and Privacy </h2> <ul> <li> <a href="https://haveibeenpwned.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">haveibeenpwned.com</a> - Checks whether your email or password has turned up in a known data breach.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.virustotal.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">virustotal.com</a> - Scans a file or link with dozens of antivirus engines at once. Owned by Google.</li> <li> <a href="https://privnote.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">privnote.com</a> - Creates a note that deletes itself after it's read once.</li> <li> <a href="https://temp-mail.org" rel="noopener noreferrer">temp-mail.org</a> - A disposable inbox for signing up to things.</li> <li> <a href="https://10minutemail.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">10minutemail.com</a> - Same idea, but the address only lasts ten minutes.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.file.io" rel="noopener noreferrer">file.io</a> - Share a file through a link that stops working once it's downloaded.</li> </ul> <h2> Productivity </h2> <ul> <li> <a href="https://raindrop.io" rel="noopener noreferrer">raindrop.io</a> - A bookmark manager with tags, folders, and full-text search.</li> <li> <a href="https://downdetector.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">downdetector.com</a> - Shows whether a site or service is down for everyone, not just you.</li> <li> <a href="https://fast.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">fast.com</a> - Netflix's speed test. No ads, no clutter.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.similarsites.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">similarsites.com</a> - Finds sites similar to whatever one you give it.</li> <li> <a href="https://alternativeto.net" rel="noopener noreferrer">alternativeto.net</a> - A directory of free and open-source alternatives to popular software.</li> </ul> <h2> Sound for Focus </h2> <ul> <li> <a href="https://radio.garden" rel="noopener noreferrer">radio.garden</a> - Listen to radio stations from around the world through an interactive globe.</li> <li> <a href="https://everynoise.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">everynoise.com</a> - A map of music genres, built from Spotify data.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.tunefind.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">tunefind.com</a> - Figures out what song was playing in that one scene from a movie or show.</li> <li> <a href="https://musicforprogramming.net" rel="noopener noreferrer">musicforprogramming.net</a> - Ambient mixes for working in the background, running since 2011.</li> <li> <a href="https://mynoise.net" rel="noopener noreferrer">mynoise.net</a> - Customizable noise generators (rain, cafe, white noise) with dozens of sliders to dial it in.</li> <li> <a href="https://coffitivity.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">coffitivity.com</a> - Coffee shop background noise, for anyone who works better without total silence.</li> </ul> <h2> PDF Tools </h2> <ul> <li> <a href="https://smallpdf.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">smallpdf.com</a> - Convert, compress, and edit PDFs. Some features are free.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.ilovepdf.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">ilovepdf.com</a> - Merge, split, and convert PDF files.</li> </ul> <h2> Entertainment </h2> <ul> <li> <a href="https://www.justwatch.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">justwatch.com</a> - Shows which streaming service has a given movie or show in your country.</li> </ul> <h2> Media Tools </h2> <ul> <li> <a href="https://fdown.tools" rel="noopener noreferrer">fdown.tools</a> - Downloads videos from Facebook.</li> <li> <a href="https://snapsss.me" rel="noopener noreferrer">snapsss.me</a> - Downloads TikTok videos and photos without the watermark.</li> </ul> productivity education technology tools