I love the Internet. I love web apps. I love the convenience of not installing anything to start something. When you visit Wikipedia, everything is right there, no more steps needed! And so I get annoyed when some service asks me to register before I can begin to use it.
Not all web apps require that though. There are common web tasks you can do without signing up, like sharing a photo on Imgur or shortening a link with is.gd. Heck, you can start a video conference without registrations now.
So let’s see what else the World Wide Web has to offer without requiring you to sign up or log in with social accounts, which can be fraught with its own dangers.
Daily to-do lists are generally of two types: a recurring list of repetitive tasks, and a new “today’s agenda” list. Daily Todo is great for the former. Go to the site, and in the provided box, just write the different tasks you want to accomplish every day. Daily Todo will turn it into a list with a whole week’s calendar for it.
You can edit the list at any time to remove or add more items. Plus, it also doubles up as a Jerry Seinfeld-esque Don’t Break The Chain productivity app. In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest making it your homepage or a productive new tab page.
Not everyone is proficient at creating a stylish, well-formatted resume with all the essential elements of information. So the folks at I Need A Resume have simplified it with a web app to build a resume for free. Head to the site and go tab-by-tab to fill out relevant information and save it.
The site will prompt you to fill a cover letter, personal details, a summary of the job, your work experience, projects you’ve handled, your education, and your skills. Finally, you can finish up by adjusting the look of the resume, which you can preview before downloading a PDF for free.
Good writing isn’t essential only for professional writers. Even when you’re crafting that important project plan, or when you’re figuring out how to resolve an issue over email, communication matters a lot in making an impact. No one expects a non-writer to write like an author, but the Hemingway App can make you sound like one! It’s also a fantastic way to make your resume sound professional.
The app is based on author Ernest Hemingway’s rules for writing. Either use it to write, or just copy-paste what you’ve written into Hemingway App. It’ll analyze the text and suggest improvements, like shortening complex sentences, removing adverbs, using active voice, and so on. Apply the suggestions and your unpolished text will sound like it was written by a pro! Just copy-paste it again to save or send it where you want.
Notes on Mac OS X and Google Docs online let you just start typing while auto-saving everything. Shrib is the no-signup version of that. Think of it as the always-saved notepad for the web. Just go to Shrib.com and start typing, it’ll save it.
You can also retrieve previous versions of your notes at any time. It even works when your Internet connection drops, but then you’ll have to manually save it. Plus, it also supports Markdown for faster web writing. The Shrib FAQ answers all questions you might have.
Most of the best places to find free images online require you to sign up to download high-resolution versions. There are no such bottlenecks at Pixabay. Just prove you’re human by using a Captcha code and you can download any stock image. The full resolution image needs a sign-in though.
Pixabay is also unique in curating Creative Commons Zero images, which means you are free to use these photos for commercial purposes without attributing the original uploader or Pixabay. Now that’s a big advantage!
How do you know if that photo you just downloaded or link shared by that acquaintance is safe? Head to VirusTotal and scan it before you regret getting malware on your machine.
VirusTotal is a free online virus scanning tool, and it will analyze any URL or file (up to 128MB) by matching it against the known databases of several anti-virus security firms. Give it a few minutes and you should get a green tick or a red cross to know whether it’s safe or not.
The Internet has a whole bunch of different types of free timers, but nothing matches Egg Timer for its simplicity. Go to the site, write the number of seconds, minutes, or hours you want the timer to be on for, and forget about it. Just keep the tab open though!
There are a few special, preset timers too. For example, a “morning” timer helps get your blood pumping, while you can also turn it into a web-based Pomodoro timer with a default 25/5-minute cycle. And what a simple web address to remember: e.ggtimer.com
If you thought Reddit is just full of people with too much time on their hands talking rubbish all day, well, you’re only partially right. There’s a lot of great, useful stuff on the social network and you can actually use Reddit productively. A great example is the University of Reddit, an alternative to things like Coursera and Khan Academy.
This site is a series of online classes made by Redditors, across different categories like arts, science, philosophy, language, fun and games, etc. It’s a collation of the best, useful information on Reddit in one place, and it’s all completely free.
While the new Twitter Polls is awesome, it’s restricted to Twitter and requires you to have an account. If you want a truly anonymous poll that anyone can participate in, create a quick one with Polls.io.
Not only is it one of the best ways to settle arguments and make decisions, it’s also completely free and doesn’t require anyone to sign up, whether to participate in the poll or to create it. You can add as many options as you want, and share the link only with the people you want. Simple and easy.
When you need to turn a Document into a PDF, a JPEG into a PNG, or any other file into some other format, save yourself the trouble of downloading software and just head to Cloud Convert. It’s the best way to convert file formats online for free.
No, you don’t need to sign up. Yes, it supports almost every standard file you can think of — a total of 211 different formats, in fact. Yes, you can download files without needing to give them any details or your email address. It’s simply the best tool.
Finally, when you can’t use any of these and have to sign up for a service, you might not want to use your real email address. In that case, get a temporary, disposable email instead at Maildrop.
Maildrop lets you choose your own email handle or suggests one if you’re creatively stuck. You can even visit that email’s “inbox” at any time to access an activation link or any such confirmation email sent by the service you’re signing up for. It’s the most pain-free way to register with an email, while keeping your private email safe from spam.
Having a rough day? Pixel Thoughts will give you a quick, one-minute guided meditation that takes your worries away. It’s a great way to get into the meditation habit, but even if that’s not what you want, the app is useful as a simple stress-buster.
Visit the site, write your worry when prompted, and watch and listen. Pixel Thoughts will turn it into a worry bubble that slowly drifts away, as it calmly puts things in perspective for you and lifts your spirits.
If an image is too large, social networks won’t let you upload it. Heck, if an image is too large, it’ll also take too long to download on an email or to load your web page for a new visitor. Compressor.io promises to shrink image size without losing quality.
It works with JPEGs, PNGs, SVGs, and GIFs. It’s surprisingly powerful and saves several kilobytes or megabytes, depending on your original file size. Plus, a neat slider tool lets you check the difference in before and after shots of your image.
Got a PDF form that you need to fill up but don’t have Adobe Acrobat Pro or other similar programs? Head to PDF Escape. It’s a simple, free app that lets you perform basic edits on PDF files that you upload, of up to 10MB or 100 pages.
You can insert text and images, use a “freehand” tool to sign documents, add links, and even annotate with sticky notes. You can even add or remove pages. Once you’re done making changes, download the PDF to your hard drive again.
Let’s say you thought of the perfect name for your new startup. Before you rejoice, you should check if that name is taken as a .com or .me, as well as if it’s available on top social services on the web like Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
Namechk is the one portal to do it. Type in the name, hit Enter, and it’ll start searching all these sites to see if the desired username or domain name is taken or available. With one click, you can then go to those sites and book that name. It couldn’t get simpler. Heck, you might want to run through this before naming your baby too.
I love the convenience of Imgur, where you can simply share an image without having to give any details to anyone, and use it often. Others on the MakeUseOf staff sing praises of Appear.in, regularly use vidme, and Reddit users are starting to love Gfycat for no-signup GIFs.
But I’m sure there are plenty of other cool web tools that require no registrations, which I’m completely unaware of. So share your recommendations and favorites in the comments below!
Image Credits:Shocked Woman by Andy Dean Photography via Shutterstock
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