this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
613 points (99.5% liked)

Ask Lemmy

31246 readers
2075 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I'll start by plugging Harvard's free courses catalog as well as Udemy

Edit: Gonna add 2 more I remembered-

Blender - I wish I had more time to learn it, but I did start the infamous "Donut Tutorial" once!

Watch Cartoons Online - Lots of good older stuff!

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

CBC Gem, which is our country's public news corporation's streaming service which is a catalog of Canadian television. There's also CBC Music which is the radio app, and you can even listen to the live streams of the Metropolitan Opera on Saturdays.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Syncthing.

Connect any two devices' folders together wirelessly, from anywhere.

Don't have a server? You don't need one. Every device is an individual node.

Backup? If you do have a server, offload some of your content and keep on rolling, or set scripts to move files by age.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 78 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (9 children)

Libraries. Most even rent video games, power tools, audio/video hardware, baking utensils...SO MUCH STUFF. All free.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Even if you don't go to the actual library the ebook apps are great.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (5 children)

On a whim I googled my city's library and "tools" and I found a non-profit society that specializes in lending of hand and power tools! This is incredible and I wouldn't have known about it without this prompt: thank you!

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Our library loans out state parks passes for a month so you can go to parks for free. It also loans out hiking gear, provides immigration resources, and oddly, a ukulele.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Ours lends them out for all the city museums! And my old local library had a seed library, the deal is that you saved seed from whatever you grew and gave some back.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

Technically not free, but because so many people think it is it's a great poster child for proper use of tax dollars and socialist programs. Libraries rock.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 49 points 6 days ago (9 children)

LibreOffice

Free Office Suite which is excellent for personal use. If you are on mobile Collabora Office if you want an Android/iOS version

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] [email protected] 36 points 6 days ago (11 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (2 children)

People that pay for porn on the Internet are like people that pay for WinRAR

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (10 replies)
[–] [email protected] 51 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I love how chill and helpful everyone is here.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Not being a dick is free too.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 days ago (3 children)

https://rentry.co/megathread

Pretty useful.. when one site fails the other usually work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

That is amazing, thanks!

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The cats and dogs out in the street are free. You can just bring a friend home. /hj

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago (2 children)

/hj = hand job?

I've like never seen this abbreviation used any other way 🧐

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago

HUEHUEHUE please do NOT give stray cats and dogs handjobs.

But as the other poster said -- It means "half joking"

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 36 points 6 days ago (5 children)

In most eu countries the law requires businesses that give out food to also allow you to order free tap water. If youre in a city and dont want to spend money on a bottle of water, walk into mcdonalds and ask for free tap water. A lot of european countries also have strict laws about tap water so for example in france unless otherwise indicated with a warning, tap water is always potable.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Here in the US, this seems so normal that it didnt even occur to me that this may not be true everywhere else. And not need to be enforced by law.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Not true everywhere, actually never heard of it here (Germany and Austria).

But if you walk into a place and ask for a paper cup of tap water, a lot of workers are willing to give it to you, regardless of the laws.

Vienna has tap water straight from the mountains btw and it tastes amazing. Recommended.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (6 children)

A little late but OpenTaxSolver - free desktop tax software that gives you a printout of tax forms that you can mail in. And it includes a few states too. Way easier than the annoying corporate sites that constantly log you out and charge a fee for every little thing.

Edit: To my non-American friends, you don't need to worry about this

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Your local city college may or may not offer free classes (in San Francisco, you just need to show proof that you live in the city with some legal status).

Some public transportation is free for certain groups (youth and folks experiencing homelessness can get free passes here).

"First X of the month" at the zoo/a museum/whatever


lots of venues have free events.

A jog, bike ride, hike


lots of great stuff outside!

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

KDE Connect. its an app that lets you share lots of different things between your devices, and it does this over your home network without needing any "cloud"

  • send files from one device to another
  • share the clipboard. handy for copying text or a link to your phone
  • get notifications from your phone on your laptop
  • have music playing on your laptop and pause or change the track from your phone
  • control your laptop from your phone, move the cursor around, left/right click etc
[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

In California (and Connecticut), you don’t have to pay to use the air pumps at gas stations. You can just go inside and ask them to turn on the air pump, and they legally have to.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

Not free as in freedom, but gratis. Also only works for people who are on Discord - FreeStuff Bot will notify you every time a game on one of the popular PC platforms is available for free.

load more comments
view more: next ›