• simple@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    8 months ago

    Open Library allows you to digitally borrow a ton of books for free. It’s not the greatest experience since the books they own are scanned and not digital copies, but it’s good enough, and their catalogue is not half bad.

      • simple@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        8 months ago

        Just legality. These are paid books that they can’t give away for free, but acting as a library they can let you borrow them, read them, and “return” them.

        In practice you’ll rarely feel this system because you can just re-borrow it whenever you want to read it.

        • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          8 months ago

          Just legality.

          The legality was only ever a grey area. Their days may be numbered, however. During the lockdowns they removed the one physical copy per digital copy lent, and as a result of that they got sued. Instead of settling out of court they drummed up donations to a legal fund and lost hard, and during the trial a judge ruled that their practice was illegal. In my opinion, they should have done everything they could have to settle out of court, rather than try and build a frivilous defense that had no grounding in law.

          Right now, they’re appealing it, so I guess that’s why it’s still up. However it looks like their strategy isn’t any better now than it was then.

          But hey, their laywer’s getting paid.

    • cll7793@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      8 months ago

      In the words of Ubisoft we need to feel “comfortable with not owning your game”. If buying is not owning then piracy is not stealing.

      Got any recommended resources for piracy sites/lists?

  • AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦@lemmy.world
    1·
    8 months ago

    MOOCs.

    They’re free unless you want a “certificate”, which has no practical value and is mostly useful if you want to motivate yourself a bit more and want to support their business model.

    Go browse Coursera and edX and learn to your heart’s content.

    Also, if you’re coding, watch recordings of conferences about your programming language, e.g. CppCon/C++Now/CppNorth for C++, PyCon/PyData for Python etc…

  • edric@lemm.ee
    1·
    8 months ago

    If you’re in the US, you can sign up for Informed Delivery with USPS so you know when to expect incoming important mail. This can help if mail theft is common in your area.

  • Greg Clarke@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    Free tier cloud services like AWS, GCP, Oracle Cloud, and Azure. I use free tier VMs to host random services like VPNs, Mastodon instance, etc.

    Tailscale has a free tier to connect your devices, VMs, and home servers.

    GitHub pages is great for hosting any simple website for free.

  • Crafter72@lemmy.world
    1·
    8 months ago

    Internet Archive - Very useful for general usage internet but not for specific needs (check fmhy).

    Have I Been Pwned? - Periodically use this to check whether your email/online presence is compromised or not.

    Bitwarden (or if you want to self-host it use Vaultwarden) - Personally I used this password management so I can keep my pass and you can auto generate passwords with custom parameters if needed.

    Curated OSINT resources - You want to ID someone online? this resources can help you to do so, though you also need to understand the basics. It may not work if person you’re looking for does not have a much online presence.

  • Leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    Awhile ago, a user on r/casualuk posted a list of UK based stuff that was either free or cheap (food/entertainment/etc). They mirrored it in a few places and I bookmarked the github mirror. Doesn’t look like it’s been updated for a year or so though and I ain’t prepared to head to reddit to check the original.

  • Fudoshin ️🏳️‍🌈@feddit.uk
    01·
    8 months ago

    If women want free penis pictures and rape threats they can visit any ‘incel’ community and state “I am a woman” then sit back and wait.

    I do not recommend this.