10 ms·

Handpicked No-Signup Tools

212 points by scastiel 4y ago

dasil003 4y ago
No Excalidraw?
- justin_oaks 4y ago
  I just checked it out. That's a really cool drawing tool. I love how it allows you to give a hand-drawn feel to your drawings and diagrams.
  - foobazzy 4y ago
    I've been using it during design interviews. Love the plethora of shortcuts. It's great! https://excalidraw.com/ https://excalidraw.com/ https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw
ho_schi 4y ago
Why I should... * Remove a background "online"? * Write a resume "online"? * Create an E-mail signature "online"?[1] * Create a profile picture "online"? * ... Operating systems are happily executing programs on your computer, quick, autonomous and reliable. The first in the list which makes sense is Jitsi. Here some personal recommendations: * Use GIMP or KRITA * Use LibreOffice or Latex with moderncv[2] (We're on hackernews, right?) * Use your E-Mail application and plaintext! * Again GIMP or use included tools of the application or network (Signal and other provide it) * For polls you can use often included features of messengers (e.g. reactions in Signal) or non-commercial sites [3] [1] Please use plaintext [2] https://github.com/moderncv/moderncv https://github.com/moderncv/moderncv [3] https://terminplaner4.dfn.de https://terminplaner4.dfn.de
- asicsp 4y ago
  Resume is understandable, if there are themes to choose from (kinda like Overleaf).
- teknolog 4y ago
  Heck, a pencil worked great back when I was a kid! As someone who has to deal with IT security, I will never install anything local if I can avoid it.
  - ho_schi 4y ago
    Therefore upload the resume online on a random site? Which is the most sensible data and a security breach. There tough requirements on companies regarding handling your resumes for reasons.
    - jehb 4y ago
      I understand the concern, but looking at LinkedIn suggests this is not a threat model the vast majority of users are bothered by.
    - gonzo41 4y ago
      Your ignoring that most people have linked in accounts. A resume isn't exactly secret information.
- WA 4y ago
  Why install software, if I can do this quickly in a browser, especially if I need to do this only once?
  - Retr0id 4y ago
    Not to mention the fact that the browser is very well sandboxed and security hardened.
    - ryanianian 4y ago
      > browser is very well sandboxed and security hardened. But the back-end of a browser-only tool may not be. And it may not be online the next time you go to use it. Or it may lose or sell your data.
      - Retr0id 4y ago
        Sure, there's a confidentiality issue with whatever data you upload, but there's low risk of the rest of the data on your system being compromised.
    - egberts1 4y ago
      Very … well … sandboxed … browsers? Ummm, there’s Spectre in JavaScript.
      - Retr0id 4y ago
        And everywhere else? Although it does present a risk to sandboxed environments, Spectre is not a sandboxing issue, it's a CPU bug.
        egberts1 4y ago
        Semantic, shemantic; Risk remains the same.
        4y ago
- Retr0id 4y ago
  RemoveBG is very good at what it does, and it certainly would be nice if there was an offline version. However, there isn't, and I don't think you'll find an offline tool that comes close in terms of quality of result. There are cases were privacy of data isn't a real concern - e.g. you're about to publish the resulting file anyway. If you need to keep your data private, then sure, don't pipe it through an online tool. But that doesn't mean the usescases aren't there.
  - bertman 4y ago
    >However, there isn't, and I don't think you'll find an offline tool that comes close in terms of quality of result. There is: https://github.com/danielgatis/rembg https://github.com/danielgatis/rembg
    - Retr0id 4y ago
      This is great, but again does not come close in terms of quality of result. Take the lion example from the readme: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/danielgatis/rembg/master/examples/animal-3.out.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/danielgatis/rembg/master/e... The alpha blending of the fur around the edges is way off. Compare to RemoveBG results: https://i.imgur.com/Jt2ICsD.png https://i.imgur.com/Jt2ICsD.png Unfortunately it won't let me export in full-res without creating an acount, but the fur is handled properly.
- ranger_danger 4y ago
  Why? Because 99% of the world's population prefers it.
- TekMol 4y ago
  Because of the sandboxing browsers provide. The barrier to install native software should be very, very high. It is like having unprotected sex with someone. There needs to be a high level of trust and a long term commitment. Using a website on the other hand is like exchanging a few nice words. You can do that with a stranger, without much risk. It is also easier to handle. A website can be bookmarked and usually loads in a second or so. Websites are also easy to customize. Usually you can bookmark individual pages directly. Often with the parameters you regularly need. You can zoom in and out of the interface. You can customize the HTML and CSS and even the functionality via bookmarklets. And you can link to websites and everybody - independent of their OS - can instantly use it.
  - bertman 4y ago
    >Using a website on the other hand is like exchanging a few nice words This is absolutely not true if you're supposed to upload (possibly private) images to some random server for e.g. background removal.
    - TekMol 4y ago
      Sure, the words you exchange are now known to the other party. But a native app can upload anything it wants anywhere. Not just the images you processed but anything it can access on your computer.
      - eitland 4y ago
        Good points on both sides. But I am absolutely still in the camp that trusts Gimp way more than uploading photos to a random website.
        nonrandomstring 4y ago
        > Good points on both sides. All the points are true, so we need to dig a little deeper and be more specific about what is at issue here. Online and Native are quite different trust and utility models. Web applications protect the execution environment owned and managed by the user. They do so at the cost of compromising some of the user's data, which must usually be processed remotely. The protection applies to most of the user's data. This trust tradeoff is iterated/ongoing, so that benefits and harms accrue over time. Native applications make a one-off trust transaction. "Is it safe to install on my device?". In the win situation the benefit is speedy and safe processing of all the user's data for all future time. If the user is tricked, then the loss is catastrophic, exposing potentially all of the user's data, perhaps silently/undetectably for considerable future time. That's a very simplified and perhaps naive distinction. Despite the pressures of surveillance capitalism, some web services are honest, TLS and GDPR work, and some users are sensible about what they share online. On the flip side we are seeing that devices come pwned from the factory, at the hardware or firmware level, which makes a nonsense of the whole "endpoint security" paradigm.
- jccalhoun 4y ago
  A lot of people would rather use a single use web site than install a program and learn how to use it. There may be valid reasons to download and install a program but I can't even convince anyone to install a password manager so if my friends ask me how to remove a background on a pick I'm more likely to point them to a website than a program.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  You're already making the assumption that people use desktop or laptop systems and can actually install software; what if they don't have administrator access? What if they're using a chromebook? What if they're on mobile? What if they don't know Latex? And LibreOffice is kinda... ugly and slow in my opinion. They're low-barrier alternatives to the options you provide, and that's absolutely fine.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- solardev 4y ago
  In short, because dedicated developers making one-off projects that do one thing well (a la the Unix philosophy) can serve it over the internet easier than making standalone cross-platform apps. RemoveBG, for example, does a FAR better job (in less than a second) than manual lassoing, feathering, etc. Eventually Photoshop added a similar feature, but not until RemoveBG and its ilk were on the web for a few years. I'm not sure if GIMP has similar auto-bg removal, or if it works as well... but even if it did, it's still more of a learning curve than "upload picture and push remove". Even after two decades of Photoshop usage, it's still faster for me to use RemoveBG to create, say, a new Slack emoji... often I can finish before Photoshop even finishes loading. For resumes, I use Kickresume all the time because they make the process FAR easier than creating a similar thing from scratch in Illustrator, InDesign, or Word. Unlike a dumb template, the resume websites understand the "semantics" of a resume (as in, this section is your employment history, this is your skills, this is your references) and can theme them intelligently, such as displaying skills as numbers, stars, progress bars, or words ("Advanced", "Beginner"), or easily reformatting the dates for you. Then it saves all your resumes, one per employer, in its own easy to use cloud storage. When submitting a bunch of applications (because I'm not fancy enough to have a huge personal network), it takes the time-per-resume from hours down to minutes. It's a huge timesaver. Email signature: Agreed, HTML sigs are overkill. Profile picture: Again, like RemoveBG, it's so much easier to use this than having to learn a vector graphics program, manipulating/centering circles, adding strokes and fills, figuring how to properly place text inside a shape (THIS circle, not that one, and flowing this way, not that!), etc. There's nothing wrong with desktop apps for complex use cases (Office is still way better on the desktop than on the web, for example) but for one-offs, having an easy web app to go to and get the job done in a few seconds is waaaaaaay easier. Not all of us on HN are ideological purists. No way I'm going to bother with LibreOffice and the JVM and Latex just to make a resume when a website can have it done in 5-10 min in a WYSIWYG and zero learning curve.
  - zzo38computer 4y ago
    What if you want a "one thing" simple program to be used by command-line (with pipes), though? What if you want to work without internet connections, too? Interaction with other programs (specified by user)? Use local display options for GUI? etc? HTML is not very good for that, I think. (While you can make local HTML files that work without internet connection, it isn't very well for some kinds of uses. And, this does not solve any of the other issues that I had mentioned, too.)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
asicsp 4y ago
Found https://www.onelook.com/ https://www.onelook.com/ under writing, looks good for word related lookups. I'd add https://edit.photo/ https://edit.photo/ "No popups to close. No ads to ignore. No cookies to accept. No account to create. 100% Free"
3np 4y ago
Friendly reminder to consider that any and all information supplied to these services may be harvested (with or without knowledge by the creator, depending on how they deploy). Consider using tor or similar to mask your IP, don't upload a scan of your passport to an online image editor, and so on. For tools that provide source, it's often straightforward to run them locally.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Came here to say this too. A super useful addition to this website would be a blurb on each tool page that discloses how they make their money to keep the lights on, and what their privacy policy looks like. If they're fully supported by donations (or paid users, but have a no-account freemium plan somehow), and have a strong privacy policy, great! But if they support themselves by granting themselves a perpetual-use license to anything you upload, and sell whatever data on you they can, that's... not so great.
rozenmd 4y ago
I love when the website you land in is the app, with no signup, like tldraw (https://www.tldraw.com/ https://www.tldraw.com/).
jakub_g 4y ago
Semi-related: Ever since moving from Windows to MacOS, I was desperately looking for a replacement for MSPaint for the following use case: "paste an image, crop it properly, crop further, put red bold square box around the interesting part, add some text and arrows". All tools are tried make this way less ergonomic than ol' good MSPaint. Then I remembered this ridiculous idea someone had to port MSPaint to JavaScript: https://jspaint.app/ https://jspaint.app/ Hallelujah!
- ecopoesis 4y ago
  Preview, despite its name, does this really well. Its freeform drawing tools are a little different (shapes and lines are vector, not pixel) but they're very easy to use.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  You can do this with Preview → Annotations You can have the annotations palette always displayed. I haven't used MSPaint since the Windows XP days, but I don't think it can be any easier than this.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  I would take a screenshot of part of my screen (CMND+Shift+4), mark up the screenshot with a red box then send. A screenshot is plenty high res enough already. If anything you’ll want to shrink or before sending.
- etaioinshrdlu 4y ago
  I like photopea nowadays.
- justin_oaks 4y ago
  I mostly need to do that kind of thing on screenshots. The Flameshot app has worked really well for taking screenshots and annotating them. https://flameshot.org/ https://flameshot.org/
Retr0id 4y ago
Add https://8mb.video/ https://8mb.video/ to the list - it does exactly what it says on the tin (and while it doesn't explicitly mention it, its broader purpose is to compress videos down to Discord's file size limit)
- WMaking 4y ago
  Thank you! I've spent far too much time in HandBrake when I could've been using this. You have improved my life
- iamjackg 4y ago
  I've had a bash script in my PATH that uses ffmpeg exactly to do this for the longest time. This is great!
- skybrian 4y ago
  Looks like this does the work on the server? I wonder if it could be done in WebAssembly to avoid the round trip and server load?
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    It could be done, but it might be slow.
TekMol 4y ago
I typed "upscale" and got nothing. Is there any good AI based image upscaling software online?
- xzjis 4y ago
  Search for waifu2x websites, there are tons on the internet. Here's one: https://waifu2x.io/ https://waifu2x.io/
- adamhowell 4y ago
  https://letsenhance.io/ https://letsenhance.io/
bongobingo1 4y ago
Site needs some work: - Clicking text in filter categories doesn't work - Images have pointer cursor but clicking them wont open the link
skilled 4y ago
remove.bg marked as Free has to be a joke, right? It's literally 1 credit for the "Free" experience... nice "Staff pick"
- codetrotter 4y ago
  Agree. They only let you download a low resolution version of your image by default. To download full resolution, sign up is required, and to use it again will require getting credits if you want to download full resolution of those other images. Should not be considered a “no-signup tool” imo
ux 4y ago
Alternatively, you can use http://bugmenot.com/ http://bugmenot.com/ (doesn't work that often I must admit)
- elwebmaster 4y ago
  This used to be a great tool but hasn’t worked for me since 5-7 years. Maybe it can be implemented in Web3.0 to make it more reliable?
  - ssd532 4y ago
    How can it leverage web3? I am on a break and in a hunt for a web3 project to build.
ryangittins 4y ago
Great idea! I've submitted my side project, https://siftrss.com/ https://siftrss.com/. It lets you add filters to any RSS feed for free in a few seconds. It's great for filtering news, podcasts, and anything else you get via RSS down to just the items you want to see.
- subeadia 4y ago
  I bookmarked this two months ago--what a fantastic utility!
  - ryangittins 4y ago
    Thanks, I'm glad you're liking it!
zubairq 4y ago
Yazz.com, a low code tool needs no sign up to use
byyll 4y ago
In case the owner reads this, category filter check boxes are missing IDs which makes the label not associated with them and it can't be used to check/uncheck.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DitheringIdiot 4y ago
Doesn't load for me, just says "there's nothing here yet"
justin_oaks 4y ago
For developer tools, I noticed that CyberChef [1] wasn't on the list so I submitted it. I regularly use it for - URL encoding/decoding - QR code generation - JSON and XML pretty-printing - Base64 encoding/decoding but it does way more than that. [1] https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/ https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/
- TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
  I feel like I shouldn't trust an encryption website by the British NSA not to steal my data, but given a million other people must have had the same thought, and that it's open source, maybe someone would have noticed by now.
  - justin_oaks 4y ago
    Those are valid concerns and it's smart to think about those things. I had the same thoughts initially. Using your browser developer tools, you can see what HTTP requests it makes. It's all just loading code. Also, you can use a local copy of it to ensure you're not getting a hacked/targeted version that's different between times that you use it. I use a local copy. You can find a downloadable zip file in the releases section: https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/releases https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/releases You could also build it from the source, but I haven't bothered to set that up.
  - rozab 4y ago
    All the software crackers and hackers of the world seem to be happy using the NSA's Ghidra, the industry standard reverse engineering tool
- franga2000 4y ago
  For anyone who isn't convinced yet: it can not just do all those things, it can chain them. You can build a pipeline jist by dragging and dropping blocks, with live results and even recommendations when some formats are detected . During a reverse engineering project I built this to extract some audio data from a very strange API: string replace | json parse + query | base64 decode | gunzip | add wav header. Switching to zstd and a different bitrate took 2 clicks. Really helped me stay "in the zone" while working - having to open up a code editor and Python docs to write this from scratch would've taken me completely out of it and wasted a significant amount of time.
turtlebits 4y ago
If there's no signup and it's free, you have to very wary on what the "trick" is, because nothing is truly free. Most of the potentially useful ones looks like trial with locked features.
- bil7 4y ago
  the FOSS community might disagree with this statement
  - justin_oaks 4y ago
    The FOSS community is also aware that there are scammers out there masquerading as good folks. Besides, free online tools with closed source server-side components are fundamentally different than open source tools.
- Swizec 4y ago
  Or it could be some dude’s personal tool that’s easier to also make available to others. I do that a lot because remembering a custom domain is quicker than some CLI incantation. For example: https://techletter.app https://techletter.app – I use it to construct my newsletters. Markdown with a few customizations into HTML for WYSIWYG editors. It’s cheap enough to run that I don’t care if others use it. I think the AWS credits add up to $3/mo.
  - turtlebits 4y ago
    I'd like to believe you, but just looking at the network requests for your markdown tool, I see facebook, google, simpleanalytics, stripe, sentry, checkoutpage
    - Swizec 4y ago
      And yet you can use it completely for free without signup Once upon a time I thought about trying to monetize, but meh. There’s bigger fish to fry
- 4y ago
jabbany 4y ago
I wonder if the tools are also vetted for security. IIRC there was some supply chain attack that had to do with similar no-signup tools injecting SEO scam code (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27427330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27427330)
- justin_oaks 4y ago
  Good point. I'm very wary of submitting anything security sensitive to an unfamiliar web site, especially one I don't have a business relationship with. If you have a business relationship with them (i.e. give them money), they're less likely to do something bad with your data since it may cause you to stop giving them money. That's why I won't use tools like an online PDF tool when I'm dealing with PDFs that contain sensitive information.
- a1369209993 4y ago
  That wouldn't do any good; these are network services, so they could always add attack code after the vetting, or perform a de-anonymization attack (trivial if you're not using TOR, potentially jury-riggable (eg based on what files you use them on) even if you are) and send it only to targeted visitors.
justin_oaks 4y ago
Although it's got some nice things listed, the site seems to be missing some of the best tools out there. I recommend Diagrams.net [1] for creating diagrams. I use it as my primary diagramming tool. [1] https://www.diagrams.net/ https://www.diagrams.net/
kwanbix 4y ago
RemoveBG is clearly not free (unless we count one single image) and you need to register (to get that single image). Love the product, but the "to-go" prices are too high imho.
sabr 4y ago
Smort.io doesn't require a signup too! Smort lets you easily annotate and share an article or arXiv paper. Just add Smort.io before any URL to read it in Smort. Demo: https://smort.io/demo/home https://smort.io/demo/home Disclaimer: I built Smort
elwebmaster 4y ago
I would add https://scrumpoker.app/ https://scrumpoker.app/ to the list also. Great initiative otherwise, have you considered driving the catalogue through GitHub PRs so the list can stay up to date?
theo_champion 4y ago
Oh, my site https://snaplink.dev https://snaplink.dev in in there, so random!
_dain_ 4y ago
Trainline.com is for buying train tickets in the UK/EU, doesn't require any signup at all. Pretty good.
nileshtrivedi 4y ago
A couple of my tools that don't require signup: - Grapher (a visual editor for graph datasets with features like nested nodes, custom attributes on nodes and edges, and export in Cytoscape JSON or SVG format. Accessible at: https://grapherx.netlify.app/ https://grapherx.netlify.app/ - LearnDB (A curated collection of links to educational resources organized by topics, formats, reviews and other tags). Accessible at: https://learndb.vercel.app/ https://learndb.vercel.app/
pawelkobojek 4y ago
Disclaimer: I'm a Co Founder of the service I'm linking. Scraping Fish (https://scrapingfish.com https://scrapingfish.com) doesn't require a sign up. It is a paid service though. We (obviously) don't sell your data.

212 points by scastiel 4y ago

dasil003 4y ago

No Excalidraw?

justin_oaks 4y ago
I just checked it out. That's a really cool drawing tool. I love how it allows you to give a hand-drawn feel to your drawings and diagrams.
- foobazzy 4y ago
  I've been using it during design interviews. Love the plethora of shortcuts. It's great! https://excalidraw.com/ https://excalidraw.com/ https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw

ho_schi 4y ago

Why I should... * Remove a background "online"? * Write a resume "online"? * Create an E-mail signature "online"?[1] * Create a profile picture "online"? * ... Operating systems are happily executing programs on your computer, quick, autonomous and reliable. The first in the list which makes sense is Jitsi. Here some personal recommendations: * Use GIMP or KRITA * Use LibreOffice or Latex with moderncv[2] (We're on hackernews, right?) * Use your E-Mail application and plaintext! * Again GIMP or use included tools of the application or network (Signal and other provide it) * For polls you can use often included features of messengers (e.g. reactions in Signal) or non-commercial sites [3] [1] Please use plaintext [2] https://github.com/moderncv/moderncv https://github.com/moderncv/moderncv [3] https://terminplaner4.dfn.de https://terminplaner4.dfn.de

asicsp 4y ago
Resume is understandable, if there are themes to choose from (kinda like Overleaf).
teknolog 4y ago
Heck, a pencil worked great back when I was a kid! As someone who has to deal with IT security, I will never install anything local if I can avoid it.
- ho_schi 4y ago
  Therefore upload the resume online on a random site? Which is the most sensible data and a security breach. There tough requirements on companies regarding handling your resumes for reasons.
  - jehb 4y ago
    I understand the concern, but looking at LinkedIn suggests this is not a threat model the vast majority of users are bothered by.
  - gonzo41 4y ago
    Your ignoring that most people have linked in accounts. A resume isn't exactly secret information.
WA 4y ago
Why install software, if I can do this quickly in a browser, especially if I need to do this only once?
- Retr0id 4y ago
  Not to mention the fact that the browser is very well sandboxed and security hardened.
  - ryanianian 4y ago
    > browser is very well sandboxed and security hardened. But the back-end of a browser-only tool may not be. And it may not be online the next time you go to use it. Or it may lose or sell your data.
    - Retr0id 4y ago
      Sure, there's a confidentiality issue with whatever data you upload, but there's low risk of the rest of the data on your system being compromised.
  - egberts1 4y ago
    Very … well … sandboxed … browsers? Ummm, there’s Spectre in JavaScript.
    - Retr0id 4y ago
      And everywhere else? Although it does present a risk to sandboxed environments, Spectre is not a sandboxing issue, it's a CPU bug.
      - egberts1 4y ago
        Semantic, shemantic; Risk remains the same.
        4y ago
Retr0id 4y ago
RemoveBG is very good at what it does, and it certainly would be nice if there was an offline version. However, there isn't, and I don't think you'll find an offline tool that comes close in terms of quality of result. There are cases were privacy of data isn't a real concern - e.g. you're about to publish the resulting file anyway. If you need to keep your data private, then sure, don't pipe it through an online tool. But that doesn't mean the usescases aren't there.
- bertman 4y ago
  >However, there isn't, and I don't think you'll find an offline tool that comes close in terms of quality of result. There is: https://github.com/danielgatis/rembg https://github.com/danielgatis/rembg
  - Retr0id 4y ago
    This is great, but again does not come close in terms of quality of result. Take the lion example from the readme: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/danielgatis/rembg/master/examples/animal-3.out.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/danielgatis/rembg/master/e... The alpha blending of the fur around the edges is way off. Compare to RemoveBG results: https://i.imgur.com/Jt2ICsD.png https://i.imgur.com/Jt2ICsD.png Unfortunately it won't let me export in full-res without creating an acount, but the fur is handled properly.
ranger_danger 4y ago
Why? Because 99% of the world's population prefers it.
TekMol 4y ago
Because of the sandboxing browsers provide. The barrier to install native software should be very, very high. It is like having unprotected sex with someone. There needs to be a high level of trust and a long term commitment. Using a website on the other hand is like exchanging a few nice words. You can do that with a stranger, without much risk. It is also easier to handle. A website can be bookmarked and usually loads in a second or so. Websites are also easy to customize. Usually you can bookmark individual pages directly. Often with the parameters you regularly need. You can zoom in and out of the interface. You can customize the HTML and CSS and even the functionality via bookmarklets. And you can link to websites and everybody - independent of their OS - can instantly use it.
- bertman 4y ago
  >Using a website on the other hand is like exchanging a few nice words This is absolutely not true if you're supposed to upload (possibly private) images to some random server for e.g. background removal.
  - TekMol 4y ago
    Sure, the words you exchange are now known to the other party. But a native app can upload anything it wants anywhere. Not just the images you processed but anything it can access on your computer.
    - eitland 4y ago
      Good points on both sides. But I am absolutely still in the camp that trusts Gimp way more than uploading photos to a random website.
      - nonrandomstring 4y ago
        > Good points on both sides. All the points are true, so we need to dig a little deeper and be more specific about what is at issue here. Online and Native are quite different trust and utility models. Web applications protect the execution environment owned and managed by the user. They do so at the cost of compromising some of the user's data, which must usually be processed remotely. The protection applies to most of the user's data. This trust tradeoff is iterated/ongoing, so that benefits and harms accrue over time. Native applications make a one-off trust transaction. "Is it safe to install on my device?". In the win situation the benefit is speedy and safe processing of all the user's data for all future time. If the user is tricked, then the loss is catastrophic, exposing potentially all of the user's data, perhaps silently/undetectably for considerable future time. That's a very simplified and perhaps naive distinction. Despite the pressures of surveillance capitalism, some web services are honest, TLS and GDPR work, and some users are sensible about what they share online. On the flip side we are seeing that devices come pwned from the factory, at the hardware or firmware level, which makes a nonsense of the whole "endpoint security" paradigm.
jccalhoun 4y ago
A lot of people would rather use a single use web site than install a program and learn how to use it. There may be valid reasons to download and install a program but I can't even convince anyone to install a password manager so if my friends ask me how to remove a background on a pick I'm more likely to point them to a website than a program.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
You're already making the assumption that people use desktop or laptop systems and can actually install software; what if they don't have administrator access? What if they're using a chromebook? What if they're on mobile? What if they don't know Latex? And LibreOffice is kinda... ugly and slow in my opinion. They're low-barrier alternatives to the options you provide, and that's absolutely fine.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
solardev 4y ago
In short, because dedicated developers making one-off projects that do one thing well (a la the Unix philosophy) can serve it over the internet easier than making standalone cross-platform apps. RemoveBG, for example, does a FAR better job (in less than a second) than manual lassoing, feathering, etc. Eventually Photoshop added a similar feature, but not until RemoveBG and its ilk were on the web for a few years. I'm not sure if GIMP has similar auto-bg removal, or if it works as well... but even if it did, it's still more of a learning curve than "upload picture and push remove". Even after two decades of Photoshop usage, it's still faster for me to use RemoveBG to create, say, a new Slack emoji... often I can finish before Photoshop even finishes loading. For resumes, I use Kickresume all the time because they make the process FAR easier than creating a similar thing from scratch in Illustrator, InDesign, or Word. Unlike a dumb template, the resume websites understand the "semantics" of a resume (as in, this section is your employment history, this is your skills, this is your references) and can theme them intelligently, such as displaying skills as numbers, stars, progress bars, or words ("Advanced", "Beginner"), or easily reformatting the dates for you. Then it saves all your resumes, one per employer, in its own easy to use cloud storage. When submitting a bunch of applications (because I'm not fancy enough to have a huge personal network), it takes the time-per-resume from hours down to minutes. It's a huge timesaver. Email signature: Agreed, HTML sigs are overkill. Profile picture: Again, like RemoveBG, it's so much easier to use this than having to learn a vector graphics program, manipulating/centering circles, adding strokes and fills, figuring how to properly place text inside a shape (THIS circle, not that one, and flowing this way, not that!), etc. There's nothing wrong with desktop apps for complex use cases (Office is still way better on the desktop than on the web, for example) but for one-offs, having an easy web app to go to and get the job done in a few seconds is waaaaaaay easier. Not all of us on HN are ideological purists. No way I'm going to bother with LibreOffice and the JVM and Latex just to make a resume when a website can have it done in 5-10 min in a WYSIWYG and zero learning curve.
- zzo38computer 4y ago
  What if you want a "one thing" simple program to be used by command-line (with pipes), though? What if you want to work without internet connections, too? Interaction with other programs (specified by user)? Use local display options for GUI? etc? HTML is not very good for that, I think. (While you can make local HTML files that work without internet connection, it isn't very well for some kinds of uses. And, this does not solve any of the other issues that I had mentioned, too.)
deleted 4y ago
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asicsp 4y ago

Found https://www.onelook.com/ https://www.onelook.com/ under writing, looks good for word related lookups. I'd add https://edit.photo/ https://edit.photo/ "No popups to close. No ads to ignore. No cookies to accept. No account to create. 100% Free"

3np 4y ago

Friendly reminder to consider that any and all information supplied to these services may be harvested (with or without knowledge by the creator, depending on how they deploy). Consider using tor or similar to mask your IP, don't upload a scan of your passport to an online image editor, and so on. For tools that provide source, it's often straightforward to run them locally.

kelnos 4y ago
Came here to say this too. A super useful addition to this website would be a blurb on each tool page that discloses how they make their money to keep the lights on, and what their privacy policy looks like. If they're fully supported by donations (or paid users, but have a no-account freemium plan somehow), and have a strong privacy policy, great! But if they support themselves by granting themselves a perpetual-use license to anything you upload, and sell whatever data on you they can, that's... not so great.

rozenmd 4y ago

I love when the website you land in is the app, with no signup, like tldraw (https://www.tldraw.com/ https://www.tldraw.com/).

jakub_g 4y ago

Semi-related: Ever since moving from Windows to MacOS, I was desperately looking for a replacement for MSPaint for the following use case: "paste an image, crop it properly, crop further, put red bold square box around the interesting part, add some text and arrows". All tools are tried make this way less ergonomic than ol' good MSPaint. Then I remembered this ridiculous idea someone had to port MSPaint to JavaScript: https://jspaint.app/ https://jspaint.app/ Hallelujah!

ecopoesis 4y ago
Preview, despite its name, does this really well. Its freeform drawing tools are a little different (shapes and lines are vector, not pixel) but they're very easy to use.
vladvasiliu 4y ago
You can do this with Preview → Annotations You can have the annotations palette always displayed. I haven't used MSPaint since the Windows XP days, but I don't think it can be any easier than this.
unsupp0rted 4y ago
I would take a screenshot of part of my screen (CMND+Shift+4), mark up the screenshot with a red box then send. A screenshot is plenty high res enough already. If anything you’ll want to shrink or before sending.
etaioinshrdlu 4y ago
I like photopea nowadays.
justin_oaks 4y ago
I mostly need to do that kind of thing on screenshots. The Flameshot app has worked really well for taking screenshots and annotating them. https://flameshot.org/ https://flameshot.org/

Retr0id 4y ago

Add https://8mb.video/ https://8mb.video/ to the list - it does exactly what it says on the tin (and while it doesn't explicitly mention it, its broader purpose is to compress videos down to Discord's file size limit)

WMaking 4y ago
Thank you! I've spent far too much time in HandBrake when I could've been using this. You have improved my life
iamjackg 4y ago
I've had a bash script in my PATH that uses ffmpeg exactly to do this for the longest time. This is great!
skybrian 4y ago
Looks like this does the work on the server? I wonder if it could be done in WebAssembly to avoid the round trip and server load?
- zozbot234 4y ago
  It could be done, but it might be slow.

TekMol 4y ago

I typed "upscale" and got nothing. Is there any good AI based image upscaling software online?

xzjis 4y ago
Search for waifu2x websites, there are tons on the internet. Here's one: https://waifu2x.io/ https://waifu2x.io/
adamhowell 4y ago
https://letsenhance.io/ https://letsenhance.io/

bongobingo1 4y ago

Site needs some work: - Clicking text in filter categories doesn't work - Images have pointer cursor but clicking them wont open the link

skilled 4y ago

remove.bg marked as Free has to be a joke, right? It's literally 1 credit for the "Free" experience... nice "Staff pick"

codetrotter 4y ago
Agree. They only let you download a low resolution version of your image by default. To download full resolution, sign up is required, and to use it again will require getting credits if you want to download full resolution of those other images. Should not be considered a “no-signup tool” imo

ux 4y ago

Alternatively, you can use http://bugmenot.com/ http://bugmenot.com/ (doesn't work that often I must admit)

elwebmaster 4y ago
This used to be a great tool but hasn’t worked for me since 5-7 years. Maybe it can be implemented in Web3.0 to make it more reliable?
- ssd532 4y ago
  How can it leverage web3? I am on a break and in a hunt for a web3 project to build.

ryangittins 4y ago

Great idea! I've submitted my side project, https://siftrss.com/ https://siftrss.com/. It lets you add filters to any RSS feed for free in a few seconds. It's great for filtering news, podcasts, and anything else you get via RSS down to just the items you want to see.

subeadia 4y ago
I bookmarked this two months ago--what a fantastic utility!
- ryangittins 4y ago
  Thanks, I'm glad you're liking it!

zubairq 4y ago

Yazz.com, a low code tool needs no sign up to use

byyll 4y ago

In case the owner reads this, category filter check boxes are missing IDs which makes the label not associated with them and it can't be used to check/uncheck.

deleted 4y ago

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DitheringIdiot 4y ago

Doesn't load for me, just says "there's nothing here yet"

justin_oaks 4y ago

For developer tools, I noticed that CyberChef [1] wasn't on the list so I submitted it. I regularly use it for - URL encoding/decoding - QR code generation - JSON and XML pretty-printing - Base64 encoding/decoding but it does way more than that. [1] https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/ https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
I feel like I shouldn't trust an encryption website by the British NSA not to steal my data, but given a million other people must have had the same thought, and that it's open source, maybe someone would have noticed by now.
- justin_oaks 4y ago
  Those are valid concerns and it's smart to think about those things. I had the same thoughts initially. Using your browser developer tools, you can see what HTTP requests it makes. It's all just loading code. Also, you can use a local copy of it to ensure you're not getting a hacked/targeted version that's different between times that you use it. I use a local copy. You can find a downloadable zip file in the releases section: https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/releases https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/releases You could also build it from the source, but I haven't bothered to set that up.
- rozab 4y ago
  All the software crackers and hackers of the world seem to be happy using the NSA's Ghidra, the industry standard reverse engineering tool
franga2000 4y ago
For anyone who isn't convinced yet: it can not just do all those things, it can chain them. You can build a pipeline jist by dragging and dropping blocks, with live results and even recommendations when some formats are detected . During a reverse engineering project I built this to extract some audio data from a very strange API: string replace | json parse + query | base64 decode | gunzip | add wav header. Switching to zstd and a different bitrate took 2 clicks. Really helped me stay "in the zone" while working - having to open up a code editor and Python docs to write this from scratch would've taken me completely out of it and wasted a significant amount of time.

turtlebits 4y ago

If there's no signup and it's free, you have to very wary on what the "trick" is, because nothing is truly free. Most of the potentially useful ones looks like trial with locked features.

bil7 4y ago
the FOSS community might disagree with this statement
- justin_oaks 4y ago
  The FOSS community is also aware that there are scammers out there masquerading as good folks. Besides, free online tools with closed source server-side components are fundamentally different than open source tools.
Swizec 4y ago
Or it could be some dude’s personal tool that’s easier to also make available to others. I do that a lot because remembering a custom domain is quicker than some CLI incantation. For example: https://techletter.app https://techletter.app – I use it to construct my newsletters. Markdown with a few customizations into HTML for WYSIWYG editors. It’s cheap enough to run that I don’t care if others use it. I think the AWS credits add up to $3/mo.
- turtlebits 4y ago
  I'd like to believe you, but just looking at the network requests for your markdown tool, I see facebook, google, simpleanalytics, stripe, sentry, checkoutpage
  - Swizec 4y ago
    And yet you can use it completely for free without signup Once upon a time I thought about trying to monetize, but meh. There’s bigger fish to fry
4y ago

jabbany 4y ago

I wonder if the tools are also vetted for security. IIRC there was some supply chain attack that had to do with similar no-signup tools injecting SEO scam code (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27427330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27427330)

justin_oaks 4y ago
Good point. I'm very wary of submitting anything security sensitive to an unfamiliar web site, especially one I don't have a business relationship with. If you have a business relationship with them (i.e. give them money), they're less likely to do something bad with your data since it may cause you to stop giving them money. That's why I won't use tools like an online PDF tool when I'm dealing with PDFs that contain sensitive information.
a1369209993 4y ago
That wouldn't do any good; these are network services, so they could always add attack code after the vetting, or perform a de-anonymization attack (trivial if you're not using TOR, potentially jury-riggable (eg based on what files you use them on) even if you are) and send it only to targeted visitors.

justin_oaks 4y ago

Although it's got some nice things listed, the site seems to be missing some of the best tools out there. I recommend Diagrams.net [1] for creating diagrams. I use it as my primary diagramming tool. [1] https://www.diagrams.net/ https://www.diagrams.net/

kwanbix 4y ago

RemoveBG is clearly not free (unless we count one single image) and you need to register (to get that single image). Love the product, but the "to-go" prices are too high imho.

sabr 4y ago

Smort.io doesn't require a signup too! Smort lets you easily annotate and share an article or arXiv paper. Just add Smort.io before any URL to read it in Smort. Demo: https://smort.io/demo/home https://smort.io/demo/home Disclaimer: I built Smort

elwebmaster 4y ago

I would add https://scrumpoker.app/ https://scrumpoker.app/ to the list also. Great initiative otherwise, have you considered driving the catalogue through GitHub PRs so the list can stay up to date?

theo_champion 4y ago

Oh, my site https://snaplink.dev https://snaplink.dev in in there, so random!

_dain_ 4y ago

Trainline.com is for buying train tickets in the UK/EU, doesn't require any signup at all. Pretty good.

nileshtrivedi 4y ago

A couple of my tools that don't require signup: - Grapher (a visual editor for graph datasets with features like nested nodes, custom attributes on nodes and edges, and export in Cytoscape JSON or SVG format. Accessible at: https://grapherx.netlify.app/ https://grapherx.netlify.app/ - LearnDB (A curated collection of links to educational resources organized by topics, formats, reviews and other tags). Accessible at: https://learndb.vercel.app/ https://learndb.vercel.app/

pawelkobojek 4y ago

Disclaimer: I'm a Co Founder of the service I'm linking. Scraping Fish (https://scrapingfish.com https://scrapingfish.com) doesn't require a sign up. It is a paid service though. We (obviously) don't sell your data.