Favorite Websites

15   8.4  

Reddit
Make sure to install Reddit Enhancement Suite so you can block submissions with unwanted keywords like Bieber from appearing on your Reddit page. I put inactive or small subreddits into my dashboard.

You should know you can only subscribe to 50 subreddits before Reddit randomly selects which are on your front page.

Some Recommended Subreddits
explainlikeimfive - ask questions and receive answers a five year old should understand, ideally.
True Film - discuss great films with other cinephiles.
True Reddit - Read and discuss in depth articles.
Gaming Subreddits - these subreddits generally have better content than r/gaming, which has too much memes and Valve love for my taste.

4   8.5  

Have you ever been on Wikipedia and spent hours reading random links? TV Tropes is like this but a thousand times more addictive. This site is much better than Cracked and it's not nearly as sophmoric.

0   0  

Some 4chan posts are funny, but illegal pictures (which are removed very quickly) are posted on the boards, and you don't want those on your computer. If you want to delete anything safely, I recommend Eraser. Reddit has similar humor and stricter moderation.

3   7  

Snopes is a site about whether legends are true or false, but I'd rather read TV Tropes.

1   0  

StumbleUpon is a web browser add on to browse certain types of popular sites based on your preferences. The add-on is pretty bad for productivity; it held my interest for too long.

1   0  

Programming sites -
Stack Overflow
Code Ranch

6   7  

I use Workflowy to list all my to do-lists in one master list.

14   9.5  

The Onion sometimes has incredible dark humor articles like Kidnapped Boy Found Safe, Imagines Kidnapped Boy.

1   0  

My favorite movie pictures sites are
Doctor Macro and Tout le Cine.

30   8.7  

I use MyAnimeList for the automatic recommendations on this webpage (the profile is my account).

1   0  

Many universities offer some of their classes for free (without grading of course); some even have videos of their lectures.

Examples: MIT, Harvard, and Yale.

Here's a list of some classes offered by a variety of colleges.

Khan Academy is a free source of educational videos.

1   0  

This site has supreme court cases on audio (there's no video record of Supreme Court cases). They're great for learning about ethical problems, and could be used for homework.

96   7.7  

I made a list of my favorite speeches (mostly Ted Talks).

This Google spreadsheet has the most popular Ted Talks.

30   8.3  

Wolfram Alpha - this site is great for unit conversion and math problems.

1   8  

Archive is a great source for public domain media; you can use the wayback machine feature to view cached versions of deleted web pages. Here's an example. I made an incomplete list of Public domain movies, and someone else made a larger list of free movies on Archive.
This YouTube user uploaded a lot of public domain films.

If you want royalty free (but not public domain) media for projects, I recommend Getty Images.

23   7  

You can download this script to block or ban certain domains.
Google Video searches more websites than YouTube.
My favorite video site is YouTube. You should use these scripts which you can use directly with Chrome, or with GreaseMonkey for Firefox - YouTube Blocklist (block annoying YouTube users) and this Bypass YouTube Age Verification, if you don't want to create a Google account to use YouTube.
The Firefox add-on YouTube Comment Snob allows you to filter certain types of comments, or block them all.
I use Vimeo to watch free movies in usually higher quality.

1   0  

Wikipedia is my favorite free encyclopedia. The founder of Wikipedia, created a for-profit site called Wikia, which are Wikipedia type webpages for many things like Earthbound the video game.

1   0  

My favorite browser is Firefox.
Mozilla has a page to check for add on updates.
Favorite Add-ons
Leechblock - create daily limits for yourself for websites like reddit.
Swiffout lets you play flash games in full screen.
AutoPager - automatically add the next page instead of always clicking next.
Security and Privacy
NoScript - block javascript and other security risks.
AdBlock - block ads on certain sites and block web page elements you dislike.
BetterPrivacy - 'Remove or manage a new and uncommon kind of cookies, better known as LSO's.'
HTTPS Everywhere - use secure connections on many sites. (Chrome and Firefox)
Web Of Trust - see when websites are known attack or scam sites.
Ghostery - Ghostery tracks the trackers and gives you a roll-call of the... companies interested in your activity.' (Supports multiple browsers)
ShareMeNot - 'Protecting against tracking
from third-party social media buttons while still allowing you to use them' (supports Chrome)

Using many add ons can slow down your browser.

1   0  

Scripts from UserScripts.org make web browsing easier.

You can use scripts with Greasemonkey for Firefox; Chrome supports script installation without the need for add ons.

2   0  

AutoHotKey is a good program that lets you create shortcuts for certain things you often type. It really helps with making lists.

For example my script has this text
Code:

::imgs::<img src="" />
return

I can type imgs instead of typing or copy and pasting it.

1   0  

You can use CCleaner to delete your history (the software has an option to use multiple passes when you delete), and Eraser to make your files almost unrecoverable.

5   8.8  

I use Infranview for simple photo manipulation and conversions. I haven't tried more complex software like Photoshop (the not-free standard) or Gimp.

1   0  

Foobar is my favorite music player, but you need to install some components for compatibility with other audio types.

1   0  

VLC is a good video player, but I recommend Media Player Classic for greater compatibility and if you want to use back up blu ray images.

2   0  

Microsoft Security Essentials should be good enough virus protection (I'm not guaranteeing anything), but if you're really concerned you could combine it with TeaTimer (not necessary in my opinion).

3   9  

Open Office files are compatible with Microsoft Office files, and it's free; Office doesn't have enough features for me to buy it.

1   0  

JDownloader lets you automatically download from multiple sites like Rapidshare, and if there are captchas a small box pops up (it doesn't interrupt as much as you might think) for you to download on those sites. You can set automatic passwords and automatically extract compressed files.

108   7.7  

This site allow you to combine many freeware installers into one custom installation package; this site's very convenient for use on new computers.

If you want to torrent with legal sites like MiniNova, you should use PeerBlock and set the protocol encryption to forced in Utorrent's preferences (allowing incoming legacy connections means allowing peers that don't have file sharing encrypted, and makes downloading a lot faster). Some people pay to use proxy servers, but I don't.

I'm not advocating piracy, but if you want to know more about laws against file-sharing I recommend the site TorrentFreak.

6   9.8  

Perrry Bible Fellowship

8   7.4  

Buttersafe

2   9.5  

Oglaf is an incredibly funny and NSFW medieval fantasy comic.

1714   8.1  

Hyperbole and a Half

2   9  

Ted Rall's site

Mr. Saturn's rating:

30   8.3  

Penny Aracde

11   8.2  

I use this site, to manage what TV shows I'm watching. The site doesn't have any social features like sharing what shows you're watching or discussion boards, but it is a good tool. The site would be better with an auto-recommendation feature (I use IMDB for that) and bigger charts for popular shows.