Some of life’s best things are free, just like a borrowed book from the library or a digital map that offers the shortest route to any part of the world. However, we tend to pay little attention to them, often taking them for granted.
To remind us of them, people in this online thread were listing free-of-charge items they couldn’t believe were available for free. Scroll down to find the most popular ones that are guaranteed to save you some bucks in the future!
While you’re noting them down, don’t forget to check out a conversation with the person who started this discussion in the first place.
#1
Public Libraries. They do so much good for their communities, providing safe places to work, learn and read and use the internet. Librarians work so incredibly hard to make their local branches welcoming and fun places to explore and people take them for granted. I know they aren’t “free” because we pay for them with taxes, but their budgets are usually incredibly small and they do their best. Most have dvds/blue-rays and video games and audio books as well if you didn’t know. 10/10 would recommend.
Image source: scotch_man, Ricky Esquivel
#2
VLC player for Pc and mobile. The best encoder and decoder ever. It can literally play every audio and video media and is totally free! Wild. The founder refused 55 million dollars for it to keep it free.
Image source: themustacheclubbitch, VLC media player
#3
Wikipedia!
Image source: Friendlygirlfriend04, Oberon Copeland
#4
Smithsonian museums – beautiful, educational, amazing and free .
Image source: OverRice2524, Miguel Cuenca
#5
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
Image source: Putasonder, Kimberly Farmer
#6
Google Maps !
Do you realize we had to pay for maps before ? And it didn’t even indicate the shortest path, neither for cars nor for bikes or walks ? And it was only maps of area and not the entire freaking world ? What a great time to get lost.
Image source: Lucky-Sunshine3, henry perks
#7
Hiking trails (most of them). Maintained, beautiful paths I can just wander whenever I want? Perfect.
Image source: 7937397, Amanda Klamrowski
#8
The info in photos app that tells what kind of plant/animal/bug you take a pic of.
Image source: LazyEyedLion, Priscilla Du Preez
#9
Adblockers.
Image source: lol_camis, cottonbro studio
#10
Linux.
#11
Our neighborhood parks. Walking my dog around a beautiful park is the highlight of my day.
Image source: prunepicker, Helena Lopes
#12
The natural history museum in London.
Go there, it’s awesome.
Image source: LeTreacs
#13
GPS. It costs millions of dollars a day to maintain.
Image source: BassLB
#14
The radio.
Image source: BruceTramp85
#15
Hmm YouTube and online education, you can get so much knowledge that would have been damn near impossible throughout history.
Honorable mentions: Google maps (said before), ChatGPT, libraries.
Image source: ayyG_itsMe, Christian Wiediger
#16
YouTube. It’s crazy how much stuff is on there for free. Sure there’s ads but still.
Image source: suarezj9
#17
The internet! We don’t always think of it as free because you have to pay to _connect_ to the internet but you don’t have to pay to access it. It’s just there, for everyone.
Image source: aburke626, Pixabay
#18
WAZE. For those that don’t know it’s a GPS app that has a community of people that allows you to mark the map for hazards (99% cops). It’s saved me many tickets and has gotten increasingly popular over the years and gets more and more reliabl.
Image source: ChefGordonIII
#19
The Libby app. I know it’s through your library but still, it’s such an amazing resource!
Image source: Otterlyridiculous_
#20
The St. Louis Zoo. Admission is free.
Image source: ApartPiglet4660, Julie Wolpers
#21
Internet Archive.
Image source: BetterThanHorus
#22
Canva is a pretty fantastic design program for basic stuff. They have a paid version with more features but even the free version is pretty robust.
I am a professional designer and use it sometimes over other “deeper” design programs for its simple UI.
Image source: Adventurous-Fix-292, Dose Media
#23
Khan Academy.
Image source: BruceTramp85, Mimi Thian
#24
Blender 3d software.
Image source: Unlikely_Expert4675, Ivan Babydov
#25
Archive of our own. Got me through a lot of pain.
Image source: chillcatcryptid
#26
I have adrmiration for Craigslist and how Jim kept it free (with exception from job & apt ads).
Image source: shaka_sulu, Christin Hume
#27
Poison control.
Image source: jaybird-jazzhands, Davide Baraldi
#28
DaVinci Resolve – video editing software.
Image source: ProfessionalEven296, picjumbo.com
#29
Microsoft defender, it’s the best av software around.
Image source: Pr0digy_
#30
Winzip.
Image source: gnoresbs
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