Cool Websites — July 16, 2026

A fresh batch of 35 hand-picked, genuinely useful corners of the internet — from encrypted DNS firewalls and OSINT reverse lookups to AI music generation, peaceful city builders, and ambient sound mixers.

🔐 Security & Privacy

NextDNS

Your personal configurable DNS firewall in the cloud. NextDNS blocks ads, trackers, and malware domains at the DNS level — encrypted via DNS-over-HTTPS or DNS-over-TLS — using a massive library of blocklists you can customize per-device or per-profile. The free tier gives you 300,000 queries a month with full logging and analytics, and zero ads.

Standard Notes

A dead-simple, end-to-end encrypted note-taking app that works on every platform. Unlike apps that bolt encryption on as a paid add-on, Standard Notes encrypts everything by default on the free plan — unlimited notes, unlimited device sync, offline access, and no ads. Only you hold the decryption keys.

Ente Photos

A fully open-source, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos. Ente backs up your photos and videos with E2E encryption (externally audited by Cure53), replicates them to three geographically separate locations, and keeps the client apps open source — Android, iOS, web, and desktop. Free tier includes 5 GB forever.

🕵️ OSINT & Investigation

Epieos

Paste in an email address or phone number and Epieos quietly scans 140+ websites and social networks to map the digital footprint tied to that identifier — linked accounts, profile photos, breach history, and more — without alerting the target. Freemium: basic Google/Skype results are free; deeper modules require a paid tier.

TinEye

The original reverse image search engine, and still the best for finding where a photo has appeared online. Upload an image or paste a URL and TinEye will surface every known match across its 70+ billion indexed images, sorted by best match, oldest use, or newest appearance. Essential for fact-checking and tracking image origin.

SpiderFoot

An open-source OSINT automation framework with 200+ modules that automatically aggregates intelligence about any target — domain, IP, email address, username, or person's name. It correlates results across data sources into a visual graph, making it powerful for attack-surface mapping and defensive recon. Most modules don't require API keys.

🛡️ Cyber / Hacking Tools

CyberDefenders

The blue team answer to Hack The Box — a free training platform built specifically for SOC analysts, incident responders, and DFIR professionals. Labs drop you into real-world attack scenarios (network forensics, malware analysis, cloud incidents) with hands-on artifacts to investigate. Excellent free tier with dozens of beginner-to-advanced challenges.

MITRE ATT&CK

The globally recognized framework that maps real adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) into a structured matrix. Whether you're writing detection rules, doing threat modeling, or building a purple team exercise, ATT&CK is the shared language of the security industry. The website is fully free, browsable, and searchable.

🤖 AI Tools

Yoodli

An AI speech coach that listens to your presentation, meeting, or pitch in real time and gives instant, private feedback — filler words, pacing, eye contact, and confidence signals. Built by researchers from the Allen Institute for AI, it's especially useful for interview prep and public speaking practice. The core features are free to use.

Suno

Describe a song in a few words and Suno generates a complete track — vocals, instrumentation, lyrics, mixing — in under a minute. Type "upbeat 90s pop song about a road trip" and it ships a radio-ready result. The free plan gives you 10 songs per day with no credit card required, making it genuinely accessible for casual creativity.

Napkin.ai

Paste any block of text — meeting notes, bullet points, an article — and Napkin instantly converts it into professionally styled diagrams, flowcharts, infographics, and mind maps. No prompt engineering required: it reads your text and picks the right visual format. Export as PNG, SVG, PowerPoint, or PDF. Free plan available.

🎬 Video & Image Tools

iLoveIMG

A no-signup batch image processing suite that handles resizing, cropping, compressing, converting, watermarking, and more — all in your browser. The big win is batch mode: drop 50 images, resize them all to 1080px wide, and download the ZIP in seconds. Supports JPG, PNG, GIF, WEBP, SVG, and more.

Pika

Type a text prompt or upload a photo and Pika generates short AI video clips with impressive motion quality and cinematic style. It's one of the more accessible AI video generators with a generous free tier and a clean interface. Great for quick social content, storyboards, or just seeing what AI video looks like in 2026.

TinyWow

250+ free online tools — PDF editing, image processing, video conversion, AI writing, file conversion — no signup, no watermarks, files deleted after an hour. It's effectively a one-stop browser-based utility belt: merge PDFs, remove image backgrounds, compress video, convert HEIC to JPG, fix grammar, and more without installing anything.

🛠️ Developer Tools

Bruno

A git-native, offline-first API client that stores your collections as plain text files in your repo instead of syncing them to a cloud account. There's no login, no cloud, no vendor lock-in — just drag your API collection into version control alongside your code. A fast-growing open-source alternative to Postman with 200k+ monthly active users.

Wappalyzer

Identify the technology stack powering any website: CMS, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools, CDN, payment processors, and 1,500+ other technologies. Available as a browser extension or API. Invaluable for competitive research, pre-engagement recon, or just satisfying your curiosity about how a site is built.

WakaTime

Automatic coding time tracking via IDE plugin — it silently records how long you spend in each file, project, language, and branch without any manual timers. Your personal dashboard shows weekly breakdowns and streaks. Think of it as a Fitbit for your editor. Free tier covers the basics; the plugin supports VS Code, JetBrains, Vim, and 50+ other editors.

📦 Open Source Software

Forgejo

A community-governed, non-profit git forge — essentially a self-hosted GitHub without the corporate strings. Built as a hard fork of Gitea by the team at Codeberg e.V., Forgejo runs on a single Go binary, handles pull requests, issues, wikis, CI/CD via Forgejo Actions (GitHub Actions-compatible), and a package registry, all on modest hardware.

Dokploy

An open-source self-hosted PaaS that turns a blank VPS into a full Heroku/Vercel/Netlify-style deployment platform in under ten minutes. Point it at a Git repo or Docker image, add your environment variables, and it handles SSL, routing, zero-downtime deploys, and multi-server Docker Swarm scaling. No per-seat fees — just your server costs.

Docmost

A collaborative, self-hosted wiki and documentation platform built as an open-source alternative to Confluence and Notion. Features real-time co-editing, nested pages, full-text search, granular permissions, built-in Draw.io/Excalidraw/Mermaid diagrams, and one-click Confluence/Notion importers. Free to self-host under AGPL with no seat limits.

✅ Productivity & Collaboration

Focusmate

Book a 25, 50, or 75-minute virtual coworking session with a stranger — you both show up on video, state your goal, work in silence, then check in at the end. The psychological power of another person watching makes procrastination surprisingly hard. Particularly effective for ADHD (161% productivity increase reported by neurodivergent users). Free plan includes 3 sessions per week.

Monica

A personal CRM for your relationships — not your sales pipeline. Log notes about friends and family (birthdays, gift ideas, how you met, their kids' names), set reminders to follow up, and keep a relationship journal. Think of it as a memory prosthetic for people you care about. Fully open source and self-hostable; the hosted cloud version is $9/month.

Memos

A lightweight, self-hosted micro-journaling and note-capture app with a clean timeline interface — like a private Twitter for your thoughts. Supports Markdown, tags, image attachments, API access, and sharing individual memos publicly. Extremely easy to deploy with Docker, and the data is yours entirely. Great companion to a heavier tool like Obsidian.

📚 Learning & Reference

Advent of Code

Annual December coding puzzle challenge with a new two-part puzzle each day from December 1–25. The puzzles are language-agnostic (use whatever you want), progressively harder, and genuinely clever — beloved by developers as holiday tradition. The archive of every past year is free to work through any time.

RegexLearn

An interactive, step-by-step regex course that teaches you regular expressions by having you solve exercises directly in the browser — no setup, no account. Starts from the absolute basics and works up to lookaheads and complex patterns. Also includes a cheatsheet and a free-form playground. An excellent alternative to reading a dry reference page.

CodeWars

A coding challenge platform built around a martial-arts ranking system (kata / kyu). Solve real algorithmic problems in your language of choice, then compare your solution against thousands of others to see elegant approaches you might not have considered. Free, community-driven, and genuinely addictive for sharpening problem-solving skills.

🪟 Windows & Desktop

NirSoft

A one-person software shop by Nir Sofer that has quietly shipped 200+ free, portable Windows utilities since 2001 — Wi-Fi password viewers, browser history exporters, network monitors, process inspectors, registry tools, and more. Every tool is a tiny standalone exe, no installer, no ads, no bundles. An essential bookmark for any Windows sysadmin or power user.

Files

A beautiful, modern file manager for Windows 10/11 that replaces File Explorer with a dual-pane, tabbed interface featuring git integration, cloud storage sidebars, column view, color tags, and a command palette. Free, open source under MIT, and available on the Microsoft Store. If you've ever wished Windows Explorer felt like it was built in this decade, this is it.

Scoop

A command-line app installer for Windows in the spirit of Homebrew — run scoop install git and it downloads, extracts, and wires up the app without admin rights, UAC popups, or installer bloat. Everything lands in your home folder. Great for setting up a dev machine fast or keeping tools in sync across machines. Works in PowerShell and is fully open source.

🎮 Games

Townscaper

Not really a game — a meditative building toy where you click on water to grow colorful island towns that procedurally assemble themselves into bridges, courtyards, towers, and canals. No goals, no timers, no enemies. The demo is free to play in your browser, and it's one of the most genuinely relaxing things on the internet.

Gartic Phone

Online Telestrations — the classic party game where someone writes a phrase, the next person draws it, the next guesses the drawing, and so on. The results are chaotic and hilarious. No accounts required, plays in the browser, and works perfectly for remote teams or family game nights. Free for groups up to 30.

Globle

A daily geography guessing game with a globe twist: guess a country, and the mystery country lights up on the globe in a color ranging from cold blue (far away) to hot red (you're close). One new mystery country per day, shared by everyone. More satisfying than Wordle variants because the spatial reasoning element is genuinely interesting.

🌈 Fun / Weird Internet

Drive & Listen

Sit back and virtually drive through over 100 cities around the world while listening to their local FM radio stations — Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Lagos, Reykjavik, and more. First-person dashcam footage paired with live (or recorded) local radio is surprisingly transportive. No account, runs in any browser, great for ambient background or armchair travel.

A Soft Murmur

A free ambient sound mixer where you blend rain, thunder, ocean waves, wind, fire, coffee shop chatter, birdsong, and white noise in any combination with individual volume sliders. The "Meander" mode gently randomizes volumes over time for a more natural feel. Ideal for focus work, falling asleep, or drowning out an open-plan office. No signup.

Spurious Correlations

A gallery of charts showing real statistical correlations between completely unrelated things — like US per-capita cheese consumption and the number of people who died tangled in their bedsheets, or Nicolas Cage film appearances and swimming pool drownings. A perfect reminder that correlation is not causation, and genuinely funny to browse.

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35 sites this week. Found something broken or have a site to suggest? Reply to the email.