39 Actually Useful Websites That You Probably Have Never Heard Of

    BRB, bookmarking all of these.

    Hannah Marder
    by Hannah Marder

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Recently, Reddit user u/Merlijn-69 asked, "What are underrated websites and what do you use them for?" And boy, did Reddit deliver. Here are some of the most useful websites!

    Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.

    1. The Most Dangerous Writing App

    homepage for the app, with the option to generate a prompt or write without one
    Via squibler.io

    "Sometimes when I just have to force myself to start writing, whether it be for class assignments or personal use, I use Squibbler's the Most Dangerous Writing App, which deletes your work if you stop writing before the time limit runs out/word count is reached. It's a bit sadistic for me to go at it this way, but hey, it works."

    —anumemes

    2. Is the McDonald's Ice Cream Machine Broken?

    map showing McDonald's locations and if the machine is down, with percentages of how many machines are down in different places
    Via mcbroken.com

    "I use this to check whether the ice cream machines at the nearest McDonald's near me are broken or not."

    —Umi-Zoomi

    3. Future Me

    email box to your future self, with a place to write and input when you want it delivered
    Via futureme.org

    "You can use it to 'send emails to the future you.' Been using it for almost three years. It helps put into perspective how much has changed over the course of a year."

    —Daedrakiin100000

    4. Scream Into the Void

    dark void image with the title "scream into the void" and a place to type your feelings then hit "scream"
    Via screamintothevoid.com

    "You can just type in whatever you want: rants, secrets, or just get stuff off your chest. It gets sent into the void, where no one can see what you wrote. Very satisfying."

    —Zedfourkay

    5. Everynoise

    a bunch of different niche music styles with varying distances from each other
    Via everynoise.com

    "A visual chart of various musical genres. When you click on one, you get a small sample of the genre. Clicking on the arrows by the genre gives you a chart of artists within that genre. There's a search bar, and if you search your favorite artists in it, it can classify the genres it's in. There are also Spotify playlists for each genre."

    —ForestFood

    6. Does the Dog Die?

    The site, which advertises tracking 70+ categories, like choking and kidnapping
    Via doesthedogdie.com

    "Like it says, you can look up movies and see whether the dog in the movie dies. There are other categories, too, but I mainly use it to check whether the dog dies."

    —Tesseract29

    "This site helped after a friend went through a miscarriage. There’s a tag for movies that reference miscarriages, and it’s wild how many movies probably need a content warning for that."

    —SenorSplashdamage

    7. Tip of My Tongue

    places to enter the partial word, letters, or meaning, and refine search to find what word is on the tip of your tongue
    Via chir.ag

    "It’s really effective and has helped me countless times. I always seem to want a word when I’m writing but forget what the actual word is."

    —AccumulatingBoredom

    8. Know the Chain

    homepage with an image of a forest and a short description of the goal of helping companies operate with more transparency, as well as a company search bar
    Via knowthechain.org

    "It's an organization that compares and tracks the policies and ethics of major companies. With all the finger-pointing regarding big businesses, I think it's a great place to get a fairly reliable picture of things. Just be sure to never take information from one source as gospel. Try checking to make sure that information lines up with other sources."

    —YovrLastBrainCell

    9. Run Pee (technically an app)

    screenshot of an example page for a Star Wars film, telling you that the next pee time is 8 minutes away and describing what happens during that part of the film
    Via runpee.com

    "It tells you the best time for a bathroom break during a movie and gives a brief description of what you would miss."

    —BigWar0609

    10. Falling Fruit

    map with a description of a black raspberry bush in Pawtucket marked with a dot
    Via fallingfruit.org

    "It's a website that shows you where local fruit trees or bushes are so you can go pick them. Good for frugal people, or home winemakers."

    —plsendmysufferring

    11. Color Schemes Generator (similarly, Colormind)

    five different colors with names and labels next to each other
    Via coolors.co

    "It automatically generates colors that go well together. You can lock in which ones you like and generate more that go well with those, too. It's useful for everything art related. I use it for coloring Blender models."

    —YT_ReasonPlays

    "Colormind.io generates palettes for designers. (You can lock colors you like so it generates other colors accordingly.)"

    —judeotaji

    12. Window Swap

    photo of greenery outside a window in the Phillipines
    Via window-swap.com

    "It lets you see the view from people's windows around the world. As several users have pointed out, the videos on the site aren't live feeds, but hopefully you'll still find it interesting anyway."

    —Daveed84

    13. Natural Reader

    homepage advertising powerful text-to-speech with buttons to watch a video or go to the reader
    Via naturalreaders.com

    "It's basically a text-to-speech site that lets you copy and paste passages into a text box, and then the computer will read it back to you. I use this as a way of proofreading when I need to type out papers, short stories, or any other lengthy piece of writing. It's nice to use this way because then you can hear your errors read aloud."

    —ThrowRA29208

    14. Outline

    example of an article with no ads
    Via outline.com

    "Outline.com is a lifesaver. Just copy and paste a URL for a news article and it will present it as text only. It's great for removing the eyebleed ads that make so many news sites impossible to read."

    —MookSmilliams

    15. My Fridge Food

    myfridgefood.com

    "Put in what you have in your kitchen and get ideas for meals. I do believe they have an app, too."

    —MortainL

    16. Get Human

    button to skip waiting on hold with hours for the company and a wait time
    Via gethuman.com

    "It's a place where the internet will find you a phone number to call to get a human for customer service. If they can’t find one, they will wait in the hold queue for you."

    —[deleted]

    17. Radio Garden

    zoomed in map of Europe with tiny dots and a circle with a song playing on the left
    Via radio.garden

    "You can listen to live radio from six continents and many countries."

    —Sad-Worldliness3849

    18. Blank Slate

    blank white page with the words "just start typing"
    Via blankslate.io

    "It's a blank website where you can quickly write down a couple of notes and save them or just copy something down. I use it all the time for work or when I don't have a pencil or paper at my desk."

    —MariosNose

    19. Just Watch

    Via justwatch.com

    "It allows me to search for a movie or TV show and tells me where it's streaming."

    —Dd1va

    20. Future Timeline

    2020-2029 timeline contents, stating that the Arctic is becoming free of sea ice and that a major earthquake will hit, while we'll progress towards eliminating malaria
    Via futuretimeline.net

    "It's the easiest way to spend an hour or two learning about our history/the future."

    —granticusmaximusrex

    Disclaimer: Though based on science and history, these are just predictions.

    21. Forvo

    the word Buenos Aires with a bunch of languages and a play button for pronunciation
    Via forvo.com

    "Forvo is for when you see a word in a different language (or your own!) and you want to know how it’s pronounced, or how it sounds in different accents/dialects. People record themselves saying words and upload it with their general location. I tell everyone I can about this site."

    —AnneListersBottom

    22. Boil the Frog

    Weezer and Lady Gaga put in as the artists and a "boil the frog" button which gives a list of songs to connect them
    Via boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com

    "It's an awesome site where you put two artists in, and it makes a playlist connecting them for you."

    —Axenal713

    23. Camel Camel Camel

    "amazon price history" with a list of the current, highest, lowest, and average prices for an item
    Via camelcamelcamel.com

    "Camelcamelcamel.com lets you see the history of prices of an item on Amazon, and you can also set an alert when the price drops below a certain amount."

    —CIRCVVS

    24. Free Camp Sites

    map with little icons of campsites and reviews on the right side
    Via freecampsites.net

    "It shows you all the free campsites."

    —ivnschr

    "Just used it to road-trip from LA to Seattle to Denver through Montana/Wyoming and back. It allowed me to just drive and drive to my heart’s content and reliably find somewhere nearby to park overnight. Note: You may need 4x4 clearance for many places, and many are seasonally closed. Read the reviews for notes on accessibility or cell service or if a site is still free for camping."

    —TarHeel-DSH

    25. Time and Date

    Via timeanddate.com

    "Timeanddate.com is really useful for date calculations. You can add or subtract from any date — like, if you have no payments for 90 days, what day will it be due if you buy on Monday. If you want to know how old something is or was, it will figure time between two dates in years, days, hours, or minutes. It's surprisingly useful for specific things."

    —Potato_dad_ca

    26. Free Rice

    vocab question asking what "advection means" with multiple choice options
    Via freerice.com

    "It's word quizzes. Every one you answer provides food for impoverished people. If you're going to sit and waste time on your computer, at least you can help feed people."

    —Flannelgraphiti

    27. Random.org

    random number generator where you put in a min and a max and generate a random number
    Via random.org

    "I use it when I need a random number but don’t have my dice with me."

    —ValleyStardust

    28. The Global Network of Discovery

    Via gnod.com

    "It's great for new music, books, art, etc. Put in what you like and you can see a network of similar artists you might like."

    —Internal_Potato

    29. What 3 Words

    a map with New York City Hall on it and a connection to other apps to use to navigate
    Via what3words.com

    "It's a location service that gives precise coordinates for anywhere in the world, using a sequence of three words. It’s great for meeting up with people. Sure, you can say to meet at the Convention Center, but that’s a huge location. With What 3 Words, you can go directly to the person."

    —DarnSanity

    30. Worn on TV

    three different women in dresses with stock photos of the dresses next to them
    Via wornontv.net

    "They are masters at tracking down the exact clothes actors wear in TV shows. AND they often show a similar cheaper option if your budget is not the same as millionaires'."

    —Sarah-loves-cats

    31. Salary Converter

    area to put source and target country with an amount in local currency, where you can then calculate how much money you would need to have the same income as that in the target country
    Via salaryconverter.nigelb.me

    "It compares the cost of living and salaries in different countries."

    —drake_xp

    32. Kosmi

    dark screen with a welcome and button to create a room or join a public lobby
    Via kosmi.io

    "I use Kosmi.io for watch parties with friends. You can play games and share your screen with audio, with no installation needed on the host or client side. To anyone who previously used Rabbit/Kast, this is the best alternative I have found."

    —CoreyMontemagno

    33. PDF24 Tools

    a page with a bunch of options, like merge, compress, edit, or split PDF
    Via tools.pdf24.org

    "It's for literally anything from turning pages to comparing PDFs, signing, converting, extracting text/pictures, coloring stuff in, adding watermarks or whatever. If there is something you want to change about your PDF, then this is where you want to go. It has saved my grades multiple times."

    —OnyxNightshadow

    34. Shop by Sub

    picture of amazon aquarium products with how many upvotes they got on Reddit
    Via shopbysub.com

    "I use ShopBySub.com to find gifts for people. It lists Amazon products mentioned in comments on Reddit, grouped by subreddit, and lets you sort by the number of upvotes that comment got. I was tired of creating posts every time I wanted to try a new hobby, and wondered what that hobby's subreddit suggested for gear or other things, so I created the site! It hasn't gotten any traction yet, but my buddies and I find it useful — I hope you do, too!"

    —hikemhigh

    35. DeepL translator

    translation page where you can type in one language and translate to another
    Via deepl.com

    "I use DeepL for translations instead of Google Translate. Although language options are still limited, the results are more natural and elegant. I'm a bilingual Chinese and English speaker and use this whenever I can't remember how to say a phrase in the other language."

    —melodyduany

    "Deepl runs off of the main online dictionary at Linguee.com, which is a complete and utter lifesaver for people wanting to learn languages. It will give you the word you're looking for, with all secondary or tertiary meanings, and will also give you sentences with examples of the searched phrase."

    —YesterdayWeary6991

    36. Photopea

    photo-shop like photo editing website
    Via photopea.com

    "It's an online image editor with Photoshop features."

    —gagahpangeran

    "Everyone who doesn’t need super-high Photoshop levels should use this. It has most of the features of Adobe Photoshop and is probably the best discovery I have ever made on the internet (other than DaVinci Resolve editing software)."

    —RoyRoyKing

    37. Remove Reddit

    page showing removed reddit threads
    Via removeddit.com

    "It shows you the content of most removed posts and comments on Reddit."

    —LegateLaurie

    38. IMSLP Petrucci Music Library

    IMSLP home page that advertises sharing the world's public domain music with a search bar
    Via imslp.org

    "It's a library of public domain classical sheet music. You can pretty much find any classical music over 100 years old. I stopped buying sheet music when I discovered it. Plus, it's pretty easy to send music to students during e-class in lockdown."

    —elenifan

    39. And finally, Erase.bg or Remove.bg

    button to upload image
    Via erase.bg

    "Remove.bg does a pretty solid job at removing the background of any image. You can even just Ctrl + V. Con: It lowers quality a little."

    —venosenz

    "Remove.bg is what helped me make a new photograph required for my school application. While other people went to actual studios, I just modified my selfie."

    —PracticalFighter

    "Also, Erase.bg."

    —kritikraker

    That's all for today! If you know any other useful underrated websites, let me know in the comments!