What is the best completely free thing you have found this year that genuinely improved your daily life

[Bussin]

Not trials, not freemium teases. Something that is genuinely free with no catch that you use regularly and that has made some part of your daily life better.

Share what it is and what it replaced

[Harbour]

Libby app connected to my local library card. Free ebooks and audiobooks from a catalogue of thousands. I have not bought a book since I set it up eight months ago

[Jess30]

Mullvad's free browser extension for when I do not need the full VPN. Blocks trackers aggressively and the browsing experience on most sites is noticeably faster

[Dom9]

KeepassXC for passwords. Fully local, fully free, open source. Replaced LastPass after their breach and the peace of mind from knowing my passwords are on my hardware and nowhere else is real

[Omega]

Bitwarden free tier. Same category as KeepassXC but with cross-device sync. Replaced paying 36 pounds a year for a password manager

[Andy81]

Nextcloud on a cheap VPS replaced Dropbox and Google Drive for me. Not free because the VPS costs about 5 pounds a month but the storage is unlimited and the data is mine

[WovenScholar]

The Kagi free tier of 100 searches per month was enough to evaluate it and convinced me to pay for the full version. Not answering the question exactly but the free tier was the thing that changed my behaviour

[Jan79]

GIMP with the GIMP-G'MIC plugin for photo editing. Replaced a Photoshop subscription I was paying 10 pounds a month for. The learning curve took two weeks. The subscription saving is permanent

[Rory84]

I hate freemium too