Launching today
ReallyFree
See what's really 'free' before you click
36 followers
See what's really 'free' before you click
36 followers
You search for a free PDF editor. Four results in, you've made an account, hit a paywall, and downloaded something with a watermark. ReallyFree puts a coloured dot on every search result before you click. GREEN: genuinely free. YELLOW: free with a condition, named in one word. RED: it costs money. No one can buy a green rating. It's earned. No account, no signup, no tracking. Nothing about your browsing reaches us. Free, and staying free.
ReallyFree
What happened to the word "free" in English? It's almost impossible to find anything that's really free. There's always a catch.
I built this (free!) extension to answer that question — right on your search results. Search for anything "free" and watch for the colored dots. Green means really free.
🎬 See it in action:
Enjoy the freedom!
that's a pretty cool idea, I'd just add a different color for tools that are "completely free" versus websites that requires you to create an account. I personally sometimes look for a completely free tool just to solve a simple problem, and I don't want to have to create an account for it
ReallyFree
@matheusdsantosr_dev Hey Matheus, thank you! Let's make the word 'free' mean something again!
Security Camera Lens Calculator
Cool idea! I tested it with “CCTV lens calculator” and noticed that a few free tools, including JVSG Lens Calculator and others, were marked incorrectly. Looks like niche searches still need a bit of tuning. How are the ratings determined?
ReallyFree
@lisa_yashina Hi Lisa,
We're always culling the response to catch cases where we didn't "get it right". The goal is to be 90% accurate and to improve from there.
There is a special link to report any incorrect verdicts. I'll manually report this one so it will be reviewed.
Thank you !!!
ReallyFree
@lisa_yashina Hey Lisa,
I might not have included enough information for you to help you understand our process. My apologies.
1. We dig through the site looking for paywalls
2. We seek "pricing" pages and related -- though these sometimes offer "tiers" of free and paid products. If tiered, we try to ensure that the free product is actually useful and not just an extremely limited version of the paid one.
3. We use common terms to understand the "way" the product is referred to as paid or free
4. We seek "free" signals of many kinds throughout the site
I'll see to it that JVSG Lens Calculator is re-run per your request.
Much appreciated.
ReallyFree
@lisa_yashina Lisa,
After a quick review of our filters, we need to consider your unioque case... you can also opt to proactrively add a few words to your page(s):
* It's ideal to have clear "free" signals -- "Free Online " --
* And then anything else you can do to reassure the user that this is not just a way to dig into a trial, paywall, etc. -- "no account necessary"... but that's icing on the cake.,
If necessary, I'll hard-code your "green" status and will send you a notification of that. You can even use your "really free" badge on your site if you wish.