The resources sub-forum would be good to also discuss research methods; organizing information, if there are existing software tools that are good at this, and perhaps even developing software ideas to do this if anyone is knowledgeable in that area.
Beyond the resources themselves and the research, it is worth discussing presentation of material, pros, cons what have you.
I'll post a few things here to get started
Online we have the-
https://Archive.org;
and it's also very useful -
Waybackmachine
however if you don't know the URL or that what you want, it can be hard to find what's holed up back there, and there can be dead links from within the archived websites, though there may still the page you are looking for somewhere in there, it can take a real runaround to get it, becoming very time consuming.
with that in mind, it may be useful to create a list of URLs to interesting but dead sites, as well as the links to the waybackmachine that are of interest in different topics.
in the vein of waybackmachine, there is -
https://archive.today
which
"It takes a 'snapshot' of a webpage that will always be online even if the original page disappears." very useful stuff.
Not forgetting we can submit a URL to be archived as a snapshot ourselves on waybackmachine too.
making a
local copy on your machine is of course encouraged also, and there are options to "
screenshot" entire webpages as opposed to what is visible in that moment in your current area that is visible to the screen which is good, more info would be related to your particular browser which is another topic to look at again.
Classic "
printing" of a webpage to
pdf.
Back to archive.org which is like an online library, there is an incredible amount of stuff on there, many
rare old books
if you come across anything particularly rare and maybe controversial, then it is well worth downloading a local copy which is very easy,
unless it is under the
limited preview, where you can only
borrow it for one hour, there are no doubt many ways around these kind of limitations, at least there is time to flick through and use the find in text function to see if it contains anything of note, and perhaps screenshot it or whatever before time is up.
worldcat.org is a great website for finding books in local libraries. However I often find that interesting stuff is 1000s of miles away in an academic library I will never get access to. Almost like they don't want us to access anything first hand
hathitrust.org Is a great website for old books, though there are copyright restrictions on anything newer and a lot of stuff can not be viewed, though it does search within the text, even if you cannot read it. This links back to WorldCat.org where maybe there is library copy.
JSTOR.org is another academic source, though it is not free.
Search Engines
beyond
google we have
bing, duckduckgo startpage... we all know google used to function and give good results, now it is terrible, duckduckgo seemed to be derived from google anyways.
Then there is
yandex (the Russian google? I'm not too sure) which seems to work a bit more like how google used to.
alternates are
https://searx.space this actually links to other searx search engine website instances. As far as I'm aware this is is not g00gle derivative, though I'm not sure .
@fakeologist has talked about
https://PreSearch.org
related to search engines are
Reverse image searches, aka
search by image which are very useful, g00gle, bing, yandex do this, another site just for this is
https://Tineye.com
Video Platforms
Youtube - Has a purposely designed poor search function with almost no limiting criteria to hone down results, a continuous feed or memory hole.
alternate front-ends to browse youtube videos:
https://docs.invidious.io/instances/
https://redirect.invidious.io/
If you know a good website or method to search youtube with more limiting criteria to find your results please do contribute.
----
Android
- alternate app store
f-droid -
https://f-droid.org/
"F-Droid is an install-able catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device."
Then from within this app store on your device you have:
NewPipe Turn screen off and listen to videos, download as audio or video, blocks ads - highly recommended
SkyTube as above, though you can also block channels and individual videos
LibreTube much the same
and probably more options, no need for the youtube app, maybe occasional hiccups but take your pick and try out these alternates
----
Iphone
-suggestions please-
Other Video Tube Hosts
beyond of course
https://fakeotube.com/
we have-
https://odysee.com/
https://rumble.com/
https://bitchute.com/
and many more ... to follow
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please do contribute suggestions and opinions on the different listed things