Is it really free?
ReallyFree puts a dot next to the results you were going to click. Green means you get everything you need. Yellow means something is missing. Red means it costs money. You find out before you spend an hour on it.
The extension is finished and in review at the Chrome Web Store. The moment the listing is live, this button turns on. Ask us to tell you when it is, and in the meantime the collection works today, in any browser, with nothing installed.
Free should mean you can finish the job and keep what you made. Advanced extras can cost money. Getting your own work out shouldn't.
That is the whole rule. Read the standard we judge by.
Five marks. That's all there is.
Three colours, one dash, one question mark. The colour is the verdict; the word beside it says what the catch is. Every time we're tempted to add a colour, we add a word instead.
Green: you can finish the job and keep your work
The word beside the dot names what it asks of you instead of money. A cap is fine — that's the whole tool, just less of it: ads account open source features locked 25 a day
Yellow: you can't keep what you made
You can use it. You just can't walk away with your own work — it comes out branded, or it doesn't come out at all: watermark no export
Red: it costs money
A paywall, a subscription, a card up front, or a trial with a clock running. A paid product with a sample is still a paid product.
Grey dash: nothing to judge
An article, a review, a list of ten best things. It isn't offering you anything, so we don't give it a verdict.
Blue question mark: we haven't looked yet
Tap it and we'll go and check, then email you the answer. We never guess a colour to fill a gap.
We judge ourselves by the same rule. We come out green.
reallyfree.app: green, 25 a day. You can use it and keep what you get, without paying. There is a cap on how much — twenty-five checks a day — and the word beside our dot says so, exactly as it would for anyone else.
We used to call ourselves yellow here. It sounded humble, and it was a small lie in our own favour: it broke the rule we ask you to hold everyone else to, and a rule we bend for ourselves is a rule you can't trust. A cap is not a toll booth. We'd rather be held to the standard than be praised for pretending we failed it.
We also judge from the United States. Prices and availability differ by country, so we can be wrong about where you are — tell us when we are.
The collection — the things that really are free
Every site we've judged, in one list you can sort, filter and click through. No install, no account, nothing to set up. If we've missed something, there's a box on that page and a person reads it.
The ReallyFree Collective
The dots stay free for everyone, forever. Members keep the lights on, and we keep watching the sites they care about — so they hear the day a free tool starts charging. 5% of what members pay goes to a children's technology-access charity.
Join the collective — $9.95 a year