Bring the default games in Windows 8 back to the desktop. If Metro-style, full screen apps aren’t what you want when you play Solitaire, Minesweeper or Free Cell, you’re probably disappointed with Windows 8 – only fullscreen versions of these games are offered in Microsoft’s latest operating system. Some purists prefer their simple, desktop-based classics. If that includes you, keep reading.

Use an advanced text editor on your Mac, free of charge. TextWrangler comes complete with code highlighting for most major languages and a whole lot more – and it’s free. If you even occasionally edit any kind of code – even just HTML – this is worth having around. This is not a word processor – it offers no styling options whatsoever. This is a text editor, meaning it handles only plain text .

Don’t feel overwhelmed by passwords, or simply use the same one on every site just so you’ll remember them. Instead design your own password management strategy. MakeUseOf’s Password Management Guide, from author Mohammed Al-Marhoon, outlines tips and tricks you need to know to stay both secure and sane. This guide aims to educate you about the importance of proper passwords without overwhelming you.

Do you love Reddit’s content, but wish it was organized differently? Try out a Reddit client for Windows. These third-party programs arrange the content you already love in a way you just might find yourself preferring – subreddits in columns, notifications in your system tray or a quick summary what’s going on just a popup window away. Advanced features even deliver text-only versions of articles and automatically pull down images.

Track the sites that are tracking you. Collusion is a free extension for Firefox that records every time you’re tracked online, so you can see who is tracking you and try to work out why. The Mozilla Foundation says the extension is intended to help teach users about online tracking. “Not all tracking is bad,” says Collusion’s site at Mozilla.org “but most tracking happens without users’ consent and without their knowledge”.

Google Reader is dead. By July the Internet’s premier RSS service is shutting down forever, leaving users to find a replacement on their own. If you’re looking for an equivalent to Google these are just a few of the web’s best alternatives to Google Reader – one of them is bound to be right for you. If not, wait: we’re sure others will be built in the months to come.

Finding yourself unproductive because of distracting sites? Block them. No, seriously: block them. If you’ve got work to get done, and you can’t focus because the Internet is too fascinating, make it impossible for your own self to access the sites that suck away your time. The ultimate way to avoid distractions, however, is self-control. The tools I outline below can make it a little easier.

It’s 2013 – stop paying for a land line. If you’ve got broadband Internet you can set up Skype, pay for a subscription and and keep your total home phone bill under $5 a month – long distance to phones throughout North America included (rates vary for other countries). Kannon showed you how to save hundreds on your mobile phone bill in three easy steps, and Skype can save the day with its cheap long-distance plans.

The letter g. Squirrels eating things they usually wouldn’t. Pictures of animals without necks. The law of subreddits states that if something exists, a community can and will eventually form around it on Reddit. I’ve outlined below just a few of the strangest subreddits I was able to find, and I think each of them proves this law in its own way.

HDR arises from the fact that the range of contrast that can be captured by an image sensor in a single shot is dwarfed by the range of contrast values that can be detected by the human eye. The result of which are images that appear tonally curtailed, or otherwise heavily biased in exposure. This is why you’ll invariably come across pictures that, at the same time, contain regions of overexposure, underexposure, and only a portion, if at all, that is properly exposed.

Do you love TV? Then you also love XBMC, even if you don’t know it yet. The ultimate media center software offers a wide variety of ways for you to catch up with your favorite shows online, legal and otherwise. Set up a few plugins and you can watch whatever you want in a couple of clicks, from the comfort of your couch. Legally watching TV shows can be insanely complicated, depending on where you live.

Browse Reddit intuitively, with columns. Reddit To Go is a Windows 8 app that opens every link you click in a column, allowing you to quickly browse from one story to the next. You can even see an open link right next to Reddit’s comments about it. One of the most common criticisms of Reddit is that it’s confusing. Go to the site and you see a list of links; click those links and you’re taken away from Reddit.

The Internet makes censorship impossible and will bring down corrupt regimes around the world. It will lead to an era of absolute transparency, which will inevitably lead to more equality and more justice. Disagree? Try this, then – the Internet means none of us need to know anything, because we can look anything up in a matter of moments. We’re all becoming stupid because the machines do all of our thinking for us. Which of these arguments are correct?

Try out a music streaming site specifically designed to help you work. Focus@Will is a new streaming music service, currently in beta, created to help you focus on the task at hand. If your mind tends to wander this could help. You might have that one album that helps you think, that helps you create. You’re not sure why, but when you put it on you’re able to focus more than you otherwise could.

Stop messing around with various emulators for your Android and get RetroArch. This single app – a front end for multiple emulators – can run games designed for anything from the NES to the Sega Genesis to the original PlayStation. Even better: you can get it right now from Google Play, no jailbreak required.