Do it online

Web today has come a long way, beyond the limits of static web pages that defined internet in the early ages. It has evolved into a fully loaded, interactive application suite which now can give stand alone desktop applications a run for their existence. Here is such a list of online tools to do jobs which once required us to download and install a software but, now can be done from the comfort of a browser window. No installation, no platform or compatibility issues and of course free 😊 .

Photo Editors:

• http://pixlr.com/editor/ - One of the best and feature rich photo editor complete with layers, history and more.It presents you a workspace similar to Photoshop but inside a browser. It also works very smoothly once the entire app is loaded.
• If you need to play around and try various effects on a photo without any complexity then,http://pixlr.com/express/ and http://pixlr.com/o-matic/ are for you. Experiment with lots of pre-set effects on you photos or make your own.

File Format Converters:

• http://www.freefileconvert.com – Whether it’s a word document that you need in pdf or a tar file you need in zip or rar format. This site supports all popular formats for documents, images, audio, video, compressed files and e-book files. you can check the list of supported formats here.
• http://www.online-convert.com/ – This is another free service that supports almost all popular file types.

OCR Services:
If you ever wanted to copy the text from an image in a machine with no OCR software installed, then these online services would come handy.

• http://www.onlineocr.net/ – It has a maximum file size limit of 4 MB and allows 15 images per hour in guest mode. You can register to increase the limit.
• http://www.free-ocr.com/ – This one has 2MB limit in file size and allows 10 images per hour
• http://www.newocr.com/ -  This site allows unlimited uploads, supports 58 languages and also supports multipage pdfs or multiple images in a zipped archive.

Text-to-Speech
Too lazy to read it? Then listen to it. These text-to-speech utilities would speak what you write (or paste) in. These also allow you to download the audio file and listen to it at your convenience on your favourite device. Also useful when you want to know the pronunciation but using a dictionary is too much work for you.

• http://imtranslator.net/translate-and-speak/ – This website can translate your input text before speaking. With a support for 10 most used languages, you wont need any other service.
• http://ctrlq.org/listen/ – It supports 100 characters, has a responsive design and is HTML 5 ready.

Speech recognition:
Want your computer to take dictations? Then use a speech recognition service.

• http://ctrlq.org/dictation/ – Click on the microphone and speak into your microphone. Works only in Chrome
• http://talktyper.com/ – This one too works in chrome, but provides more options to fine tune settings and get a better result.

Torrent Client:

• http://www.bitlet.org/ – This is essentially a torrent client in a browser. It’s an applet hence it requires java support in your browser.
• http://www.zbigz.com/ – This one acts as a proxy client for you. Upload the torrent file and it will download the file for you and you can download the file later from zbigz.com when download completes. Provides convenience and anonymity.

Zip Utilities:

• http://www.ezyzip.com/ – zip and unzip your files without installing any software. This is an applet that runs in your browser locally so it’s fast compared to conventional online tools which need you to upload your files. Requires Java enabled in your browser to run.
• http://crackersite.xtgem.com/layanan/archiver – If you do not have Java installed, use this to compress or decompress your files. Supports all popular compression formats.
• http://b1.org/online – This is an online extension of its full featured zip utility. The online version supports only extraction.
• http://onlineziptool.com/ – This one supports all popular formats but can only compress files.

This is all that I currently know of. I’ve avoided tools commonly used like email clients, instant messengers, VoIP tools etc. I’ve also provided only a few examples, if you need more just Google it.
Please let me know if you have some that are not listed here. And of course I’d be glad to know if this list helped.