The Internet For Dummies
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The internet and the web were originally designed for educational and governmental purposes, not for selling stuff, although that’s hard to believe now. Even in this era of ecommerce, lots of free stuff is available.

  • You can watch tons of video for free on YouTube and other video-sharing sites. You can also try TED talks – short, informative lectures on technology, education, and design.

  • Freecycle enables you to post things you no longer want or to ask for items you need. No money can change hands; it’s all free. To sell your stuff, consider Craigslist, where for-sale classified ads are free.

  • You can get rid of your old encyclopedia and use Wikipedia instead. If you are an expert in something, be sure to look at pages about your subject area and make corrections.

  • Want to learn another language? Free language lessons and practice are available at Duolingo. If you have a smartphone, you can load a Duolingo app and practice on the go.

  • Medical information is available at WebMD on a wide variety of symptoms and syndromes. (Of course, you should still see your doctor to find out what’s right for you.)

  • Take a free online course on almost any subject at Coursera. You don’t get official credit, but you take real courses by real instructors at real universities.

  • You can listen to streaming music for free from Pandora, Last.fm, or Spotify. You pick the style of music to create your own person online music station.

How to subscribe to podcasts on the web

Podcasts are free audio magazines that deliver MP3 files of talk or music directly to your computer via the internet. The word podcast is a combination of iPod and broadcast, but you don’t need an iPod to listen to them — any computer, smartphone or MP3 player will do. Radio programs, companies, musicians, comedians, and just plain people produce podcasts about a huge variety of different subjects, everything from the latest movies and TV series to the stock market.

Video podcasts are the same idea, but you receive video rather than audio files.

Subscribing to podcasts on the web

You can find loads of podcasts in several different places on the web. Here are some to try:

Apple Podcasts

Google Podcasts

Spotify

Stitcher

TuneIn

Spreaker

Or, go to the website of the program you want to subscribe to. National Public Radio originates dozens of podcasts from the shows it produces. Here are a few good ones:

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book authors:

John R. Levine is a recognized technology expert and consumer advocate who works against online fraud and email spam. Margaret Levine Young is a technology author who has written on topics ranging from the Internet to Windows to Access.

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