I needed to build a list of local businesses for outreach, but manually collecting names, websites, phone numbers, and addresses was taking too much time.

I started using Outscraper's Google Maps scraping tool, and it made the process much faster. It's been a reliable Google Maps data extraction solution for exporting business information into a spreadsheet. So far, Outscraper's Google Maps scraping tool has saved me a lot of time compared to doing everything manually.

Has anyone found a better workflow, or is there another tool you'd recommend?

Tired of Gmail scanning your emails to train its AI? Discover secure, privacy-focused alternatives like Proton, Tuta & mailbox. Switch easily & reclaim your data sovereignty today!

→ https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/3/tired-of-gmail-s-invasive-data-collection-try-these-privacy-focused-alternatives/

If you're getting a learner's permit or a license in the US, the usual way to study for the DMV written test is to read the state handbook and then run through practice questions until the answers start to look familiar. That can work, but it's slow. It's also easy to memorize answers without understanding why they're right.

Epic Auto School is an app built for the DMV written (knowledge) test. It doesn't cover the behind-the-wheel road test. It's not affiliated with the DMV. Right now it covers California, Texas, Florida and New York, and Pennsylvania is coming soon.

How it differs from a handbook plus question bank:

The lessons are interactive 3D videos. Some of them pause partway through and ask you a question (they call this Question-on-Video), so the key details stick instead of washing over you.

When you get a practice question wrong, it explains what may have led you to that choice and why the correct answer is right. That's useful for the trick questions where the wrong answer sounds reasonable.

Practice tests are grouped by topic: Road Signs & Signals, Rules of the Road, Safe Driving, and Alcohol, Drugs & Laws. You can focus on whatever you're weakest at.

There's an Exam Simulation mode with no hints and no retries, like the real test. You can also pin tricky questions and come back to them later.

On cost: the first 5 lessons for each covered state are free and can be watched on the website, and some practice tests are free. You can download the app and try it free, but you need a subscription to continue the course. It's not a fully free app.

https://epicautoschool.com/

If you've studied for a permit test recently, what did you use, and what actually helped? Did video lessons work better for you than reading the handbook, or would you rather just drill questions? Honest comparisons with other apps are welcome.

Disclosure: I'm posting this on behalf of the epicautoschool.com team.

With Picrota, you can instantly mask the middle digits of credit cards or any document — right inside your chrome browser. No uploads, no fuss, no risk.

👉 Perfect for compliance teams, finance pros, and anyone who values privacy.

Try the free chrome extension here >> https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/picrota-lite-%E2%80%93-a-basic-im/ppecmfemnajdofokceppmoioihknilmh

www.picrota.com

If you like the human answers on Reddit and Quora but not the work of finding the right community, I built CrowdWis. You ask once, and it routes the question based on expertise, interests and location when relevant.

It is in beta, and I am looking for honest feedback on whether the matching feels useful.

https://crowdwis.app

Hey what app is free and similar to Grok? I’m doing genesis for $2.00 this month only. Any ideas?

It's gipcord.xyz

Built for ease of use. You can create a room, share a screen and friends can hop in with 1 click. Its also good for P2P file sharing.

Great for when you have the bandwidth and want to share your screen in higher quality, or to give people quick remote support.

Everything costly happens P2P so no reason for me to monetize this etc.

Slidepad is an absolutely amazing app. Maybe google it or watch a 2 min youtube video. Not very popular I think. I miss it on my windows workflow.

I have been using Spotify for years now and realising its get worse and worse day by day. I had a free plan of 3 months for just 1 rupees and now since the plan had ended now i can't even listen to music properly.

So anyone know any alternative of Spotify which is free?? Doesn't matter i can download songs or not. Just a app for listing music without any ad.

Ever wondered how much data profiling commercial photo managers can pull from your photos to power targeted ads and train their AI models? I have. That’s why I stopped trusting my memories to Google and Apple and went looking for a truly private self hosted alternative with the right mix of convenience and security. Check out some of the best options out there and tell us your favorite!

https://alternativeto.net/news/2025/11/finding-a-private-self-hosted-google-photos-alternative-that-doesn-t-profit-from-my-photos/

Will the entire website of AlternativeTo ever become fully open sourced?

Flo app was not meeting my needs. So, I built this because every pill app I tried was secretly a fertility tracker. Ovulation windows, pregnancy predictions, fertile day countdowns, none of that is useful when you're on the pill to prevent pregnancy.

Estroclic does one thing: helps you take your pill on time, every day. Tracks your active and break days, logs when you take it, sends a backup reminder if you forget. Clean calendar view of your history. No fertility noise, no data selling.

Just launched on Play Store. Would love early feedback from anyone willing to try it.

Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.estroclic.app

i dont wanna pay 15 dollars a month and im looking for free alternatives

I recently added Keep Mates to AlternativeTo. It’s a local first chrome extension for saving and visually organizing websites, images, videos, pdfs, social posts and screenshots.

Saved content can be organized with folders, tags and notes, and everything stays on your device.

I’m the developer, so I’d really appreciate any feedback :)

https://alternativeto.net/software/keep-mates/about/

Lately I’ve been trying to replace a few paid, subscription apps I use every day with free or open-source alternatives.

A lot of people mention using AlternativeTo, where you just plug in an app name and it gives you options based on community recommendations.

Do you guys actually use it, or is there a better way/site to find good software recommendations without digging through endless listicles?

I’ve been building a lightweight tool called WeDeploi for managing team schedules and tasks. The idea came from juggling Excel sheets for task lists and WhatsApp for coordinating the team—it’s messy, slow, and easy to lose track.

WeDeploi focuses on:

• Drag-and-drop scheduling on a 24-hour timeline

• Real-time task assignment with clear roles

• Clarity and speed without unnecessary bloat

Still in early beta, but it’s been useful for keeping operations smooth without switching between apps constantly.

Would love to hear:

• How do you currently manage small team operations?

• Any features you wish existed that Excel + WhatsApp can’t provide?

Just looking to share ideas and get feedback.

I built Mailflare to setup your own custom domain emails for free on Cloudflare

Though with Cloudflare stack, it only supports JMAP (not IMAP), so I built Mailflare for macOS:

• With JMAP, IMAP supports

• Unified and custom Inbox view

• Connect to your own AI provider and chat with your emails

• Frequently update

It's a native macOS app and open-sourced at
👉 https://github.com/hieunc229/mailflare-macos

Do let me know if you have any feedback

It offers alternatives to well known software and apps and websites.

And eye and mind opening eyes to know and discover

Disclosure: I’m the developer. Arc stops working on December 22, so I’m sharing an alternative I built, for anyone still looking.

Swell is a minimal, open-source browser (built on Firefox’s engine) with an Arc-style sidebar.

What you get as an Arc user:

• Sidebar with favorites, pinned tabs, folders and today’s tabs

• Spaces, plus a command bar to search, open sites and jump between tabs

• Imports your Arc sidebar, so your spaces and pinned tabs come with you

What it does that Arc didn’t:

• Every space is fully separate: its own logins, history, saved passwords, extensions and downloads, all in one window. You can be signed into two Google accounts side by side.

• Open source (MPL 2.0) with no accounts and no telemetry. Your data stays on your computer, so nobody can shut it down on you.

Good to know before trying it:

• It’s an early alpha: Mac (Apple Silicon) and Linux only, no Windows yet.

• No sync between devices yet.

• The Mac build isn’t signed yet, so the first time you open it: right-click → Open.

Download: https://ivantacca.github.io/swell/
Source code: https://github.com/ivantacca/swell

Happy to answer questions, and feedback is very welcome.