A selection of useful IT resources for professionals and businesses.
Networking
Quad 9 – Alternative DNS to your ISP or Google DNS. Provides protective DNS protection against bad sites. Use 9.9.9.9 as your DNS provider.
https://quad9.net/#/
MX Toolbox – Need to dig around a domain name; then use MX Toolbox that can provide a wealth of information around domains DNS configuration. It can also process raw email headers to tell you how an email was delivered to you.
https://mxtoolbox.com/
DNS Stuff – Now owned by SolarWinds, DNS Stuff also has a large range of tools for checking out DNS, IP addresses and domain names.
https://tools.dnsstuff.com/
DNS Checker – If you’re making DNS changes to systems used over the internet and want to see the progress. This site gives you a good indication of the DNS changes and progress throughout the internet.
https://dnschecker.org/
DNS Benchmark – Download and find out what DNS servers are best for your network.
https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm
IP Calculator – Lots of them our there, but this is prefered site of choice.
http://jodies.de/ipcalc
Communication
Signal – messages, and calls are always end-to-end encrypted and painstakingly engineered to keep your communication safe.
https://signal.org/download/
Security
Haystacks – How complex is your password? How long would it take to brute force?
https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm
IP Leak – This is the kind of information that all the sites you visit, as well as their advertisers and any embedded widget, can see and collect about you.
https://ipleak.net
Monitor – From Firefox, this free service monitors your email addresses to check if they’ve been breached, hacked.
https://monitor.firefox.com/
VirusTotal – Upload suspect files and have it scanned by 70 antivirus vendors.
https://www.virustotal.com
FishTank & Webroot – Is this a bad website or link?
https://www.phishtank.com
https://www.brightcloud.com/tools/url-ip-lookup.php
Complex Password Generator
https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
Scottish Password Generator – Nessie Pass!
https://nessiepass.com/
Shodan – The Search engine for security
https://www.shodan.io/
Tools
Waky Now – Remote control software
https://wayk.devolutions.net/home/download
GRC – Gibson Research Corporation (Security Now Podcast) has shed load of free applications you can down.
https://www.grc.com/freepopular.htm
Easy2Boot – Want to boot almost ANYTHING from just one single USB drive
https://www.easy2boot.com
Ventoy – A New Bootable USB Solution
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
Apple Mac
OnyX – Maintenance tool
https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html
Software
Active @ Boot Disk – Help with fixing boot problems
https://www.boot-disk.com
Ninite – Quickly install multiple free applications from a couple of clicks and one download.
https://ninite.com/
Snappy Driver installer – Missing drivers
https://sdi-tool.org/
Hardware
BiOSBUG – Lost Bios password?
https://www.biosbug.com
RAID Calculator – From Synology but useful quickly working out server specs and configurations
https://www.synology.com/en-uk/support/RAID_calculator
BurnInTest – Test hardware
https://www.passmark.com/products/burnintest
CPU Benchmark – I have no idea what the numbers mean, and that doesn’t matter! Useful for comparing your old CPU againist potential upgrades.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/
TechPower Up – Lookup Video Card Specs
https://www.techpowerup.com
Internet
SamKnows – UK Broadband Checker
https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker
BT Broadband – Detailed information on local UK exchanges for Broadband
https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL
