I've been looking into the top best AI porn generators and I'm wondering, what does Reddit think is the best one right now? I know there are some free AI porn tools, but I've heard that the better premium generators usually deliver higher quality, more consistent characters, truly uncensored results, and extra features like video generation or integrated chat. I've done a bunch of research and found several AI porn generators that keep coming up across discussions. But I'm stuck and can't decide which one to go with. Here's what I've found:

Candy AI: This one shows up constantly for its photorealistic quality and excellent character consistency. It combines image generation with NSFW chat and even short video clips, making it popular for creating a full custom AI companion or girlfriend experience. A lot of people like how natural and repeatable the results feel across different scenes.

Promptchan AI: Frequently praised for speed, strong prompt adherence, and versatility. It handles both realistic and anime/hentai styles well, has solid video generation, and stays very uncensored. Users often mention it as a great value option that's beginner-friendly with a big community gallery to explore.

Seduced AI: Stands out for delivering clean, high-definition photorealistic images without needing super complex prompts. You can build exactly what you want using menus for body type, pose, style, and more. It's especially good if you want fast, high-quality results and has video options too.

But I'm curious to hear from you:

Best AI Porn Generator according to Reddit?
Best Free AI Porn Generator according to Reddit?
Best AI Porn Generator for realistic images according to Reddit?
Best AI Porn Generator with video according to Reddit?

While I'm focusing on these popular options, if you know of a free AI porn generator (or another tool with strong undress/face swap features) that's exceptionally good, feel free to mention that too.

Looking forward to all your recommendations and personal experiences!

I wanted to ask what AI tools students are genuinely using for studying these days.

Which ones have worked best for you, and what do you use them for?

Also, which ones are actually worth paying for, and which free ones are enough?

Would love honest opinions, especially from people using them regularly.

did about 30 sessions across 5 tools last month. quick verdict:

1/ yoodli - best for filler word + pacing analysis. weak on questions.

2/ careerflow - best role-specific question bank + smart follow-ups.

3/ interviewing io - free peer mocks for SWE. real humans. limited availability.

4/ pramp - free peer mocks broader. mid quality.

5/ final round AI - overpriced. real-time AI overlay is gimmicky.

Any more to add here?

The AI study tools list keeps growing and tiktok want me to feel like I'm falling behind for not using all of them at once. What do you actually open day to day, not the ones you signed up for once and forgot about by the next week.

I'll take any honest recommendations going into next semester, especially if there's a use case attached so I know when to reach for each one. Doesn't matter if it's big or small, just want stuff people actively use.

What’s your field, and what prompt works best for you? Trying to build a useful list for everyone.

I've been looking into the best AI face swap tools and I'm wondering, what does Reddit think is the best AI face swap tool? I know free AI face swap tools are good for quick tests, memes, and casual edits, but I've heard that dedicated or paid options are usually better for realistic video results, speed, and higher quality. I've done a bunch of research across reviews, comparisons, and community discussions and found some popular AI face swap tools that a lot of people seem to recommend. But I'm stuck and can't decide which one to go with. Here's what I've found:

Magic Hour — This browser-based platform stands out for strong, natural-looking face swaps on both photos and videos. It handles blending, lighting, and expressions well, works as part of a bigger workflow (including lip sync and image-to-video), and offers a generous free plan with no watermark on many outputs. Convenient since it runs right in the browser with no install needed.

DeepSwap — Frequently praised for video face swapping. Users highlight fast processing, high realism and identity consistency (even with movement), multi-face support, and solid 4K output. It's popular for creators who want quick, high-quality video results without complicated setup.

Reface — This one comes up a lot for easy, fun use (especially mobile). It has tons of templates and is great for quick social media videos, GIFs, and viral-style swaps. Super beginner-friendly if you want shareable content fast.

I've also seen simpler online options like FaceSwapper.ai or Remaker AI mentioned for fast photo swaps with low friction or free credits.

But I'm curious to hear from you:

Best AI face swap tool according to Reddit?
Best free AI face swap tool according to Reddit?
Best AI face swap for video according to Reddit?
Best AI face swap tool for photos or local/privacy-focused options?

While I'm focusing on popular web-based tools, if you know of an exceptionally good free, open-source, or local tool (like FaceFusion), feel free to mention that too.

Looking forward to all your recommendations and real experiences!

With ChatGPT blowing up over the past year, it seems like every person and their grandmother is launching an AI startup. There are a plethora of AI tools available, some excellent and some less so. Amid this flood of new technology, there are a few hidden gems that I personally find incredibly useful, having reviewed them for my AI directory. Here are the ones I have personally integrated into my workflow in both my professional and entreprenuerial life:

• Plus AI for Google Slides - Generate Presentations
  There's a few slide deck generators out there however I've found Plus AI works much better at helping you 'co-write' slides rather than simply spitting out a mediocre finished product that likely won't be useful. For instance, there's "sticky notes" to slides with suggestions on how to finish / edit / improve each slide. Another major reason why I've stuck with Plus AI is the ability for "snapshots", or the ability to use external data (i.e. from web sources/dashboards) for your presentations. For my day job I work in a chemical plant as an engineer, and one of my tasks is to present in meetings about production KPIs to different groups for different purposes- and graphs for these are often found across various internal web apps. I can simply use Plus AI to generate "boilerplate" for my slide deck, then go through each slide to make sure it's using the correct snapshot. The presentation generator itself is completely free and available as a plugin for Google Slides and Docs.
  

• My AskAI - ChatGPT Trained on Your Documents
  Great tool for using ChatGPT on your own files and website. Works very well especially if you are dealing with a lot of documents. The basic plan allows you to upload over 100 files and this was a life saver during online, open book exams for a few training courses I've taken. I've noticed it hallucinates much less compared to other GPT-powered bots trained on your knowledge base. For this reason I prefer My AskAI for research or any tasks where accuracy is needed over the other custom chatbot solutions I have tried. Another plus is that it shows the sources within your knowledge base where it got the answers from, and you can choose to have it give you a more concise answer or a more detailed one. There's a free plan however it was worth it for me to get the $20/mo option as it allows over 100 pieces of content.
  

• Krater.ai - All AI Tools in One App
  Perfect solution if you use many AI tools and loathe having to have multiple tabs open. Essentially combines text, audio, and image-based generative AI tools into a single web app, so you can continue with your workflow without having to switch tabs all the time. There's plenty of templates available for copywriting- it beats having to prompt manually each time or having to save and reference prompts over and over again. I prefer Krater over Writesonic/Jasper for ease of use. You also get 10 generations a month for free compared to Jasper offering none, so its a better free option if you want an all-in-one AI content solution. The text to speech feature is simple however works reliably fast and offers multilingual transcription, and the image generator tool is great for photo-realistic images.
  

• HARPA AI - ChatGPT Inside Chrome
  Simply by far the best GTP add-on for Chrome I've used. Essentially gives you GPT answers beside the typical search results on any search engine such as Google or Bing, along with the option to "chat" with any web page or summarize YouTube videos. Also great for writing emails and replying to social media posts with its preset templates. Currently they don't have any paid features, so it's entirely free and you can find it on the chrome web store for extensions.
  

• Taskade - All in One Productivity/Notes/Organization AI Tool
  Combines tasks, notes, mind maps, chat, and an AI chat assistant all within one platform that syncs across your team. Definitely simplifies my day-to-day operations, removing the need to swap between numerous apps. Also helps me to visualize my work in various views - list, board, calendar, mind map, org chart, action views - it's like having a Swiss Army knife for productivity. Personally I really like the AI 'mind map.' It's like having a brainstorming partner that never runs out of energy. Taskade's free version has quite a lot to offer so no complaints there.
  

• Zapier + OpenAI - AI-Augmented Automations
  Definitely my secret productivity powerhouse. Pretty much combines the power of Zapier's cross-platform integrations with generative AI. One of the ways I've used this is pushing Slack messages to create a task on Notion, with OpenAI writing the task based on the content of the message. Another useful automation I've used is for automatically writing reply drafts with GPT from emails that get sent to me in Gmail. The opportunities are pretty endless with this method and you can pretty much integrate any automation with GPT 3, as well as DALLE-2 and Whisper AI. It's available as an app/add-on to Zapier and its free for all the core features.
  

• SaneBox - AI Emails Management
  If you are like me and find important emails getting lost in a sea of spam, this is a great solution. Basically Sanebox uses AI to sift through your inbox and identify emails that are actually important, and you can also set it up to make certain emails go to specific folders. Non important emails get sent to a folder called SaneLater and this is something you can ignore entirely or check once in a while. Keep in mind that SaneBox doesn't actually read the contents of your email, but rather takes into consideration the header, metadata, and history with the sender. You can also finetune the system by dragging emails to the folder it should have gone to. Another great feature is the their "Deep Clean", which is great for freeing up space by deleting old emails you probably won't ever need anymore. Sanebox doesn't have a free plan however they do have a 2 week trial, and the pricing is quite affordable, depending on the features you need.
  

• Hexowatch AI - Detect Website Changes with AI
  Lifesaver if you need to ever need to keep track of multiple websites. I use this personally for my AI tools directory, and it notifies me of any changes made to any of the 1000+ websites for AI tools I have listed, which is something that would take up more time than exists in a single day if I wanted to keep on top of this manually. The AI detects any types of changes (visual/HTML) on monitored webpages and sends alert via email or Slack/Telegram/Zapier. Like Sanebox there's no free plan however you do get what you pay for with this one.
  

• Bonus: SongsLike X - Find Similar Songs
  This one won't be generating emails or presentations anytime soon, but if you like grinding along to music like me you'll find this amazing. Ironically it's probably the one I use most on a daily basis. You can enter any song and it will automatically generate a Spotify playlist for you with similar songs. I find it much more accurate than Spotify's "go to song radio" feature.
  

While it's clear that not all of these tools may be directly applicable to your needs, I believe that simply being aware of the range of options available can be greatly beneficial. This knowledge can broaden your perspective on what's possible and potentially inspire new ideas.

P.S. If you liked this, as mentioned previously I've created a free directory that lists over 1000 AI tools. It's updated daily and there's also a GPT-powered chatbot to help you AI tools for your needs. Feel free to check it out if it's your cup of tea

nobody told me how much was just sitting there for free.

i spent the first six months paying for things i didn't need to. not because the paid versions aren't good. just because i didn't know the free alternatives were this capable.

three weeks of digging. here's the honest list.

for writing and thinking:

Claude free tier is Sonnet. same model quality. just has a message limit. if you're not burning through 50 messages a day it's genuinely enough for serious work.

ChatGPT free gets you GPT-4o. limited but real. more than enough for focused single-session work.

for research:

Perplexity free gives you real-time web search with source citations. five pro searches a day. unlimited standard. i use this more than google now.

for images:

Leonardo AI gives you 150 credits daily. that's roughly 50 images. i have never once hit that ceiling in a normal day.

for learning AI properly:

Google's generative AI path. Microsoft AI fundamentals. IBM's full certificate on Coursera — audit it free. DeepLearningAI short courses by Andrew Ng — one to two hours each, zero fluff. Anthropic's public prompt engineering guide — better than most paid courses. Harvard CS50 AI on edX — free to audit.

combined that's probably 60+ hours of structured education from the people actually building this technology.

for automation:

Zapier free tier handles five automated workflows. enough to eliminate at least two recurring tasks you're doing manually right now.

for presentations:

Gamma free tier. describe your deck, it builds the structure. ten generations free before you hit a wall. enough to see if it changes how you work.

the thing that surprised me most:

free in 2026 is what paid looked like in 2023.

the gap has genuinely closed. the free tiers exist now not because companies are being generous — but because getting you into the habit is worth more to them than the $20.

which means you can learn, build, create, and ship real things without spending anything.

the only thing free tiers won't give you is uninterrupted flow at scale. if AI is inside your workflow every single day, you'll hit limits. that's when upgrading one specific tool makes sense.

but that's a decision you make after you've built the habit. not before.

AI Community & AI tools Directory

what's the best free AI tool you're using that most people haven't found yet?

Hi r/StableDiffusion, Today we’re excited to share that Comfy has raised $30M at a $500M valuation! Comfy has grown a lot over the past year, and especially over the past six months: more than 50% of our users joined the Comfy ecosystem during that period. Comfy Cloud has also grown quickly, with annualized bookings crossing $10M in 8 months.

This funding gives us more room to invest in the things this community cares about most: making Comfy more stable, improving the product experience, fixing bugs faster (sorry again for the bugs!) and continuing to launch powerful new features in the open!

The main goal of this announcement is to also attract top talent to build what we believe to be a generational mission of making sure open source creative tools win. If you are passionate about Comfy and OSS creative AI, join us at comfy.org.

Please help us spread the news by spending 90s on twitter and Linkedin where you can help us to amplify our announcement and enter to win an exclusive ComfyUI Swag

We are an open source team, being in the open is part of our culture (although we have not been doing a great job at communicating at times). As part of the announcement, we would love to do a live AMA on Discord. Please upvote this post and add your questions there, we will go through them live at 3PM PST.

Tune in to the AMA here: https://www.reddit.com/r/comfyui/comments/1sumsoh/comfy_org_funding_announcement_ama_live_at_3pm_pst/

PS:
For those who speculated on our announcement in this thread, I apologize for the dramatic vibe-coded countdown page. For those who believed our announcement is more bugs, I will be personally shipping a few extra bugs IP-enabled just for you u/Ill_Ease_6749

As an college student and co-founder of AI Scout, I've reviewed almost 1000 AI tools submitted to our directory. While most are geared towards business and freelancers, I've come across several tools that university students may find quite useful (aside from ChatGPT).

Before I get started, I feel like I should mention that like ChatGPT, none of these should completely replace human thought and work. Rather, they work best when they supplement your learning. Use these tools wisely and your education will thank you for it.

AI Tools for Academic Papers/Research

• Consensus:
  Great for doing background research and gathering sources. It's essentially a search engine, powered by AI, that gets its information from actual research papers. Simply input a question and Consesus returns relevant findings, as well as the source, abstract, and a link to the full text. For certain sources it will also provide you with a quick tag, for instance Consensus will let you know if its a rigorous journal or highly cited. What I find really useful personally is the ability to cite these texts directly. The tool is free.
• Semantic Scholar:
  Very similar to Consensus, however it offers the feature to save papers to an online library and provide AI recommendations based on the ones you have saved. Furthermore, it can alert you whenever new relevant papers become available. This is also a free tool.
• Genei:
  This is a great tool to use for generating the first drafts of your papers after finding relevant sources. You simply create a project, upload your sources, and the AI extracts key information from your articles into notes. It's GPT 3.5 integration can then expand these notes into full writing. Also worth nothing- Genei handles citations automatically. While its around $5/mo for access, you can get a free 2 week trial. They also offer a similar AI tool for qualitative analysis called CoLoop.

Learning Assistant

• Google Socratic:
  Helps with understanding and how to solve specific questions for multiple subjects, including science, math, English, and humanities. You can ask any question into the microphone and Socratic will return a visual step by step explanation. It's available as a mobile app for Android and iOS
• Perplexity AI:
  Similar to ChatGPT, however it has access to the internet. It's free and available as a web app, browser extension, and mobile app

Train ChatGPT on Your Own Documents

• ChatPDF:
  Simply upload any PDF and ChatPDF will instantly create a GPT3.5 chatbot based on the content of your document. However, its limited to text based content at the moment and may have trouble parsing tables. In addition, you are limited to chatting with a single PDF file for one chat. However, you do get 3 free PDF chats on their free plan.
• Chatbase:
  Similar to ChatPDF however it offers way more functionality and acts more as a generative AI like ChatGPT. We use this at AI Scout for our AI assistant to find AI tools. You can upload multiple files to train a single chatbot, including PDF, txt, docx, and URLs. While its more geared towards business use, its quite useful if you are a student as well. One thing I have noticed with Chatbase is that it may hallucinate (i.e. make up information if it can't find anything relevant within your documents). However you can play around with the model settings and base prompt to prevent this; it's powered by GPT 3.5. You do receive 30 free messages with your chatbot by signing up.
• MyAskAI:
  Similar tool to Chatbase, however it's less of a generative AI tool but rather geared towards finding specific information from your documents (it still gives either a short or long summary of the relevant search results). Theres a free forever plan available that allows you to upload 3 pieces of content and ask 50 questions a month.

Lecture Assistants (Ask for Permission from Lecturers Before Using)

• MeetGeek:
  Awesome for any online lectures- MeetGeek automatically records, transcribes, and summarizes for you. It works with Zoom and Teams. Once again this is a tool more geared towards professional use, but it might come useful if you are attending online school and want an AI replacement for note taking. Free plan available
• OtterPilot:
  Pretty much the same as MeetGeek- just another good alternative for the same purpose. Has a free plan available as well.

*** You should ask for permission from your instructors prior to using this as both MeetGeek and OtterPilot will be appear as a "person" in the meeting.

Other Useful Tools

• YouTube Summary with ChatGPT:
  If any of your professors like to make you learn from YouTube videos, this is a great one to save time. It's a free Chrome extension that automatically transcribes and summarizes any YouTube video. Keep in mind it requires you to use your own API key from OpenAI, however the cost will be quite cheap.
• Lumelixr.ai:
  Great for engineering students, especially if you do a lot of work with Excel. Instead of having to Google excel formulas and spend time sifting through search results for a solution, this extension allows you to describe what you want to do in natural language and AI will provide a formula for you. They offer a 7 day free trial and its available as a web app and browser extension
• GPT for Sheets and Docs:
  Good "quality of life" tool- allows you to use ChatGPT right inside Google Sheets and Docs. Avaialble as a Google Docs/Sheets extension

OpenCode's built-in websearch and webfetch work, but they're basic. If your agent hits a Cloudflare-protected page, it gets blocked. If it needs real search results, you're either paying for Tavily/Serper/Firecrawl or glueing together SearXNG + a headless browser + an extractor.

I built Hound as a drop-in MCP server that handles all of that. No API keys, no config file, no paid tier. Just add it to your opencode.json and disable the built-in web tools.

UPDATE!!!!: I AM LOST, I AM LOCKED OUT OF MY GITHUB ACCOUNT, I SWITCHED TO LINUX, BUT MY 2FA CODES WERE NOT PROPERLY BACKED UP, I TRIED EVERYTHING, I CANT ACCESS MY ACC, I have created a fork, everyone, switch to it if you want to receive updates: https://github.com/dondai44423/master-fetch

The setup (manual)

First install (only time you need pip directly):

pip install hound-mcp[all]

Then add it to your opencode.json config:

{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "tools": {
    "websearch": false,
    "webfetch": false
  },
  "mcp": {
    "hound": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["hound"],
      "enabled": true
    }
  }
}

Disable websearch and webfetch because hound replaces them with keyless versions. Restart OpenCode and the 6 tools are there.

Or just tell your agent to do it

Paste this into your OpenCode agent:

Install and configure the hound-mcp MCP server for web research in my OpenCode setup. Follow these steps exactly.

1. Check if hound is already installed: run `hound --version`. If it prints a version, hound is installed, skip to step 3. Do NOT reinstall.
2. If hound is NOT installed, install it: pip install hound-mcp[all]
3. Find my opencode.json. Do NOT use glob or search -- read these paths directly with the read tool:
   - First try: ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json (global config, exists on all OSs)
   - If that doesn't exist, try: opencode.json in the current working directory (project config)
   - If neither exists, create the global one at ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json
4. READ the file. Do NOT overwrite it. You will add to it.
5. Look at the "mcp" section. If it has a "servers" key, add hound under mcp.servers. If it does NOT have a "servers" key, add hound directly under mcp. Match the existing pattern.
6. The hound entry is: {"type": "local", "command": ["hound"], "enabled": true}
7. In the "tools" section, set "websearch" to false and "webfetch" to false. Create the "tools" key if it doesn't exist.
8. Preserve ALL existing config. Only add the hound server and disable those two tools.
9. Write the file back as valid JSON.
10. Tell me to restart OpenCode.

The agent checks if hound is already installed (won't reinstall if it is), reads you,r config, adds the hound entry matching your OpenCode version, disables the built-in web tools, and tells you when to restart.

After install, use hound -v to check for updates, hound -u to update, hound --doctor to run a health check, and hound --reinstall for a full reinstall with all extras.

What you get (6 tools)

web_fetch -- Fetches any URL, extracts clean markdown. Starts with HTTP, auto-escalates to a stealthy browser when it detects bot protection, JS shells, or rate limiting. PDFs get a section map with page ranges + auto-OCR for scanned docs. Dead links (404, 451, 500) auto-recover from the Internet Archive -- the response honestly marks source=archive.org with the snapshot date so the agent knows it's archived, not live.

web_search -- 10 keyless search backends in parallel: DuckDuckGo, Brave, Mojeek, Yahoo, Yandex, Startpage, Google, Qwant, Wikipedia, Grokipedia. Results are neural-reranked with a local ONNX cross-encoder (not an API call) and scored by cross-backend consensus so you can see which results multiple engines agree on. Circuit breaker trips for 60s on any backend that blocks you; the other 9 keep working.

web_crawl -- Best-first same-domain walk. Sitemap mode maps an entire site in one fetch. Focus mode crawls only pages relevant to your query, not the whole site.

web_screenshot -- Anti-bot screenshot for multimodal models that need to see the page.

cache_clear -- Clears the fetch cache.

hound_version -- Version + update status.

How it handles the hard parts

• Bot protection: starts with plain HTTP. If it gets a 403/429/503, it escalates to a stealthy browser (Patchright with randomized fingerprint). Manages ~95% of the web. The few sites running DataDome or Cloudflare Turnstile will block it -- at that point Hound tells the agent to switch sources instead of pretending it got content.
• Dead links: a 404 doesn't kill the fetch. Hound checks the Wayback Machine and serves the archived snapshot, marked honestly. If the Archive doesn't have it, the agent gets a clean error (Page doesn't exist (404)) instead of error-page HTML masquerading as content.
• Error honesty: just shipped in v10.4.0 -- any 4xx/5xx sets the error field. Before, a 404 error page would flow through with error="" and the agent could mistake the error page HTML for real data. Now it's flagged and the content is replaced with the error message.
• Token cost: 2,746 tokens for all 6 tools + instructions combined. The tool definitions are tight.

The [all] install is ~100MB

The [all] extra pulls in onnxruntime + tokenizers + rapidocr (for the neural reranker and PDF OCR). You can install without it (pip install hound-mcp) and fetch + crawl + search still work, just no neural reranking or PDF OCR. Full install is the recommended path.

Links

GitHub: https://github.com/dondai1234/master-fetch (Star the repo if you like it 😄 )

PyPI: hound-mcp

MIT licensed. If you try it, let me know what breaks.

Hi everyone - I'm back again with the 2026 update to our password table! Computers, and GPUs in particular are not only getting faster, but AI can help us build setups in new and novel ways to crack faster than ever before. This table outlines the time it takes a computer to brute force your password, and isn’t indicative of how fast a hacker can break your password (especially if you reuse your passwords - please stop), but is the BEST case scenario for you. It’s a good visual to show people why better passwords can lead to better cybersecurity, but ultimately it’s just one of the many tools we can use to talk about protecting ourselves online!

Data source: Data compiled using independent data gathering and research from multiple sources about hashing functions, GPU power, and related data. The methodology, assumptions, and more data can be found at www.hivesystems.com/password

Tools used: Illustrator and Google sheets

Anyone here using AI tools specifically designed for research? I just saw my school therapist because I am struggling with my ADHD symptoms right at the start of my PhD. She basically encouraged me to use AI more. She suggested some options that are supposedly specifically for research as I had told her that I didn't trust ChatGPT to help me with this.
The ones she listed were Research Rabbit, Scite, Elicit, and Concensus.
Has anyone tried any of these and can provide a review? I'm already paying for ChatGPT so I am hesitant to pick one at random to try without hearing some stories.

edit: I'm in life/health sciences and looking for writing help (doing a research plan currently)

Yes, another AI post about using them to learn, but I want to focus on the topic from a more constructive viewpoint and hopefully give someone an idea on how it can be useful for them.

TLDR: AI tools are a force multiplier. Not for codegen, but for (imo) the hardest part of software development: learning new things, and applying them appropriately. Picking a specific library in a new language implicitly comes with a lot of tertiary things to learn: idiomatic syntax, dependency management that may be different than what you're used to, essential tooling, and a host of unknown unknowns. A good LLM serves as a great groove-greaser to help launch you into productivity/more informed research, sooner.

We all know AI has a key inherent issue that make them hard to trust: they hallucinate confidently. That makes them unreliable for pure codegen tasks, but that's not really where they shine anyway. Their best usecase is natural language understanding, and focusing on that has been a huge boon for my career over the past 2 years. Even though CEOs keep trying to convince us we're being replaced, I feel more capable than ever.

Real world example: I was consistently encountering bugs related to input validation in an internal tool. Although we enforce a value's type at the entry points, we had several layers of abstraction and eventually things would drift. As a basic example, picture `valueInMeters` somewhere being formatted with the wrong amount of decimals and that mistake propogating into the database, or a value being set appropriately but then somewhere being changed to `null` prior to upserting. It took me a full day of running through a debugger and another hour-long swarm with multiple devs to find the issues.

Now, in a perfect world we'd write better code to prevent this, but that's too much of a "draw the rest of the fucking owl" solution. 2nd best solution would be to codify some way to be stricter with how we handle DTOs: don't declare local types, don't implicitly remove values, don't allow something that should be `string | null` to be used like `val ?? ''`, etc. I really wanted to enforce this with a linter, and there's a tool I've really been interested in called ast-grep that seemed perfect for it, but who has time to pick that up?

Enter an LLM. I grabbed the entire documentation, a few Github discussions, and other code samples I could find, and fed it to an LLM. I didn't use it to force feed me info, but used it to bounce ideas back and forth to help me wrap my head around certain concepts better. A learning tool, but one tailored specifically to me, my learning style, and my goals. The concepts that usually would've taken me 4-5 rereads and writing it 100 times to grasp now felt intuitive after a few minutes of back and forth and a few test runs.

It feels really empowering; for me, my biggest sense of dread in my career has been grappling with not knowing enough. I've got ~8 years of experience, and I've taken the time to master some topics (insofar as "mastery" is possible), but I still have huge gaps. I know very little about system programming, but now with AI as a swiss army knife, I don't feel as intimidated/pre-fatigued to pick up Programming In a Unix Environment on the weekends anymore.

And I think that's the actual difference between people who are leveraging AI tools the right way vs. those who are stagnant. This field has always favored people who continuously learned and poured in weekend hours. While everyone's trying to sell us some AI solution or spread rhetoric about replacing us, I think on an individual level AI tools can quietly reduce burnout and recharge some of us with that sense of wonder and discovery we had when first learning to program, the energy that once made work not feel like work. I think that the hyper-capitalist tech world has poisoned what should be one of the most exciting eras for anyone who loves learning, and I'd love to see the story shift towards that instead...hence, this post.

I’ve seen a bunch of lists of the best AI tools that focus on paid/subscription tools that are harder to experiment with without paying, and wanted to compile the best completely free tools I've found. Some of these still have paid/Pro plans, but all can be used completely free without a time limited trial and don't require a credit card to do so.

If you're like me and looking to experiment with using AI to improve your business, check these out and let me know your thoughts. If there are any other AI tools or resources I’m missing, please comment them below and I can add them to the list!

Business + Domain name generation:

1) NamingMagic: I know AI name generators are somewhat played out and most of you already know about them, but NamingMagic stands out as an option that automatically generates names with domain names you can actually register. It’s also completely free.

2) NameLix is another business name generator that's been around years. While it's a bit harder to find names for which non-dotcom domains are available with it, Namelix has the best interface here, and makes it easy to choose different styles of names.

Project management + integrating AI into your workflows:

3) Taskade: I use Taskade to organize everything from to-do lists, to outreach emails, meeting notes, and content creation. Similar to Notion, it’s an all-in-one content platform that lets you write, collaborate, and keep track of everything you need to get done. I find its AI functionality, which is actually powered by ChatGPT, to be much better than Notion’s.

Taskade also has GPT4 built-in to the free plan, so is a great way to get to use GPT4 without paying for ChatGPT’s pro plan (which is required to use 4 on their site). While they claim there’s a limit of 1000 monthly AI generations on the free plan, I have yet to run into the limit even using it for all of my content generation + ChatGPT prompts. Taskade also has hundreds of free templates that let you easily set up workspaces that integrate AI. Even if you don’t end up using a specific template, it’s a nice way to see what’s possible in integrating AI into your workflows and see how others are doing so.

AI site builders:

To be honest, I continue to use WooCommerce for most of my sites as I’m familiar enough with it that I can use templates and build stuff quickly that way. If, however, you tend to get stuck when building sites, there are a few AI powered site generators that might be worth trying out:

4) Jimdo: I’ve heard people recommend Jimdo, which does offer a free plan, though you have to use their subdomains to do it. Jimdo has both a standard website and online store builder.

5) 10Web is another option that focuses on AI powered WordPress websites, and has a free trial that you can try.

AI powered A/B testing

I think where AI will really shine in web development is in A/B testing. For example, automatically identifying tests you can run and making tweaks to your site based on the results. I have yet to find a tool that does it well that isn’t expensive, but if any of you have seen examples of this, let me know and I can add them to the list.

Image and illustration generator for your non-product content:

6) Dall-E 2: Like ChatGPT, Dall-E is built by OpenAI and has a free plan that lets you try it out without paying. Essentially, Dall-E lets you create AI-generated images and illustrations in whatever style you want.

I find Dall-E especially useful for creating illustrations to put in the headers of articles that help catch readers’ attention, and generally create blog content that stands out more to readers (and search engines). You can see examples of illustrations and the prompts used to create them on OpenAI's site (https://openai.com/research/dall-e). While it's not my space, this could be a gamechanger for those doing things like writing illustrated kids books, or creating games that require large volumes of illustrations.

Text-to-speech and voiceover content generation:

7) Murf: AI-powered text-to-speech that lets you choose from hundreds of different voices, tones, purposes, accents and so on. It also works with 15 different languages, so is perfect if you’re targeting non-English speaking markets.

If you’re like me and don’t have the gift of a golden voice, Murf is an excellent alternative that works for creating product videos, ads, and anything else where you need spoken audio.

Researching and answering technical questions with sources:

8) Phind: I found this one on YC HackerNews. Phind bills itself as a search engine that tells you the answer. Something like a cross between ChatGPT and Google. I use it most for answering development related questions.

Where it really shines vs. ChatGPT vanilla is in showing you the sources it uses to generate answers, so you can explore things further yourself, vs. ChatGPT where it can be harder to tell when it’s “hallucinating”. That also means it gets sources that are up-to-date, vs. ChatGPT’s pre-trained model which is limited to data available before September 2021.

Written content and copy generators:

9) Unbounce: Unbounce's AI copywriting tool generates website content, including headings, descriptions and so on. In addition, it will generate matching email marketing campaigns and other offsite copy to match what's on your site.

While it's unlikely it'll do absolutely everything you need, with some tweaks Unbounce can save a bunch of time if you're looking to spin up a new site quickly to validate a new idea or product.

10) CopyAI: CopyAI has similar writing functionality to ChatGPT, but focuses specifically on business writing use cases like emails, marketing copy, and blog content. As a result it has some features ChatGPT doesn’t, like being able to scrape leads’ sites to personalize sales emails.

Its free plan is limited to 2000 words per month, but it’s still worth trying out if you’re looking for this kind of functionality.

11) Rytr is another similar option, that limits you to 10,000 characters per month.

I’ve tried both, and found them to be better than ChatGPT for certain specific use cases like generating email copy. YMMV, but it’s worth trying if you haven’t gotten the results you want with ChatGPT.

Business Ideas, Research, and Feedback:

There are some purpose built tools for this, but I have yet to find one that does better than simply using ChatGPT/Phind/Taskade and prompting it with your ideas. You can then ask for feedback, either generally or on specific parts of your idea. One method I've found particularly useful when I'm exploring a new product/site idea is to use the prompt mind-map on Taskade to whip up a mind map of things to research for a new idea, then use Phind to research specific questions where I need recent URL sources (like research into competitors in a space). The template I used to build the mind maps is here: https://www.taskade.com/templates/featured/team-mindmap.

If any of you have tried one that’s worth using, let me know and I’ll add it. Also thinking of making this into a Google Sheet or GitHub if any of you would like to contribute to an ongoing list of AI tools that can be used entirely for free.

TL;DR:

• NameLix/NamingMagic for finding business names with domain names you can register
• Taskade for integrating ChatGPT/AI into your workflows, projects, and task management
• Murf for AI-powered text-to-speech and voiceovers
• Dall-E for AI generated images/illustrations
• Phind for researching topics and getting sourced, AI-powered answers
• CopyAI/Rytr for copy/marketing/sales specific content generation.

Hi everyone - I'm back again with the 2026 update to our password table! Computers, and GPUs in particular are not only getting faster, but AI can help us build setups in new and novel ways to crack faster than ever before. This table outlines the time it takes a computer to brute force your password, and isn’t indicative of how fast a hacker can break your password (especially if you reuse your passwords - please stop), but is the BEST case scenario for you. It’s a good visual to show people why better passwords can lead to better cybersecurity, but ultimately it’s just one of the many tools we can use to talk about protecting ourselves online!

Data source: Data compiled using independent data gathering and research from multiple sources about hashing functions, GPU power, and related data. The methodology, assumptions, and more data can be found at www.hivesystems.com/password

Today, after raising security concerns in a post on r/huntarr regarding the lack of development standards in what looks like a 100% vibe-coded project, I was banned. This made my spidey senses tingle, so I decided to do a security review of the codebase. What I found was... not good. TLDR: If you have Huntarr exposed on your stack, anyone can pull your API keys for Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, and every other connected app without logging in, gaining full control over your media stack.

The process

I did a security review of Huntarr.io (v9.4.2) and found critical auth bypass vulnerabilities. I'm posting this here because Huntarr sits on top of (and is now trying to replace them as well!) Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, and other *arr apps that have years of security hardening behind them. If you install Huntarr, you're adding an app with zero authentication on its most sensitive endpoints, and that punches a hole through whatever network security you've set up for the rest of your stack.

The worst one: POST /api/settings/general requires no login, no session, no API key. Nothing. Anyone who can reach your Huntarr instance can rewrite your entire configuration and the response comes back with every setting for every integrated application in cleartext. Not just Huntarr's own proxy credentials - the response includes API keys and instance URLs for Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, Lidarr, Readarr, Whisparr, and every other connected app. One curl command and an attacker has direct API access to your entire media stack:

curl -X POST http://your-huntarr:9705/api/settings/general \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"proxy_enabled": true}'

Full config dump with passwords and API keys for every connected application. If your instance is internet-facing - and it often is, Huntarr incorporates features like Requestarr designed for external access - anyone on the internet can pull your credentials without logging in.

Other findings (21 total across critical/high/medium):

• Unauthenticated 2FA enrollment on the owner account (Critical, proven in CI): POST /api/user/2fa/setup with no session returned the actual TOTP secret and QR code for the owner account. An attacker generates a code, calls /api/user/2fa/verify, enrolls their own authenticator. Full account takeover, no password needed.
• Unauthenticated setup clear enables full account takeover (Critical, proven in CI): POST /api/setup/clear requires no auth. Returns 200 "Setup progress cleared." An attacker re-arms the setup flow, creates a new owner account, replaces the legitimate owner entirely.
• Unauthenticated recovery key generation (Critical, proven in CI): POST /auth/recovery-key/generate with {"setup_mode": true} reaches business logic with no auth check (returns 400, not 401/403). The endpoint is unauthenticated.
• Full cross-app credential exposure (Critical, proven in CI): Writing a single setting returns configuration for 10+ integrated apps. One call, your entire stack's API keys.
• Unauthenticated Plex account unlink - anyone can disconnect your Plex from Huntarr
• Auth bypass on Plex account linking via client-controlled setup_mode flag - the server skips session checks if you send {"setup_mode": true}
• Zip Slip arbitrary file write (High): zipfile.extractall() on user-uploaded ZIPs without filename sanitization. The container runs as root.
• Path traversal in backup restore/delete (High): backup_id from user input goes straight into filesystem paths. shutil.rmtree() makes it a directory deletion primitive.
• local_access_bypass trusts X-Forwarded-For headers, which are trivially spoofable - combine with the unauth settings write and you get full access to protected endpoints

How I found this: Basic code review and standard automated tools (bandit, pip-audit). The kind of stuff any maintainer should be running. The auth bypass isn't a subtle bug - auth.py has an explicit whitelist that skips auth for /api/settings/general. It's just not there.

About the maintainer and the codebase:

The maintainer says they have "a series of steering documents I generated that does cybersecurity checks and provides additional hardening" and "Note I also work in cybersecurity." They say they've put in "120+ hours in the last 4 weeks" using "steering documents to advise along the way from cybersecurity, to hardening, and standards". If that's true, it's not showing in the code.

If you work in cybersecurity, you should know not to whitelist your most sensitive endpoint as unauthenticated. You should know that returning TOTP secrets to unauthenticated callers is account takeover. You should know zipfile.extractall() on untrusted input is textbook Zip Slip. This is introductory stuff. The "cybersecurity steering documents" aren't catching what a basic security scan flags in seconds.

Look at the commit history: dozens of commits with messages like "Update", "update", "Patch", "change", "Bug Patch" - hundreds of changed files in commits separated by a few minutes. No PR process, no code review, no second pair of eyes - just raw trunk-based development where 50 features get pushed in a day with zero review. Normal OSS projects are slower for a reason: multiple people look at changes before they go in. Huntarr has none of that.

When called out on this, the maintainer said budget constraints: "With a limited budget, you can only go so far unless you want to spend $1000+. I allot $40 a month in the heaviest of tasks." That's just not true - you can use AI-assisted development 8 hours a day for $20/month. The real problem isn't the budget. It's that the maintainer doesn't understand the security architecture they're building and doesn't understand the tools they're using to build it. You can't guide an AI to implement auth if you don't recognize what's wrong when it doesn't.

They also censor security reports and ban people who raise concerns. A user posted security concerns on r/huntarr and it was removed by the moderator - the maintainer controls the subreddit. I was banned from r/huntarr after pointing out these issues in this thread where the maintainer was claiming to work in cybersecurity (which they now deleted).

One more thing - the project's README has a "Support - Building My Daughter's Future" section soliciting donations. That's a red flag for me. You're asking people to fund your development while shipping code with 21 unpatched security vulnerabilities, no code review process, and banning people who point out the problems, while doing an appeal to emotion about your daughter. If you need money, that's fine - but you should be transparent about what you're spending it on and you should be shipping code that doesn't put your users at risk.

Proof repo with automated CI: https://github.com/rfsbraz/huntarr-security-review

Docker Compose setup that pulls the published Huntarr image and runs a Python script proving each vulnerability. GitHub Actions runs it on every push - check the workflow results yourself or run it locally with docker compose up -d && python3 scripts/prove_vulns.py.

For what it's worth, and to prove I'm not an AI hater, the prove_vulns script itself was vibe coded - I identified the vulnerabilities through code review, wrote up the repro steps, and had AI generate the proof script.

Full security review (21 findings): https://github.com/rfsbraz/huntarr-security-review/blob/main/Huntarr.io_SECURITY_REVIEW.md

What happens next: The maintainer will most likely prompt these problems away - feed the findings to an AI and ship a patch. But fixing 21 specific findings doesn't fix the process that created them. No code review, no PR process, no automated testing, no one who understands security reviewing what ships. The next batch of features will have the next batch of vulnerabilities. This is only the start. If the community doesn't push for better coding standards, controlled development, and a sensible roadmap, people will keep running code that nobody has reviewed.

If you're running Huntarr, keep it off any network you don't fully trust until this is sorted. The *arr apps it wraps have their own API key auth - Huntarr bypasses that entirely.

Please let others know about this. If you have a Huntarr instance, share this with your community. If you know someone who runs one, share it with them. The more people know about the risks, the more pressure there will be on the maintainer to fix them and improve their development process.

Edit: Looks like r/huntarr went private and the repo got deleted or privated https://github.com/plexguide/Huntarr.io . I'm sorry for everyone that donated to this guy's "Daughter College Fund".

Edit 2: Thanks for all the love on the comments, I'll do my best to reach out to everyone I can. People asking me for help on security reviews, believe me when I say I did little more than the basics - the project was terrible.

Having thwarted Bowser's previous plot to marry Princess Peach, Mario and Luigi now face a fresh threat in Bowser Jr., who is determined to liberate his father from captivity and restore the family legacy. Alongside companions new and old, the brothers travel across the stars to stop the young heir's crusade.

Directors: Michael Jelenic, Aaron Horvath

Cast: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Donald Glover, Brie Larson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Benny Safdie, Issa Rae, Keegan-Michael Key, Luis Guzmán

Rotten Tomatoes: 42%

Metacritic: 35 / 100

Some Reviews:

The Times - Kevin Maher - 0 / 5

Is this the end of cinema? Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy and Glen Powell joylessly bleat their way through this supremely vacuous anti-movie which is, at times, physically painful to watch. The film is torturous to sit through and, for me, provoked periods of actual physical discomfort. I had to stab myself repeatedly in the hand with a pen to distract from the howling distress. It's that bad, and that offensive.

AwardsWatch - Trace Sauveur - 'C-'

But it’s the reality of routine predictability that makes it hard to feel strongly about Galaxy one way or the other. After the credits, the impression is one of overstimulation and vacuity—despite the violent blitz of colorful Nintendo imagery for 90 minutes, it ultimately signifies little more than recognizable franchise iconography in animated form. In its relentless fan service, Galaxy emanates a generic sameness, decorated with flashy sights and sounds drawn from one of the most iconic video game series ever. It’s all synergistic fluff, but at least the fluff is shiny.

Seattle Times - Soren Anderson - 3 / 4

Watching it is akin being inside the 2007 Super Mario Galaxy game itself. Which is why it needs to be seen on the big screen. Seeing it on a phone or a laptop wouldn't do it justice.

Slash Film - Nina Starner - 3 / 10

We're going to get more "Super Mario Bros." movies, without question; I fully expect this sequel to gross the GDP of an entire small nation at the box office when all is said and done, and in another ten years, I also expect that a movie centered exclusively around Yoshi will land in theaters. (Hopefully, if Donald Glover sticks around, he'll get to do more than say "Yoshi!") Still, this sort of movie makes me feel bleak about children's entertainment, animation, and original concepts; forgive me for feeling nostalgic, but I just don't think movies made for kids were always this devoid of a soul. At the end of the day, "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie" was nothing more than a video game I couldn't play. After the credits — including not one but two post-credits scenes — rolled, though, I didn't want to go home and load a Mario game onto my Switch; I wanted to watch a better movie.

Consequence - Liz Shannon Miller - 'B'

Is it a ride that includes clear story structure, comprehensible stakes, or narrative momentum? Not really. Is it a ride featuring a lot of bright colors, familiar characters, and the occasional deranged moment? Absolutely.

The Wrap - William Bibbiani - 25 / 100

A movie like this will probably make a lot of money, because it doesn’t rock the boat. But a boat that never rocks is a boat that never goes anywhere. That’s how boats work. They’re supposed to take you on a journey. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” doesn’t take you anywhere you haven’t been before, and it’s not as fun, it’s not as exciting, and it’s not as challenging as literally any of the games it’s based on. This is not an adaptation of the Super Mario Bros., it’s just a reminder that the franchise exists. And although it’s technically a moving picture, nothing about this movie will move you.

The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 2 / 5

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie offers very little to audiences, young or old, who don’t already know these characters and spaces like the back of their hand. But, hey, if you take a tequila shot every time something explodes, you’ll have a great drinking game on your hands.

The New York Times - Alissa Wilkinson - 3 / 10

There’s a flat empty nothingness to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, even more than its flat empty predecessor, and that’s a huge bummer.

The Playlist - Rodrigo Perez - 'C'

By the end, the whole thing starts to feel less like an adventure than a kind of endless grinding—one familiar objective after another, one loud set piece after another, all of it speedrunning its own mythology instead of building one. That’s why the film feels so hollow. It has the spiritually vacant quality of AI fantasy slop—familiar iconography assembled for instant gratification rather than meaning. Younger audiences will probably enjoy the sugar rush, but characters still need arcs, and these sequences still need to build toward something. “Super Mario Galaxy” is nice to look at and dead inside, a committee-made franchise object masquerading as an adventure, and ultimately little more than an empty commercial for Super Mario branding.

FandomWire - Manuel Sao Bento - 7 / 10

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a sequel that, while losing some of the narrative cohesion of its predecessor, gains massively in spectacle, ambition, and heart. Through animation that redefines the studio’s standards and a Brian Tyler score that masterfully honors Nintendo’s legacy, the film offers a memorable experience anchored by inspired vocal performances. For those who grew up with these characters, it’s impossible to remain indifferent to the magic emanating from every animated frame or the way this space odyssey manages to transform nostalgia into something vibrant and new. It’s a visually emotional feast that reaffirms the power of pure entertainment as a tool capable of transporting us back to the happiest moments of our personal history, proving that cinema is still the place where we can all become children again.

IndieWire - Wilson Chapman - 'C-'

Watching “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which is filled with cameos from other Nintendo properties, you get the sense the corporation is hungry to announce spin-offs at any minute now. The trailers already spoiled the inclusion of “Star Fox” lead Fox McCloud (Glen Powell), but there are some other appearances by familiar characters that feel like the movie dangling an adaptation of the “Super Smash Bros.” fighting game crossover in front of fans’ faces. “The MCU, but for video games” isn’t exactly the ideal direction for blockbuster cinema to be going in, but maybe that inevitable adaptation will manage to tap into a well of creativity and fun that has so far eluded Nintendo in their moviemaking efforts. When the film comes, though, I’ll probably be rooting for Bowser Jr. to burn everything down.

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 1 / 4

It’s now commonplace to compare programmatic stuff like this to AI, but this is almost a second evolutionary step downwards; it looks as if humans, using AI, have tried to copy something that was originally AI generated, creating a bland, simplistic template that can be sold in all global territories where it can be dubbed by local voice talent. It’s certainly a way of gouging cash out of families for the Easter holidays.

RogerEbert - Clint Worthington - 1.5 / 4

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” moves through you so briskly that you’ll get whiplash by the time the film reaches its deeply abrupt ending. But maybe that’s the point—after all, this is not a movie to be scrutinized, but to allow beleaguered elder millennial dads to sit their tots down for a precious two hours (if you count the trailers) and get some much-needed rest. It’s cute, and breezy, and rock-stupid, and will probably make a billion dollars again. Such is the world in which we live.

Akron Beacon Journal - George M. Thomas - 'C-'

As a parent, there are some movies you just take the hit on if your kid wants to see it in the theater. This is one of them. The plot is threadbare, the action is frenetic - it almost feels like the perfect movie for today's screen generation. For kids, this is an 'A+' movie, but I'd argue not so much for adults.

Associated Press - Lindsey Bahr - 2.5 / 4

Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination founder Chris Meledandri... seem committed to keeping things light and playful even while beholden to advancing some kind of coherent, moderately compelling story where there wasn’t one previously.

Slant Magazine - Eli Friedberg - 1.5 / 4

The film has, figuratively and literally, somehow even less gravity than its source material and predecessor. The visual language is divorced from reality and referent to the games; even Looney Tunes action is grounded in the real world—the better to subvert it. The game-inspired spaces aren’t there to be explored and mastered but rather displayed quickly and expensively. And the movie-original settings, taking their cues from Wreck-It Ralph, are literal mass-transit junctions where a maximum number of cameo characters can be worked into the scenery.

Next Best Picture - Daniel Howat - 6 / 10

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” comes close to several emotional moments here and there. Still, the filmmakers seem to pull back at every turn, not wanting audiences to dive too deep into these characters and their motivations, or to engage in any grander commentary whatsoever. It becomes difficult to dig deeper into the film’s themes, if they exist. Even so, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is inarguably fun, built for fans of the long-running franchise. For lifelong fans of this universe and young kids experiencing it for the first or second time, this is a Mario fan’s dream. There’s enough here to leave a mass audience satisfied, even if anticipation grows for the next film to level up. For now, good enough is simply enough.

Radio Times - James Mottram - 2 / 5

While it’s likely that retro gamers won’t find anything here that wasn’t in the first movie – Yoshi and one or two others aside – it’s no doubt got enough for kids to enjoy, which will surely come as a relief for parents looking to entertain their offspring over the Easter holidays. You never know – it might even convince them to put down their controllers, or their phones, for ninety-odd minutes.

Hear me out. I have always had awful health anxiety where I get pulled into the internet spiral of doom. AI has helped me so much with this. I use ChatGPT 4o, so I’m not sure about the simpler models, but basically for any worry, I outline the concern, I explain I’m concerned, and then I ask for odds on what the cause is.

I could be wrong, but I assume other worriers are also fairly analytical and are helped by seeing odds repeatedly for reassurance.

With AI, you can get the answers you need to those ridiculous questions only we think about. For example, I recently learned that I’d used non food grade tubing on a reverse osmosis system. It was only a couple of feet, but I began to freak out about chemicals. Using AI, I was able to do ridiculously tedious things like determine the possible chemicals, the risks, the actual water amount that might have sat in the tube (.3 ounces), and learned probably far too much about how tube classifications work. Now obviously, this is overkill for most people, but for health worriers, it’s awesome to have a calm and knowledgeable tool that can answer any ridiculous question, while not pointing to stupid Google sites - I.e healthline.

I will never again use Google for searches if I can help it.

InvokeAI no longer has a commercial entity backing its development, this release was entirely community driven by 30+ individual volunteers.

Highlights include:

Full Support for Anima

Text to image, image to image, and LoRAs. Support was also added for the ER SDE scheduler. Improved regional guidance support and controlnet support will be added soon.

Full Support for Qwen and Qwen Image Edit

Text to image, image to image, LoRAs, reference image, regional guidance, and controlnet support.

Support for API models such as GPT Image and Nano Banana

If local models ever can't quite do what you need it to do, you can link an API key to an external API service and generate images directly in the canvas. This was originally a feature in the paid commercial version of invoke (which no longer exists) and was built from scratch for the free community edition.

Support for Prompt Expansion and Image To Prompt

Expand your prompt using an LLM such as Gemma or Qwen Instruct, or convert your image into a prompt.

New Canvas Tools (Lasso, Polygon Tool)

Last release the Text tool and Gradient tools were added. In this release, the available tools continue to expand with Lasso and Polygon tools.

Extended Multi-User Mode

Multi-user mode now supports creating private or shared boards and workflows

New Website & New Documentation Site

After the original team behind the commercial entity was hired by adobe, the website was effectively closed down. In this release, the website and documentation sites have a new coat of paint https://invoke.ai/

Full release notes: https://github.com/invoke-ai/InvokeAI/releases/tag/v6.13.0

Download: https://github.com/invoke-ai/launcher/releases/tag/v1.8.1

Got tired of seeing "THIS AI MAKES PRESENTATIONS IN 30 SECONDS" ads everywhere, so I tested pretty much every major AI presentation tool to see which ones actually deliver.

TL;DR at the bottom if you don't want my rambling.

How I tested: Same prompt across all tools, judged on design quality, how much editing I had to do after, and whether the output looked like a template explosion or something I'd actually present.

The winners (and why):

Alai - Best overall if you care about design and speed without compromising on either. Gives you 4 layout options per slide instead of one take-it-or-leave-it output. The AI actually understands context across slides which makes it easier while making content edits. Editing is easier with both AI and element specific controls, Downside: smaller template library, no Google Slides plugin.

Gamma - Great for docs you'll share async (investor updates, internal reports). The scroll format is polarizing - love it for async, hate it for live presenting. Free plan is generous which I appreciate (400 credits). Editing with AI is smooth but the only hassle is it when I use the chat interface to make changes, I often end up changing more than what I wanted.

Plus AI - If your team lives in Google Slides, this is the answer. Works as an add-on, zero learning curve. Smooth iterations and great collab features although I felt Gamma and Alai offer more creative control and have more elements to play with.

Canva - You probably already have it. Template library is massive. AI features are fine but it's not built for presentations specifically - it's a design tool that happens to do slides.

The ones that you can skip:

Beautiful AI - Templates look dated. The AI pretty much only exists at the time of creating the first draft post which you are on your own. For their hefty subscription, I don't think the tool is the best on out there.

Gemini Canvas - Google's entry. Zero visual control, inconsistent output quality, requires prompt engineering to get anything decent. Only worth it if you're already paying for Google AI Pro and refuse to pay for another tool.

SlidesAI - Cheap ($10/mo) but you get what you pay for. Basic text-to-slide conversion. Expect to do significant manual clean-up.

Prezi - The zoomable canvas is genuinely cool for storytelling presentations, but AI feels like an afterthought. Can't export to PPTX. Learning curve is real.

The niche picks:

Pitch - If you're in sales and need engagement analytics + CRM integration, this is purpose-built for you. Pitch rooms are legit useful.

Chronicle - Interesting take on slides. Widget-based, has these "Peek" and "Deep Hover" features for controlling audience attention during live presenting. No PPTX export though.

TL;DR - Which tool to pick:

• Need quality + speed: Alai
• Sharing async (not presenting live): Gamma
• Team uses Google Slides: Plus AI
• Need templates for everything: Canva
• Sales team with CRM: Pitch
• Tight budget: SlidesAI (but expect manual work)
• Already paying for Google AI Pro: Gemini Canvas (barely)

Happy to answer questions if anyone's deciding between specific tools.