offline

Libby by OverDrive

Free reading app from OverDrive that borrows ebooks, audiobooks and magazines from your local public library with a library card. Works in a browser or on iOS, Android, Kobo and Kindle (US libraries only), with offline downloads, CarPlay and Android Auto support, holds, and tagged reading lists.

Why I recommend it: This is how you read the paid books on this site without buying them — most business, career and technology titles are in public library collections. What you need is a library card, which is free where you live. The catch is availability, not price: your library chooses what it licenses and popular titles come with waiting lists, so place holds early rather than expecting a book on the day you want it.

OpenAI Whisper

OpenAI's open-source speech recognition model and command-line tool, free to download and run on your own machine. MIT licensed.

From the site: Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision - openai/whisper

Why I recommend it: The original. Slower than whisper.cpp on a laptop, but the reference version and simple to install with Python.

whisper.cpp

A fast, dependency-light rewrite of OpenAI's Whisper speech-to-text that runs on ordinary laptop hardware, including CPU only. MIT licensed.

From the site: Port of OpenAI's Whisper model in C/C++. Contribute to ggml-org/whisper.cpp development by creating an account on GitHub.

Why I recommend it: Transcribe interviews or your own practice answers privately, without paying a per-minute transcription service.

Jan

An open-source desktop app that runs AI models entirely offline on your own computer, with an optional local API server. AGPL licensed.

From the site: Jan is an open-source alternative to ChatGPT. Run open-source AI models locally or connect to cloud models like GPT, Claude and others.

Why I recommend it: Install, download a model, unplug the internet — it still answers. That's the point.

Ollama

Open-source software that downloads and runs open AI models on your own computer, with a single command and an OpenAI-compatible local API. MIT licensed.

From the site: Ollama is the easiest way to automate your work using open models, while keeping your data safe.

Why I recommend it: The easiest honest way to use AI privately — nothing you type leaves your machine. Start with a small model before you judge the speed.