{"id":18324,"date":"2026-02-04T09:17:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T09:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/?p=18324"},"modified":"2026-07-09T17:43:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:43:50","slug":"link-round-up-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/link-round-up-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Link Round Up (008)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Welcome back to Link Round Up, our almost-monthly series where we present the tools, tips, tech and stats that stood out to us this month<\/strong> \ud83d\udd25<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As always, this isn\u2019t about the biggest launches or the loudest trends, just the things that made us pause and quietly mutter, \u201cOh\u2026 that\u2019s actually really good\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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If you\u2019re the kind of user that prefers a web browsing experience without<\/em> sponsored content, AI add-ons, third-party product integrations \ud83d\udc40 and other annoying bloat then Just the Browser<\/a> is worth a click.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an open-source project that reverts Chrome<\/a>, Firefox<\/a> and Edge<\/a> back to their original purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You still get updates and core web rendering – just without the extra noise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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TextKool\u2019s ASCII tool<\/a> is great for when you need to generate ASCII art for READMEs, CLI tools, status screens etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s free to use and there are hundreds of fonts available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

________ _______   .__       _____   __             \n\\_____  \\\\   _  \\  |__|    _\/ ____\\_\/  |_ __  _  __ \n \/  ____\/\/  \/_\\  \\ |  |    \\   __\\ \\   __\\\\ \\\/ \\\/ \/ \n\/       \\\\  \\_\/   \\|  |     |  |    |  |   \\     \/  \n\\_______ \\\\_____  \/|__|     |__|    |__|    \\\/\\_\/   \n        \\\/      \\\/                                  <\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Mkris SEO Tools<\/a> have an excellent AI Optimisation Checker that\u2019s very useful now that so many search results are shaped by AI-driven discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It checks entities, authority, credibility and technical signals to give suggestions on how to tailor your content for AI Search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Office<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Speaking of AI: OpenAI\u2019s Prompt Packs<\/a>. Don\u2019t let the name fool you \u2013 this isn\u2019t copying blocks of text and hoping for magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These packs frame prompts as a process of well documented thinking, and is a mindset shift that yields far more value for those using AI as a tool<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Open WebUI<\/a> feels like self-hosted and local AI has finally crossed the line from \u201ccool demo\u201d to \u201cactually usable\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a big step forward if you want to experiment without handing everything over to a third party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you prefer working with the AI giants, you can use the interface to connect to whatever you want all in one place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Animated<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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You may have missed WordPress\u2019s Interactivity API<\/a> quietly changing what\u2019s possible inside WordPress blocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allowing elements like toggles, filters and updates to respond to user interaction (without shipping a full JavaScript framework) results in richer behaviour with fewer moving parts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Some bad news next: the average web page continues to get heavier<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More scripts, more tracking, more \u201cjust one more thing\u201d are prevailing against years of performance tooling, best practices and performance-themed blog posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a useful reminder that optimisation has an ongoing element. What projects are you going to be revisiting this year? Let us know in the comments below<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Total<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Moving onto something lighter that caught our attention as a web hosting<\/a> provider in relentless pursuit of perfect uptime: Low-tech Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their solar-powered website slows down, degrades gracefully and sometimes goes offline entirely depending on the weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Dithered<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Recent research<\/a> shows that web projects rely on an increasing number of interdependent packages, forming vast global dependency graphs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
30% of US-based breaches in 2025<\/a> can be attributed to unmaintained and abandoned projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This leaves us with a thought worth sitting with. Many of the tools you rely on every day are maintained by one person, unpaid, in their spare time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tens of thousands of users, one maintainer. It\u2019s inspiring, slightly terrifying and a good reminder to support the open-source projects<\/a> that quietly keep everything running.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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This is one of the reasons we take the harder path and build our solutions in-house; so we truly understand the software that quietly keeps everything running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Check out some of the best features we developed over the past year here.<\/a> \ud83d\udcaa<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What useful new tools, software and tech have you come across this month? Leave a comment and let us know<\/a>!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome back to Link Round Up, our almost-monthly series where we present the tools, tips, tech and stats…","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":18350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"ub_ctt_via":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-20i","category-technology","cs-entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/link-roundup-8-nt.webp","author_info":{"display_name":"Joseph Simpson","author_link":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/author\/joseph20i\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18324"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18384,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18324\/revisions\/18384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}