Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

• Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
  
• Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
  
• Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
  
• Disney+
  
• Britbox
  
• Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
  

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

• Pluto TV
  
• Viki
  
• Roku
  

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

• Crunchyroll
  
• Funimation
  
• HiDive
  

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

• Humble Bundle
  
• Fanatical
  
• IndieGala
  

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

• Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
  
• Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
  
• GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
  
• Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
  
• Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
  
• Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
  
• Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
  

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

• Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
  
• Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
  
• EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
  
• PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
  

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

• Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
  
• Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
  
• Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.
  

Education

• Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
  
• BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
  

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

• If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
  
• Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
  
• Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
  
• There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
  
• Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
  
• Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
  

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

• Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

• Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
  
• Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
  
• Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
  
• Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
  
• Communal religious worship
  
• Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
  

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

• To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
  
• CoronaVirus Symptoms
  
• CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
  
• Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
  
• Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
  
• World Health Organisation
  

Support

• Samaritans
  
• Mental Health UK forum on reddit
  
• Link to above's stick post for support outlets
  
• Mindful
  
• Mind.org
  

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

• https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/
  
• https://www.goodsamapp.org/
  
• https://vaccinationvolunteers.sja.org.uk/roles/volunteer-vaccinator.html
  
• https://nhsvolunteerresponders.org.uk/getting-you-started-guide-steward-volunteer
  
• https://peoplesmomentum.com/evictionresistance/
  
• https://londonrentersunion.org/
  

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

• Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
  
• Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
  
• Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
  

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

• LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
  
• Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
  

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

Yu-Gi-Oh! is a trading card game that ties into an anime series of the same name, and is one of the top three TCGs in the world, alongside Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering. Like those games, a new booster pack series is released roughly once every three months, adding around 100 new cards into the game. The game is primarily developed in Japan, and so they receive the sets first, normally a few months in advance. This first release in Asian regions (where the game is referred to as the "Official Trading Card Game", or "OCG") gives players in western areas (the "Trading Card Game", or "TCG") an insight into what cards are coming out and how they will shape tournament play in the future. However, there are some key differences between the two - they maintain separate banlists, and each set that releases in the TCG comes with around 10 additional TCG exclusive cards that have not been seen before in Japan. This story centres around a series of TCG exclusive cards, leaks, and some crazy price hiking.
Inferno
The story begins in August 2014, just before the release of the set Duelist Alliance. This was the first set tying into a new anime series, which brought about a lot of changes. A whole new game mechanic was being introduced, and we already knew from the 4 months the set had been in Japan that it was about to introduce two powerful new deck archetypes that would become immediate contenders with the existing metagame.
Prior to Duelist Alliance, the 10 TCG exclusive cards in a set had typically been a mixture of an extra card or two to supplement cards in the main set, and completely new and distinct cards with no connection to any others. Starting with Duelist Alliance, however, Konami decided to mix it up and instead use the slots to form entirely new deck types. As a result of this, 5 of the 10 TCG exclusive slots in the set were cards for the new Burning Abyss archetype, a series of cards based on the 14-century poem Dante's Inferno.
Despite only being 5 cards, the resultant decks that formed around them were decently powerful. They meshed well with some existing cards to pad the numbers, and their ace card based on Dante himself tied the whole thing together to form a very resilient core. That card was also at the highest rarity - Secret Rare - which meant it was not particularly easy to get the three copies needed for the deck to work. This was a common practice by Konami, and the demand coupled with the smaller supply lead to prices for individual copies of Dante to rise on the secondary market. As people started to catch on to the deck being a serious contender, Dante's prices slowly rose to the $30-$40 mark. The deck was not dominating tournaments against the other new decks introduced in the set - Shaddoll and Satellarknights - but even being able to trade evenly with despite having a card pool of only 5 cards was enough to turn heads. Players waited in anticipation for what the next set would bring for Burning Abyss.
Purgatorio
This next set, The New Challengers, was due for release in the TCG regions on November 6th 2014. The set had released in July in the OCG, so we already knew that both Shaddolls and Satellarknights were getting some interesting new cards, as well as the introduction of yet another top-tier deck in Qliphorts, that utilised the new summoning mechanic. Being TCG exclusive, however, the new cards that Burning Abyss would receive remained unknown, until Konami themselves would publish an article on them a couple of weeks before the sets release.
That was the plan, at least. On September 14th, a Japanese Twitter account leaked a picture of an uncut sheet from within the factory with some of the sets TCG exclusive cards on it. With this leak, we got our first look at Virgil, a Burning Abyss Synchro monster. The effect of the card was translated, and players generally determined that it was decent, if not earth-shattering. In order to play Synchro monsters, however, a special subclass of card called "Tuners" must be used. The way the Burning Abyss cards worked meant it'd be very difficult to use any existing Tuner monsters with them, which could only mean that the upcoming set must also include a specific Tuner for Burning Abyss. The viability of Virgil would largely depend on what this card did. As luck would have it, the leaks included this card too! Our first look at the Burning Abyss tuner, Rubic, looked like this:
The leaked image
This image is of course illegible, and so players left disappointed that we wouldn't know what the card did until the set's release. Except of course not, because 5 days after the leaks were originally posted, a user on the DuelistGroundz forums where the leaks were being discussed returned with some news. They had supposedly worked with a Portuguese translator and "magnified the card a thousand times in Photoshop and worked on it for an hour and a half" to decipher these hieroglyphs, and were here to share the results of their findings, the effect of this new Tuner monster. Digging this up again in 2020 took me a surprising amount of time, so I'm going to post it here in full to save others the effort.

If you control a monster that is not a "Burning Abyss" monster, destroy this card. This card cannot be used as a Synchro Material Monster, except for the Synchro Summon of a "Burning Abyss" monster. If this card is sent to the Graveyard for a Synchro Summon: Draw 1 card. You can only use 1 of the following effects of "(name), Malebranche of the Burning Abyss" per turn, and only once that turn.
● If you control no Spell/Trap Cards: You can Special Summon this card from your hand.
● If this card is sent to the Graveyard: You can Special Summon it.

This effect is absurdly good. It makes the mere act of summoning Virgil advantageous, since it grants you additional cards to continue making plays afterwards. Users on the forum immediately joked about the legitimacy of this effect, but it didn't take long for this to spread across the internet. Once the effect started getting picked up by major Yu-Gi-Oh news sites, being posted to other forums and Reddit, the wider playerbase started to take notice. With this new card, Burning Abyss could be in a position to be the best deck in the game. This new found attention caused many players to start scrambling to build the deck, and to do that they needed three copies of Dante, the Secret Rare card from the Duelist Alliance. This caused the secondary market price on Dante, an already expensive card, to skyrocket. Archives of yugiohprices.com show the average price of a single copy rose to $92, with the highest prices topping three digits at roughly $120. This had knock-on effects for anything else the deck ran, and even the cards that countered these demons.
The problem was that this effect was never real. It took over a month, but eventually Konami started to publish their preview articles for the TCG release of The New Challengers, and we got an article that showed us the real effect of Rubic for the first time. In comparison, it was remarkably lacklustre. Gone were the two parts of the leaked effect that made it good - the card draw and the recursion engine. In fact, Rubic didn't really do anything - it exists purely as a means to play Virgil. In the span of a month, the card had gone from being the star of the show to merely a supporting act for the upcoming rock star. The forum user immediately started to backpedal, attempting to explain their translation process and how they could have been mistaken. Some users were lamenting Dante's price hike, while others wished that the original leaker had just realised the importance of Rubic and gotten a clearer picture of that instead. Dante's price began to decline, though it never returned to its pre-leak levels. The damage had been done, pricing many players out of the deck for the foreseeable future.
Paradiso
While not as impactful as the cards in Duelist Alliance, Virgil, Rubic and the other Burning Abyss cards released in The New Challengers ultimately helped keep the deck afloat in the top tiers. Dante's exclusivity meant it remained expensive during this time, and the next two sets continued this trend - less impactful but ultimately useful cards to help give Burning Abyss more options and keep going. None of these other cards were ever leaked in the same fashion.
The deck has since then remained remarkably resilient, being relevant for many years since its original incarnation. With the help of two additional cards to prop it back, one in 2016 and one in 2019, the deck has gone on to top and win many of the highest level events since its original incarnation, most recently taking second place at YCS Utrecht in February 2020. For a game with such extreme powercreep, Burning Abyss has been one of the only decks to keep going year after year. By comparison, its competitors in 2014-2015 - Shaddolls, Satallerknights, and Qliphort - have all but been forgotten about. Unfortunately, while Virgil was a useful tool at its release against those decks, nowadays it is excluded from decklists, in part due to the requirement of needing to run the underwhelming do-nothing Tuner, Rubic.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was a young teen growing up in far North Austin, it was a popular custom for many boys in the neighborhood to assemble at the local Stop-N-Go after school on a regular basis for some Grand Champion level tournaments in Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. The collective insistence of our mothers and fathers to get out of the house, get some exercise, and refrain from playing NES or Sega on the television only led us to seek out more video games at the convenience store down the road. Much allowance and lunch money was spent as well as hours that should have been devoted to homework among the 8 or 9 regular boys in attendance, often challenging each other to 'Best of 5' matches. I myself played Dhalsim and SubZero, and not very well, so I rarely ever made it to the 5th match. The store workers frequently kicked us out for the day only to have us return when they weren't working the counter anymore if not the next day.
There is something about that which has been lost in the present day. While people can today download the latest games on Steam or PSN or in the app store on your smartphone, you can't just find arcade games in stores and restaurants like you used to be able to. And so the fun of a spontaneous 8 or 10 person multiplayer video game tournament has been confined to places like bars, pool halls, Pinballz or Dave&Busters.
But in truth it was that ubiquity of arcade video games, how you could find them in any old 7-11 or Laundromat, which is what killed the original arcades of the early 1980s before the Great Crash of 1983 when home video game consoles started to catch up to what you saw in the arcade.
I was born in the mid 1970s so I missed out on Pong. I was kindergarten age when the Golden Age of Arcade Games took place in the early 1980s. There used to be a place called Skateworld on Anderson Mill Road that was primarily for roller skating but had a respectable arcade in its own right. It was there that I honed my skills on the original Tron, Pac Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Defender, and so many others. In the 1980s I remember visiting all the same mall arcades as others in my age group. There was Aladdin's Castle in Barton Creek Mall, The Gold Mine in Highland, and another Gold Mine in Northcross which was eventually renamed Tilt. Westgate Mall also had an arcade but being a north austin kid I never went there until later in the mid 1990s. There were also places like Malibu Grand Prix and Showbiz Pizza and Chuck-E-Cheeze, all of which had fairly large arcades for kids which were the secondary attraction.
If you're of a certain age you will remember Einsteins and LeFun on the Drag. They were there for a few decades going back way before the Slacker era. Lesser known is that the UT Student Union basement used to have an arcade that was comparable to either or both of those places. Back in the pre-9/11 days it was much easier to sneak in if you even vaguely looked like you could be a UT student.
But there was another place I was too young to have experienced called Smitty's up further north on 183 at Lake Creek in the early 1980s. I never got to go there but I always heard about it from older kids at the time. It was supposed to have been two stories of wall to wall games with a small snack bar. I guess at the time it served a mostly older teen crowd from Westwood High School and for that reason younger kids my age weren't having birthday parties there. It wasn't around very long, just a few years during the Golden Age of Arcades.
It is with almost-forgotten early arcades like that in mind that I wanted to share with y'all some examples of places from The Golden Age of the Video Arcade in Austin using some old Statesman articles I've found. Maybe someone of a certain age on here will remember them. I was curious what they were like, having missed out by being slightly too young to have experienced most of them first hand. I also wanted to see the original reaction to them in the press. I had a feeling there was some pushback from school/parent/civic groups on these facilities showing up in neighborhood strip malls or next to schools, and I was right to suspect. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First let's list off some places of interest. Be sure to speak up if you remember going to any of these, even if it was just for some other kid's birthday party. Unfortunately some of the only mentions about a place are reports of a crime being committed there, such as our first few examples.
Forgotten Arcade #1
Fun House/Play Time Arcade - 2820 Guadalupe
June 15, 1975

ARCADE ENTHUSIASM
A gang fight involving 20 30 people erupted early Saturday morning in front of an arcade on Guadalupe Street. The owner of the Fun House Arcade at 282J Guadalupe told police pool cues, lug wrenches, fists and a shotgun were displayed during the flurry. Police are unsure what started the fisticuffs, but one witness at the scene said it pitted Chicanos against Anglos. During the fight the owner of the arcade said a green car stopped at the side of the arcade and witnesses reported the barrel of a shotgun sticking out. The crowd wisely scattered and only a 23-year-old man was left lying on the ground. He told police he doesn't know what happened.

March 3, 1976

ARCADE ROBBED
A former employee of Play Time Arcade, 2820 Guadalupe, was charged Tuesday in connection with the Tuesday afternoon robbery of his former business. Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Ronnie Magee, 22, of 1009 Aggie Lane, Apt. 306. Arcade attendant Sam Garner said he had played pool with the suspect an hour before the robbery. He told police the man had been fired from the business two weeks earlier. Police said a man walked in the arcade about 2:45 p m. with a blue steel pistol and took $180. Magee is charged with first degree aggravated robbery. Bond was set on the charge at $15,000.

First it was called Fun House and then renamed Play Time a year later. I'm not sure what kind of arcade games beyond Pong and maybe Asteroids they could have had at this place. The peak of the Pinball craze was supposed to be around 1979, so they might have had a few pinball machines as well. A quick search of youtube will show you a few examples of 1976 video games like Death Race. The location is next to Ken's Donuts where PokeBowl is today where the old Baskin Robbins location was for many years.
Forgotten Arcade #2
Green Goth - 1121 Springdale Road
May 15, 1984

A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to a January 1983 murder in East Austin and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jim Crowell Jr. of Austin admitted shooting 17-year-old Anthony Rodriguez in the chest with a shotgun after the two argued outside the Green Goth, a games arcade at 1121 Springdale Road, on Jan. 23, 1983. Crowell had argued with Rodriguez and a friend of Rodriguez at the arcade, police said. Crowell then went to his house, got a shotgun and returned to the arcade, witnesses said. When the two friends left the arcade, Rodriguez was shot Several weeks ago Crowell had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors for an eight-year prison term, but District Judge Bob Perkins would not accept the sentence, saying it was shorter than sentences in similar cases. After further plea bargaining, Crowell accepted the 15-year prison sentence.

I can't find anything else on Green Goth except reports about this incident with a murder there. There is at least one other report from 1983 around the time of Crowell's arrest that also refer to it as an arcade but reports the manager said the argument started over a game of pool. It's possible this place might have been more known for pool.
Forgotten Arcades #3 & #4
Games, Etc. - 1302 S. First St
Muther's Arcade - 2532 Guadalupe St
August 23, 1983

Losing the magic touch - Video Arcades have trouble winning the money game
It was going to be so easy for Lawrence Villegas, a video game junkie who thought he could make a fast buck by opening up an arcade where kids could plunk down an endless supply of quarters to play Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids. Villegas got together with a few friends, purchased about 30 video games and opened Games, Etc. at 1302 S. First St in 1980. .,--.... For a while, things, went great Kids waited in line to spend their money to drive race cars, slay dragons and save the universe.
AT THE BEGINNING of 1982, however, the bottom fell out, and Villegas' revenues fell from $400 a week to $25. Today, Games, Etc. is vacant Villegas, 30, who is now working for his parents at Tony's Tortilla Factory, hasn't decided what he'll do with the building. "I was hooked on Asteroids, and I opened the business to get other people hooked, too," Villegas said. "But people started getting bored, and it wasn't worth keeping the place open. In the end, I sold some machines for so little it made me sick."
VILLEGAS ISNT the only video game operator to experience hard times, video game manufacturers and distributors 'It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100 .
Pac-Man's a lost cause. Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Ronnie Roark says. In the past year, business has dropped 25 percent to 65 percent throughout the country, they say. Most predict business will get even worse before the market stabilizes. Video game manufacturers and operators say there are several reasons for the sharp and rapid decline: Many video games can now be played at home on television, so there's no reason to go to an arcade. The novelty of video games has worn off. It has been more than a decade since the first ones hit the market The decline can be traced directly to oversaturation or the market arcade owners say. The number of games in Austin has quadrupled since 1981, and it's not uncommon to see them in coin-operated laundries, convenience stores and restaurants.
WITH SO MANY games to choose from, local operators say, Austinites be came bored. Arcades still take in thousands of dollars each week, but managers and owners say most of the money is going to a select group of newer games, while dozens of others sit idle.
"After awhile, they all seem the same," said Dan Moyed, 22, as he relaxed at Muther's Arcade at 2532 Guadalupe St "You get to know what the game is going to do before it does. You can play without even thinking about it" Arcade owners say that that, in a nutshell, is why the market is stagnating.
IN THE PAST 18 months, Ronnie Roark, owner of the Back Room at 2015 E. Riverside Drive, said his video business has dropped 65 to 75 percent Roark, . who supplied about 160 video games to several Austin bars and arcades, said the instant success of the games is what led to their demise. "The technology is not keeping up with people's demand for change," said Roark, who bought his first video game in 1972. "The average game is popular for two or three months. We're sending back games that are less than five months old."
Roark said the market began dropping in March 1982 and has been declining steadily ever since. "The drop started before University of Texas students left for the summer in 1982," Roark said. "We expected a 25 percent drop in business, and we got that, and more. It's never really picked up since then. - "It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100. 1 was shocked when I looked over my books and saw how much things had dropped."
TO COMBAT THE slump, Roark said, he and some arcade owners last year cut the price of playing. Even that didn't help, he said. Old favorites, such as Pac-Man, which once took in hundreds of dollars each week, he said, now make less than $3 each. "Pac-Man's a lost cause," he said. "Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Hardest hit by the slump are the owners of the machines, who pay $3,500 to $5,000 for new products and split the proceeds with the businesses that house them.
SALEM JOSEPH, owner of Austin Amusement and Vending Co., said his business is off 40 percent in the past year. Worse yet, some of his customers began returning their machines, and he's having a hard time putting them back in service. "Two years ago, a machine would generate enough money to pay for itself in six months,' said Joseph, who supplies about 250 games to arcades. "Now that same machine takes 18 months to pay for itself." As a result, Joseph said, he'll buy fewer than 15 new machines this year, down from the 30 to 50 he used to buy. And about 50 machines are sitting idle in his warehouse.
"I get calls every day from people who want to sell me their machines," Joseph said. "But I can't buy them. The manufacturers won't buy them from me." ARCADE OWNERS and game manufacturers hope the advent of laser disc video games will buoy the market Don Osborne, vice president of marketing for Atari, one of the largest manufacturers of video games, said he expects laser disc games to bring a 25 percent increase in revenues next year. The new games are programmed to give players choices that may affect the outcome of the game, Os borne said. "Like the record and movie industries, the video game industry is dependent on products that stimulate the imagination," Osborne said "One of the reasons we're in a valley is that we weren't coming up with those kinds of products."
THE FIRST of the laser dis games, Dragonslayer and Star Wan hit the market about two months ago. Noel Kerns, assistant manager of The Gold Mine Arcade in Northcross Mall, says the new games are responsible for a $l,000-a-week increase in revenues. Still, Kerns said, the Gold Mine' total sales are down 20 percent iron last summer. However, he remain optimistic about the future of the video game industry. "Where else can you come out of the rain and drive a Formula One race car or save the universe?" hi asked.
Others aren't so optimistic. Roark predicted the slump will force half of all operators out of business and will last two more years. "Right now, we've got a great sup ply and almost no demand," Roark said. "That's going to have to change before things get- significantly better."

Well there is a lot to take from that long article, among other things, that the author confused "Dragonslayer" with "Dragon's Lair". I lol'd.
Anyone who has been to Emo's East, formerly known as The Back Room, knows they have arcade games and pool, but it's mostly closed when there isn't a show. That shouldn't count as an arcade, even though the former owner Ronnie Roark was apparently one of the top suppliers of cabinet games to the area during the Golden Era. Any pool hall probably had a few arcade games at the time, too, but that's not the same as being an arcade.
We also learn from the same article of two forgotten arcades: Muthers at 2522 Guadalupe where today there is a Mediterranean food restaurant, and another called Games, Etc. at 1302 S.First that today is the site of an El Mercado restaurant. But the article is mostly about showing us how bad the effects were from the crash at the end of the Golden Era. It was very hard for the early arcades to survive with increasing competition from home game consoles and personal computers, and the proliferation of the games into stores and restaurants.
Forgotten Arcades #5 #6 & #7
Computer Madness - 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Electronic Encounters - 1701 W Ben White Blvd (Southwood Mall)
The Outer Limits Amusements Center - 1409 W. Oltorf
March 4, 1982

'Quartermania' stalks South Austin
School officials, parents worried about effects of video games
A fear Is haunting the video game business. "We call it 'quartermania.' That's fear of running out of quarters," said Steve Stackable, co-owner of Computer Madness, a video game and foosball arcade at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. The "quartermania" fear extends to South Austin households and schools, as well. There it's a fear of students running out of lunch money and classes to play the games. Local school officials and Austin police are monitoring the craze. They're concerned that computer hotspots could become undesirable "hangouts" for students, or that truancy could increase because students (high-school age and younger) will skip school to defend their galaxies against The Tempest.
So far police fears have not been substantiated. Department spokesmen say that although more than half the burglaries in the city are committed by juveniles during the daytime, they know of no connection between the break-ins and kids trying to feed their video habit But school and parental worries about misspent time and money continue. The public outcry in September 1980 against proposals to put electronic game arcades near two South Austin schools helped persuade city officials to reject the applications. One proposed location was near Barton Hills Elementary School. The other was South Ridge Plaza at William Cannon Drive and South First Street across from Bedlchek Junior High School.
Bedichek principal B.G. Henry said he spoke against the arcade because "of the potential attraction it had for our kids. I personally feel kids are so drawn to these things, that It might encourage them to leave the school building and play hookey. Those things have so much compulsion, kids are drawn to them like a magnet Kids can get addicted to them and throw away money, maybe their lunch money. I'm not against the video games. They may be beneficial with eye-hand coordination or even with mathematics, but when you mix the video games during school hours and near school buildings, you might be asking for problems you don't need."
A contingent from nearby Pleasant Hill Elementary School joined Bedichek in the fight back in 1980, although principal Kay Beyer said she received her first formal call about the games last Week from a mother complaining that her child was spending lunch money on them. Beyer added that no truancy problems have been related to video game-playing at a nearby 7-11 store. Allen Poehl, amusement game coordinator for Austin's 7-11 stores, said company policy rules out any game-playing by school-age youth during school hours. Fulmore Junior High principal Bill Armentrout said he is working closely with operators of a nearby 7-1 1 store to make sure their policy is enforced.
The convenience store itself, and not necessarily the video games, is a drawing card for older students and drop-outs, Armentrout said. Porter Junior High principal Marjorie Ball said that while video games aren't a big cause of truancy, "the money (spent on the games) is a big factor." Ball said she has made arrangements with nearby businesses to call the school it students are playing the games during school hours. "My concern is that kids are basically unsupervised, especially at the 24-hour grocery stores. That's a late hour for kids to be out. I would like to see them (games) unplugged at 10 p.m.," adds Joslin Elementary principal Wayne Rider.
Several proprietors of video game hot-spots say they sympathize with the concerns of parents and school officials. No one under 18 is admitted without a parent to Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre at 4211 S. Lamar. That rule, says night manager David Dunagan, "keeps it from being a high school hangout. This is a family place." Jerry Zollar, owner of J.J. Subs in West Wood Shopping Center on Bee Cave Road, rewards the A's on the report cards of Eanes school district students with free video games. "It's kind of a community thing we do in a different way. I've heard from both teachers and parents . . . they thought this was a good idea," said Zollar.
Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall last year was renovated into a brightly lit arcade. "We're trying to get away from the dark, barroom-type place. We want this to be a place for family entertainment We won't let kids stay here during school hours without a written note from their parents, and we're pretty strict about that," said manager Kelly Roberts. Joyce Houston, who manages The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf St. along with her husband, said, "I wouldn't let my children go into some of the arcades I've visited. I'm a concerned parent, too. We wanted a place where the whole family could come and enjoy themselves."

Well you can see which way the tone of all these articles is going. There were some crimes committed at some arcades but all of them tended to have a negative reputation for various reasons. Parents and teachers were very skeptical of the arcades being in the neighborhoods to the point of petitioning the City Government to restrict them. Three arcades are mentioned besides Chuck-E-Cheese. Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall, The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf, and Computer Madness, a "video game and foosball arcade" at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Forgotten Arcade #8
Smitty's Galaxy of Games - Lake Creek Parkway
February 25, 1982

Arcades fighting negative image
Video games have swept across America, and Williamson and Travis counties have not been immune. In a two-part series, Neighbor examines the effects the coin-operated machines have had on suburban and small-town life.
Cities have outlawed them, religious leaders have denounced them and distraught mothers have lost countless children to their voracious appetites. And still they march on, stronger and more numerous than before. A new disease? Maybe. A wave of invading aliens from outer space? On occasion. A new type of addiction? Certainly. The culprit? Video games. Although the electronic game explosion has been mushrooming throughout the nation's urban areas for the past few years, its rippling effects have just recently been felt in the suburban fringes of North Austin and Williamson County.
In the past year, at least seven arcades armed with dozens of neon quarter-snatchers have sprung up to lure teens with thundering noises and thousands of flashing seek-and-destroy commands. Critics say arcades are dens of iniquity where children fall prey to the evils of gambling. But arcade owners say something entirely different. "Everybody fights them (arcades), they think they are a haven for drug addicts. It's just not true," said Larry Grant of Austin, who opened Eagle's Nest Fun and Games on North Austin Avenue in Georgetown last September. "These kids are great" Grant said the gameroom "gives teenagers a place to come. Some only play the games and some only talk.
In Georgetown, if you're from the high school, this is it." He said he's had very few disturbances, and asks "undesirables" to leave. "We've had a couple of rowdies. That's why I don't have any pool tables they tend to attract that type of crowd," Grant said.
Providing a place for teens to congregate was also the reason behind Ron and Carol Smith's decision to open Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway at the entrance to Anderson Mill. "We have three teenage sons, and as soon as the oldest could drive, it became immediately apparent that there was no place to go around here," said Ron, an IBM employee who lives in Spicewood at Balcones. "This prompted us to want to open something." The business, which opened in August, has been a huge success with both parents and youngsters. "Hundreds of parents have come to check out our establishment before allowing their children to come, and what they see is a clean, safe environment managed by adults and parents," Ron said. "We've developed an outstanding rapport with the community." Video arcades "have a reputation that we have to fight," said Carol.
Kathy McCoy of Georgetown, who last October opened Krazy Korner on Willis Street in Leander, agrees. "We've got a real good group of kids," she said. "There's no violence, no nothing. Parents can always find their kids at Krazy Korner."
While all the arcade owners contacted reported that business is healthy, if not necessarily lucrative, it's not as easy for video entrepreneurs to turn a profit as one might imagine. A sizeable investment is required. Ron Smith paid between $2,800 and $5,000 for each of the 30 electronic diversions at his gameroom.
Grant said his average video game grosses about $50 a week, and his "absolute worst" game, Armor Attack, only $20 a week. The top machines (Defender and Pac-Man) can suck in an easy $125 a week. That's a lot of quarters, 500 to be exact but the Eagle's Nest and Krazy Korner pass half of them on to Neelley Vending Company of Austin which rents them their machines. "At 25 cents a shot, it takes an awful lot of people to pay the bills," said Tom Hatfield, district manager for Neelley.
He added that an owner's personality and the arcade's location can make or break the venture. The game parlor must be run "by an understanding person, someone with patience," Hatfield said. "They cannot be too demanding on the kids, yet they can't let them run all over them." And they must be located in a spot "with lots of foot traffic," such as a shopping center or near a good restaurant, he said. "And being close to a school really helps." "Video games are going to be here permanently, but we're going to see some operations not going because of the competition," which includes machines in virtually every convenience store and supermarket, Hatfield said.

This article talks about three arcades. One in Georgetown called Eagles Nest, another in Leander called Krazy Korner, and a third called Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway "on the fringes of North Austin". This is the one I remember the older kids talking about when I was a little kid. There was once a movie theater across the street from the Westwood High School football stadium and behind that was Smitty's. Today I think the building was bulldozed long ago and the space is part of the expanded onramp to 183 today. Eventually another unrelated arcade was built next to the theater that became Alamo Lakeline. It was another site of some unrecorded epic Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat tournaments in the 90s.
But the article written before the end of the Golden Era tell us much about the pushback I was talking about earlier. Early arcades were seen as "dirty" places in some circles, and the owners of the arcades in Williamson County had to stress how "clean" their establishments were. This other article from a couple of weeks later tells of how area school officials weren't worried about video games and tells us more arcades in Round Rock and Cedar Park. Apparently the end of the golden age lasted a bit longer than usual in this area.
At some point in the next few years the bubble burst, and places like Smitty's were gone by the late 80s. But the distributors quoted earlier were right that arcade games weren't going completely away. In the mid 1980s LeFun opened up next in the Scientology building at 2200 Guadalupe on the drag. Down a few doors past what used be a coffee shop and a CVS was Einsteins Arcade. Both of those survived into the 21st century. I remember the last time I was at Einsteins I got my ass beat in Tekken by a kid half my age. heheh
That's all for today. There were no Bonus Pics in the UT archive of arcades (other than the classical architectural definition). I wanted to pass on some Bonus newspaper articles (remember to click and zoom in with the buttons on the right to read) about Austin arcades anyway but first a small story.
I mentioned earlier the secret of the UT Student Union. I have no idea what it looks like now but in the 90s there was a sizable arcade in with the bowling alley in the basement. Back in 1994 when I used to sneak in, they featured this bizarre early attempt at virtual reality games. I found an old Michael Barnes Statesman article about it dated February 11, 1994. Some highlights:

Hundreds of students and curiosity-seekers lined up at the University of Texas Union to play three to five minutes of Dactyl Nightmare, Flying Aces or V-Tol, three-dimensional games from Kramer Entertainment. Nasty weather delayed the unloading of four huge trunks containing the machines, which resemble low pulpits. Still, players waited intently for a chance to shoot down a fighter jet, operate a tilt-wing Harrier or tangle with a pterodactyl. Today, tickets will go on sale in the Texas Union lobby at 11:30 a.m. for playing slots between noon and 6 p.m.
Players, fitted with full helmets, throttles and power packs, stood on shiny gray and yellow platforms surrounded by a circular guard rail. Seen behind the helmet's goggles were computer simulated landscapes, not unlike the most sophisticated video games, with controls and enemies viewed in deep space. "You're on a platform waiting to fight a human figure," said Jeff Vaughn, 19, of Dactyl Nightmare. "A pterodactyl swoops down and tries to pick you up. You have to fight it off. You are in the space and can see your own body and all around you. But if you try to walk, you have to use that joy stick to get around."
"I let the pterodactyl carry me away so I could look down and scan the board," said Tom Bowen of the same game. "That was the way I found out where the other player was." "Yeah, it's cool just to stand there and not do anything," Vaughn said. The mostly young, mostly male crowd included the usual gaming fanatics, looking haggard and tense behind glasses and beards. A smattering of women and children also pressed forward in a line that snaked past the lobby and into the Union's retail shops.
"I don't know why more women don't play. Maybe because the games are so violent," said Jennifer Webb, 24, a psychology major whose poor eyesight kept her from becoming a fighter pilot in real life. "If the Air Force won't take me, virtual reality will." "They use stereo optics moving at something like 60 frames a second," said computer science major Alex Aquila, 19. "The images are still pretty blocky. But once you play it, you'll want to play it again and again." With such demand for virtual reality, some gamesters wondered why an Austin video arcade has not invested in at least one machine.

The gameplay looked like this.
Bonus Article #1 - "Video fans play for own reasons" (Malibu Grand Prix) - March 11, 1982
Bonus Article #2 - "Pac-Man Cartridge Piques Interest" - April 13, 1982
Bonus Article #3 - "Video Games Fail Consumer" - January 29, 1984
Bonus Article #4 - "Nintendoholics/Modems Unite" - January 25, 1989
Bonus Article #5 and pt 2 "Two girls missing for a night found at arcade" (truly dedicated young gamers) - August 7, 2003

Sure, there are plenty of posts from people who applied to a job and got an offer 30 seconds later. Good for them. But if you're on this sub, you're probably running into more difficulty. I did. Job hunting these days is inherently pretty hard, but there are plenty of things I did wrong during my job hunt that could have saved me time and trouble. I'm a 35 year old in product marketing in the bay area, so this advice may or may not apply to you.
Most of this advice is not new, you may have seen it elsewhere. Well, HEED MY WORDS! You should take that advice.
Here are my don'ts of job hunting:
e: Here's the real #1 piece of advice because someone brought it up in the comments: Don't Not Have A Network. The main reason I had such a hard time was I moved to a new city where I didn't have a professional relationship with ANYONE. I think if you're applying without a friend on the inside, it reduces your odds by 80-90%, based on random factoids we've all seen that say 80% of jobs are never posted publicly.
I went to networking events and coffee meetups and blah blah blah, but COVID put a stop to that before I could make much progress. The biggest piece of advice (by far) is just to have a friend who can get you a job. But if you're reading this, you would have done that already if you could have.
Don't try to get by without doing the standard "best practice" stuff.
I spent a while thinking I could get away without making a customized resume for different jobs. I also thought I would probably have the right keywords naturally, and that I didn't have to worry about that either. WRONG. I wasted many weeks submitting poorly optimized resumes and getting few interviews.
What you should do is have at least one version of your resume customized for each job title you're applying to. That means if you're applying for Sr. Widget Fiddler and Director of Widget Fiddling, you need 2 versions.
Keyword optimize each resume version by copy-pasting 50+ job descriptions for that job's title into a tool like Voyant Tools, which will spit out all the most common words and phrases. Find the most frequent ones that seem important and relevant, and work them into your resume, even if it seems weird to refer to yourself as a "team player" or "entrepreneurial".
Don't be bad at interviewing, not even a little bit bad.
Being a good interviewee is a skill. Most of us aren't born with that skill, and most of us are rusty when it comes time to look for a job. I knew I wasn't great at interviewing, but I really didn't want to go through awkward practice interviews with friends, so I told myself people would understand why I was all nervous, and realize I was still super talented and experienced despite my 'rough edges'. WRONG. I blew it on a lot of interviews before admitting that I had to practice, a lot. I did a bunch of practice interviews, got feedback, and I even talked to an interview coach. The latter was expensive, but I think the dose of outside perspective really helped. YMMV.
I practiced enough that I started getting to final rounds instead of washing out in the first couple rounds. It made a huge difference. Practice.
Don't wing it during the interview.
For 'behavioral' questions (i.e. "tell me about a time when..." questions) everyone says you need to have multiple answers memorized for every major category of question. Ugh! So much work. Greatest weakness. Success story. Failure story. Conflict story. Collaboration story. YAWN. I thought I could come up with good answers on the spot. It's "supposed to be a conversation", right? WRONG. I blew it on a couple interviews before realizing I was coming across as both unprepared AND inexperienced.
Sit down and work out your bullet points for every answer, BEFORE you land an interview. Pain in the butt? Yes. But not as big a pain as getting an interview, blowing it, then ending up doing the work anyway.
Don't apply to old job listings.
If it's still up, they're still hiring, right? WRONG. I have found that job listings are good for about as long as fresh bread. You mostly want to apply the day they're posted, 2-3 days is OK, 5 days is pushing it, beyond that, it's literal trash. I started out applying to anything relevant that was less than a month old, and my app-to-interview yield was around 1%. Started applying to new listings exclusively, and my yield went to more like 3%. YMMV.
Don't apply to listings that aren't on the employer's own site.
It's become disturbingly common for 3rd-party sites to steal and re-post job listings they have nothing to do with. You click on a link on LinkedIn or Indeed, and you end up on Neuvoo or some random BS. Don't submit any of your info on those sites. Very often the jobs are expired already, but these 3rd-party scammers are still re-posting them to steal your info. Even if they're not expired, there's no reason to think they actually send your application to the employer.
If you land somewhere unexpected, go to the employer's actual careers section on their site and find the listing yourself. Otherwise you're just giving your info to someone to sell, and the employer probably never sees it. Please report these listings as you go.
Don't be too picky with job titles.
Unless your resume precisely "fits the profile" employers are looking for, you're going to have to apply a lot. I had to apply a lot. At first, I was exclusively applying to one title, because although I didn't "fit the profile" I didn't want to compromise. I ended up getting a really solid job with a different title, after I loosened my criteria JUST a tad.
Have a serious talk with yourself about how many months you're willing to apply before broadening your search, and don't talk yourself out of good jobs because they have the "wrong" title.
Don't be too loose with companies you apply to.
At a couple points in the process, I ended up with interviews at companies that I seriously didn't want to work for. I was playing the numbers game and I would apply to anything with the right title, even if I hadn't heard of the company. I figured if I got an interview, I would worry about the company later.
Difficulty: If you are on unemployment, this can lead to a sticky situation - if you turn down an offer, you legally can't collect unemployment anymore in many places. It's also pretty hard to justify to yourself turning down ANY interview if you actually need the money.
Have a loose idea of who the company is before applying, to avoid those awkward moments.
Don't stop applying until the ink is dry on your offer letter.
My advice is to apply to every suitable listing as soon as it's posted, which could be as many as 10-30 per day depending on your field and geography. If things are going well, you'll also have interviews going on during any given week, which also put heavy demands on your mental energy and prep time.
It is tempting to stop applying for jobs if you are doing multiple interviews and they seem to be going well. You need the time, and one of them has to work out, right? WRONG. It happened to me multiple times - I'd get further along in an interview process, I'd be focusing on prep, and I'd let my application routine slip. Bad idea. If your application pipeline runs dry, it can be another 2-6 weeks before the interviews start flowing again. ABA - always be applying.
Don't get your hopes up. (maybe the most important tip.)
Your mental resilience to rejection and your self-regard are finite resources. They are resources you need to conserve to maintain your overall mental health and good job-hunting habits. Job hunting can burn through these resources like Joe Exotic through a bag of meth. Don't be like me and get emotionally invested in any given job before you get an offer. Don't start picking out all the stuff you're going to buy with the new salary. Don't start thinking of what doors are going to open up for you with this step in your career. Don't mentally pick out outfits for your new commute. Just don't.
I consider myself a mentally tough person, so I should be able to handle the repeated rejection, right? WRONG. If you allow yourself to start caring about a job before you GET the job, you WILL be crushed to bits. Maybe not the first time, but after the 5th, or the 10th, it becomes hard to take.
To some of the newer job hunters I've seen on this sub: Caring about a job from the day you APPLY? Sheer lunacy. You shouldn't even remember where you applied by the time you go to bed that day.
Keep in mind: It's a numbers game. It's not personal. You WILL get the right job eventually, if you keep going. You have to maintain faith in yourself, but hold no hope for any particular job.
In emotional terms, treat it less like a poker game, (where any hand can be a big deal) more like a slot machine (where you care zero until you finally win). No matter how tough you think you are, take care to maintain your mental state, especially during COVID where so many aspects of life are also wearing down our mental health.
Don't be afraid to be a try-hard.
The role I finally got was based largely on a "take home project" used to demonstrate my working style. It was paid, also really long, the minimum suggested time was 10 hours. Usually I put 70% effort into trial projects, because I don't want to bust my ass for a throwaway, and I don't want to look desperate. My thinking is "Well, we're all professionals, so as long as I mention a few of the right things, they'll know we're on the same level, right?" WRONG.
On this one, I decided to go HAM on the project. All or nothing. I ended up putting over 20 hours into it, (the max time they suggested was 20) and came up with a total overkill amount of material, it was probably 20 pages worth, if not more. To give some idea, I spent like 4 hours just doing addressable market sizing, which everyone including me acknowledges is fairly pointless.
Part of the project was also to see how we communicate about our work - they put me on their company slack, so I logged onto it pretty much every day to update them on my progress. It was firmly in try-hard weirdo territory. But it worked!
So I guess my lesson from this is, if you're going to bother with these projects, be the one who turns in the blue ribbon material.
NB: Be aware of "free work" scams where they try to get you to do the actual job without hiring you for the job. If it's pertinent to the actual job and it's more than an hour or two of work, it should be paid. Unpaid trial projects that don't relate to the actual business are OK, but you'll have to decide for yourself how much time you're willing to put in for free.
Don't assume ***anything*** until it's final.
In 3 instances, I got much further than I expected in a hiring process, and in one I was blindsided by a rejection where I thought I was a shoo-in. #1, they interviewed me for the role (up to the final round) even though the job called for an actual engineer and I have zero engineering experience.
In #2, I blew an interview and got rejected. I knew exactly how I blew it, I got the yips and did poorly. So I sent an email reply explaining what I SHOULD have said, and that I really believed in the company's mission, and that I realize I was a poor interviewee, but I was working on it - they actually gave me another shot and I made it to the final round.
In the last unexpected twist story, they actually scheduled a final interview, then CANCELLED IT. I have been rejected for about a million jobs, but I've never been cancelled on. They said that instead of an interview, they would just review my trial project. I couldn't imagine cancelling an interview with someone you intend to hire, so I assumed this 'review' was just a consolation prize and the job was going to someone else. On the day the cancelled interview was meant to take place, they offered me the job. Huh???? Later that day I rode to heck on a flying pig and bought a snowcone there. But I also got a job.
On the other side of things, I was told directly I was the top candidate for a role, the only one who was really qualified, but because of COVID they were putting the role on hold. OK cool, I figured I was a shoo-in once they actually hired for it. Well, they re-listed the job about 45 days later. They didn't reach out to me. I messaged them. They told me I wasn't even going to get a phone screen for it. WTF? They lied to my face for no reason whatsoever? Yep. They did.
The lesson: Do not assume anything! ANYTHING!

Disclaimer I am posting this here because I got a message from the mods asking me to. I'm not from London so links aren't London centric (but hopefully still of help) and the main post is here so any updates will likely be there (I will try here but it's hard to keep up with the amount of suggestions)
Thanks.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

• Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
  
• Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
  
• Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
  
• Disney+
  
• Britbox
  
• Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
  

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

• Pluto TV
  
• Viki
  
• Roku
  

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

• Crunchyroll
  
• Funimation
  
• HiDive
  

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

• Humble Bundle
  
• Fanatical
  
• IndieGala
  

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

• Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
  
• Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
  
• GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
  
• Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
  
• Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
  
• Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
  
• Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
  

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

• Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
  
• Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
  
• EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
  
• PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
  

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

• Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
  
• Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
  
• Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.
  

Education

• Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
  
• BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
  

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

• If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
  
• Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
  
• Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
  
• There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
  
• Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
  
• Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
  

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

• Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

• Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
  
• Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
  
• Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
  
• Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
  
• Communal religious worship
  
• Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
  

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

• To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
  
• CoronaVirus Symptoms
  
• CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
  
• Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
  
• Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
  
• World Health Organisation
  

Support

• Samaritans
  
• Mental Health UK forum on reddit
  
• Link to above's stick post for support outlets
  
• Mindful
  
• Mind.org
  

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted this links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

• https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/
  
• https://www.goodsamapp.org/
  
• https://vaccinationvolunteers.sja.org.uk/roles/volunteer-vaccinator.html
  
• https://nhsvolunteerresponders.org.uk/getting-you-started-guide-steward-volunteer
  
• https://peoplesmomentum.com/evictionresistance/
  
• https://londonrentersunion.org/
  

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

• Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
  
• Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
  
• Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
  

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

• LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
  
• Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
  

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

Major Features

• Added logistic requests to spidertron.
• Train stop allows to set limit of incoming trains.

Features

• The continue button now respects the last type of game played (single player, MP host, MP client).
• Added support to use blueprints, deconstruction planners, upgrade planners, and modded selection tools from the map view.
• Hovering the alert notification will show arrows on the edge of the pointing to alert locations.
• Rich text icon selector.
• Newly unlocked recipes are highlighted until hovered.
• Spidertron remotes now allow to add queue commands and a command to follow any entity.
• Added vertical/horizontal blueprint flipping.
• Transport belt drag building is locked into a line, can be turned off by an interface setting.
• Ghosts can be fast replaced and rotated.
• Ghost build can be used to fast replace non-ghost entities, which results in an upgrade order with (optionally) a direction change order.

Minor Features

• When editing blueprint: Added a way to specify relative grid position for blueprint that is snapping to absolute grid. Blueprint preview rendering box is updated based on selected grid size and position.
• Inventory transfer works on empty equipment grid slot the same as on empty inventory slot (moves all).
• Equipment can be placed by moving.
• Cursor replenishes when placing into the equipment grid the same way as when building in world.
• Spidertron item shows its color.
• Added a way to reset spidertron remote.
• Spider tries to move legs away when they are blocking robots construction.
• Power poles/underground belts built by dragging logic works also with ghost building.
• Power pole ghosts show connections.
• Power pole connections are saved in the blueprint. They still auto connect to other poles outside the blueprint.
• Entities marked for deconstruction show the target upgrade.
• Added tags, worker robots, rail signal states and recipes toggles into the settings to what show on the map.
• Added support to use the add-stop and add-temporary-stop controls for the train you're driving in the map view.
• Added hotkey (F10) to switch between viewed player in replay.
• Added support to reset mod settings in the "failed to load mods" startup GUI.
• Expanded undo to work with fast replace and upgrade planner.
• Added SteelSeries GameSense support. more

Graphics

• Added unique technology icon for Advanced material processing 2 (Electric furnace).
• Changed postprocessing effect in zoomed-to-world view.
• Added detailed night lighting of entities.

Optimisations

• Multithreaded belt update logic.
• Overall small entity update time reduction + statistics of how much update time is taken by individual entities.

Balancing

• Productivity module 1 decreases speed of the machine by 5% instead of 15%.
• Productivity module 2 decreases speed of the machine by 10% instead of 15%.

Changes

• the Close GUI key-binding (default value is "E") was renamed to Confirm Gui. It works the same as before for many cases (just closing the GUI), but in a lot of other cases, it works as confirm, which generally means the same as clicking the "green button".
• Renamed clean-cursor to clear-cursor on all the relevant places (locale, key-binding name)
• Equipment placing now uses the build key-binding instead of the cursor transfer. The default same key-binding is the same.
• Changed maximum temperature of all fluids apart water and steam to be the same as the default.
• Poles built by dragging are now actually build on the maximum connection distance from the last built pole instead of the previous logic that was working weird in a lot of corner cases.
• Underground belt build by dragging now accept the existing piece you start building on as part of the dragging logic.
• Removed 'mineable wreckage' entity. more
• Removed the (+/-) buttons for logistic requests, instead they expand dynamically when something is put in the last line.
• Wave defense can now only be won by launching a rocket.
• Invalid names of icons in preview icons of blueprint tools now load as unknowns instead of canceling the import string process for that item. more
• Fluids in train circuit logic treat summed < 1 fluid values as 1 instead of 0.
• Clicking non-empty quickbar slot with something in cursor sets the quickbar slot to the cursor value rather than selecting the quickbar value.
• Invalid rail signals output no values into circuit network.
• Added a confirmation message when loading saves with removed mods or changed mod settings.
• The cut tool now properly includes trains. It showed trains in the selection preview, but ignored them.
• Added alternate control locales for keyboard and mouse scroll control binds. more
• Disabled loading of saves before 0.18.0 version (You can use 1.0 to load older saves and re-save them).
• Adjusted the artillery turret collision box so it is possible to squeak through.
• Removed the 'Rocket silos stats' GUI.
• Arithmetic combinator 'Each' signal can now be used in either left or right parameter.

Gui

• Added unique icons for technology effects.
• Added list of affected entities to the technology effect tooltips.
• Menu background now features various factory simulations instead of a static picture.
• When entering vehicle, the vehicle window is shown next to the character gun window, instead of replacing it.
• Moved the charactevehicle gun window to the left of the quickbar.
• Removed the "Character" tab from the character window.
• Changed the flat character screen option to be defaulted to true.
• Added held stack item slot for inserter window.
• Improved the tips and tricks window: it contains index, search and allows interactive text tags to be used.
• Added search to loading/saving, settings, shortcuts selection, multiplayer host settings windows and rename stop.
• Moved the ammo/used-up/health indicator of items down, so it is not obstructed by the number.
• Added underline for hyperlinks.
• Personal request button have custom text + red diode when it is out of network or when the personal requests are turned off.
• Logistic/Trash request buttons show only one number when the trash and request count is the same.
• Train elapsed time condition has confirmation button and only updates the time when confirmed.
• Fixed styles for: browse games GUI, host game settings, opened character and select upgrade slot.
• Tabbing into a textfield selects the text.
• Removed tiles stay in the list of components in the blueprint setup GUI with 0, the same way as entities, so they can be easily enabled.
• Added minimum/maximum temperature and heat capacity info to the fluid tooltip.
• Added usage instruction to capsules/fish.
• Fixed fish tooltip so it shows consumption/healing instead of shooting/damage.

Sounds

• Added blueprint building sound.
• Added undo sound.
• Added sound for rail planner activation.
• Added sound for copy/paste.
• Added sound for opening items and armor.
• Added sound for selection start and selection finish. Related to blueprint tools.
• Added sound for pipe to ground as per the pipe.
• Added sound effects and a specific music track to the main menu.
• Assembling Machine 2 and 3 made less noisy
• Robot repair reworked to sound more high tech
• Removed dead space at the end of some sounds which may have stopped sounds playing
• Ghost rail building now has the ghost building sound
• Lowered volume on game won and lost sounds
• Assembling Machine 2 and 3 made less noisy.
• Robot repair reworked to sound more high tech.
• Removed dead space at the end of some sounds which may have stopped sounds playing.
• Ghost rail building now has the ghost building sound.
• Lowered volume on game won and lost sounds.

Bugfixes

• Fixed that copying the spider in the map editor while it had equipment crashed the game. more
• Fixed a crash when trying to use different weapons in the spider. more
• Fixed a crash when reading/writing blueprint icons through the Lua API in some cases. more
• Fixed a crash when importing blueprint books in some cases. more
• Fixed that the spidertron would still be marked as moving when it wasn't resulting in the 'enable logistics while moving' option not working. more
• Fixed splitter behaviour when putting to it directly and it has the priority output blocked. more
• Fixed that spidertron descriptions didn't show the custom name. more
• Fixed building curved rails with damaged rails could duplicate rails. more
• Fixed logistic request slot highlighting when they're changed through circuit connections. more
• Fixed a game freeze when empty unit groups are told to build bases. more
• Fixed LuaTrain::path_end_stop would return nil when train had path extended due to waypoint.
• Fixed the spidertron preview box.
• Fixed that the blueprint book preview disappeared after editing it.
• Fixed that spidertron and its remote weren't swappable.
• Fixed that players could be stuck in walls when building them.
• Removed the possibility to specify alpha when changing player color by command.
• Fixed LuaInventory::find_empty_stack would return only filtered stacks when filter is provided. more
• Fixed that blueprint library slots padding was too big.
• Fixed that some items didn't render properly in the world. Specifically blueprint like items, spidertrons and spider remotes. more
• Fixed a crash when a modded fast train goes through junction occupied by another train. more
• Fixed replay desync when existing save is given to a server which promotes or demotes a player based on its own admin list. more
• Fixed train GUI instructions for translations that are long. more
• Fixed interaction with the delete button in the blueprint setup. more
• Fixed that map preview in the train window wasn't squashing its size when needed. more
• Fixed that force-building blueprint from the blueprint library on top of an existing electric pole triggered wire removal instead of blueprint building. more
• Fixed that the map editor spawn-items GUI didn't work with chat rich text. more
• Fixed that deconstruction planners and upgrade planners wouldn't show the logistic overlay when used from the blueprint library. more
• Fixed that rebinding rotate to middle mouse button caused conflicts when trying to rotate while modifiers were pressed. more
• Fixed on_gui_switch_state_changed was not fired for custom switch elements in some cases. more
• Fixed that entities were selected under the GUI on the right side.
• Fixed that the key to activate tooltips didn't work outside game, or when the game was stopped.
• Fixed Team production script error when building before any round starts. more
• Fixed Wave defense error message would error due to trying to concatenate a nil variable. more
• Fixed that it was possible to stay invulnerable after the crash site cutscene. more
• Fixed train mini-tutorial script errors due to missing entity prototypes. more
• Fixed tightspot script error when trying to restore invalid entities. more
• Fixed that bonus research production could add progress even if no research could be done. more
• Fixed that game.server_save() was able to write to locations outside the saves folder. more
• Fixed that technology tooltip in the lab GUI wouldn't update when research changed. more
• Fixed a bad message when using the permissions command. more
• Fixed a crash when remote calls fail. more
• Fixed that biters would sometimes not be able to attack entities blocking their way. more
• Fixed that writing .energy for entities with heat energy sources didn't work correctly. more
• Fixed that non-blueprint items in blueprint books didn't draw their name. more
• Fixed that the cut-paste tool allowed alt-cutting which didn't deconstruct what was selected. more
• Fixed that setting rolling-stock inventory size to 0 while having an equipment great meant the GUI couldn't be opened. more
• Fixed that trying to save temporary LuaItemStacks from some events resulted in the save failing to load. more
• Fixed that blueprint component icons weren't kept in a stable order. more
• Fixed that the finished game sound could play multiple times. more
• Fixed that building blueprints by dragging in the map view didn't work correctly. more
• Fixed that building train ghosts manually didn't work in most cases. more
• Fixed that moving blueprint sin the blueprint library didn't make sounds.
• Fixed that opening/closing sound were not working properly in latency in some cases.
• Fixed that LuaEntity::can_insert() didn't work right for module inventories. more
• Fixed that on_player_built_tile had the wrong 'tile' when using hazard concrete in some cases. more
• Fixed that some of the checkboxes weren't highlighted as they should when hovering reset in the map generator GUI. more
• Fixed performance issue related to rendering long train paths. more
• Fixed missing tooltip on the editing button in upgrade planner, deconstruction planner and blueprint book. more
• Fixed Shallow water 2 to be layered above sand tiles and therefore missing transitions with sand tiles. more
• Fixed stone path and concrete were missing transitions to out-of-map tiles. more
• Fixed the upgrade planner to upgrade the corresponding underground belt for all combinations of real/ghost connections.
• Fixed that biters could get stuck trying to pathfind toward spidertron, causing performance issues. (https://forums.factorio.com/88744 https://forums.factorio.com/89327)
• Fixed lights near right or bottom edge of the screen would render twice sometimes. more
• Fixed that setting style properties on LuaGuiElements didn't work correctly for some widget types. more
• Fixed that rails didn't have the building smoke.
• Fixed that modded locomotives with void energy sources and equipment grids wouldn't show the grid in the GUI. more
• Fixed that modded productivity bonuses in tooltips didn't always show everything. more
• Fixed that unit groups could get stuck in the gathering phase. more
• Fixed that negative damage stickers didn't work. more
• Fixed that selection tool type items marked as mod-openable didn't work correctly in the quickbar. more
• Fixed that train would not repath when possible due to being in chain signal section. more
• Fixed GeneratorPrototype::scale_fluid_usage would cause non-linear scaling of fluid consumption based on energy demand. more
• Fixed crash when storage tank was defined with too small fluid flow sprite with low priority and ended up streamed. more
• Fixed rotating assembling machines with heat and fluid connections. more
• Fixed that it was possible to hold ghost building + blueprint from the library at the same time. more
• Fixed crash related to being possible to insert blueprint for re-assignment into the blueprint library. more
• Fixed that previous technology key-binding focused search in the blueprint library. more
• Fixed that ghosts created by destroying entities weren't upgradeable. more
• Fixed that kick & ban commands broke replays. more
• Fixed that spidertron would stretch its leg way too much in some special situations. more
• Fixed offshore pump underwater layer being drawn over landfill tiles sometimes. more
• Fixed decimal textfield would not take decimal point as input when selection would make it valid input. more
• Fixed that train could get stuck within chain signal section when exit signal is requested to close by circuit network and train is forced to repath. more
• Fixed that train would not immediately reserve signals in chain signal section after repath when there are no signals within braking distance.
• Fixed that wrong slider position when requesting items in some cases. more
• Fixed that rocket silo without fixed_recipe didn't save its recipe in the blueprint. more
• Fixed that the total-raw list in the recipe tooltip for some translations. more
• Fixed glitching sound loops: steam turbine and electric furnace. more
• Fixed changing dawn property of a surface would create visual glitch in day-night cycle. more
• Fixed misleading tooltip for disabled shortcut bar items. more
• Fixed startup music volume balance. more
• Fixed that sounds outside of radar coverage would still play. more
• Fixed personal laser defense with minimum range would stop working when enemies would get within minimum range. more
• Fixed that automatic rail signal direction selection works also when ghost-force building over trees/rocks in the way. more
• Fixed that the replay controls weren't accessible when the current player opened the technology screen. more
• Fixed the hand behaviour for some cases of fast entity transfer. more
• Fixed sizing of the right panel when show_side_menu is disabled. more
• Fixed that blueprint book tooltip based on chat icon had overflowing contents. more
• Fixed that the entity hover interval wasn't applied when switching from entity to entity. more
• Fixed that belts didn't show the proper curved preview when fast replacing. more
• Fixed that the entity tooltip was being shown in some cases where it was not supposed to. more
• Fixed that the station name icons were clipped in some cases. more
• Fixed that the minimap focus wasn't updating when switching player in the replay. more
• Fixed that it wasn't possible to start scenario with replay enabled. more
• Fixed losing chain signals in the advanced rail mini-tutorial. more
• Fixed train buttons being cut off in advanced rail mini-tutorial in some locales. more
• Fixed a crash related to building laser turrets through robots. more
• Fixed Bulgarian language name. more
• Fixed text box font not refreshing after being changed. more
• Clarified tooltip text for locked levels in new game GUI. more
• Fixed server crashing when quitting while it's saving for desync report. more
• Fixed that rolling stock rotation was not set correctly when using the pipette tool. more
• Fixed that if else chain noise expressions would sometimes produce corrupt results. more
• Fixed a crash when using identical literal expression in spot noise expressions. more
• Fixed that steam engine would show as producing 960kW in electric network GUI. more
• Fixed that rail ghost building didn't play the ghost building sound.
• Fixed a crash when a startup error tried to use rich-text. more
• Fixed a crash when related to editing edited scenarios while in vehicles. more
• Fixed that it was possible to specify a rail signal pair that does not collide with each other. more
• Fixed that collision box could be removed from the rail signal resulting in a signal that could be placed not on a tile center. more
• Fixed that it was possible to specify a transport belt connectable entity that would not collide with other belt connectable entities. more
• Fixed barrel recipe generation not taking into account fluid icon_size if fluid icons were defined. more
• Fixed that clients wouldn't be able to join a multiplayer game if the banlist was too large. more
• Fixed that selecting folders in the save-game-gui would still allow saving as the save file name. more
• Fixed a crash when opening the blueprint library through lua. more
• Fixed the program exit status code when a dedicated server fails. more
• Fixed that blueprints with rolling stocks could get invalidated when syncing shelves. more
• Fixed that the technology screen would show a "Resume" button for technology levels that haven't yet been researched at all. more
• Fixed that cars with minimap_representation set would still render the default triangle. more
• Fixed building assembling machine ghosts with unresearched recipes left them with no fluid connection previews. more
• Fixed that biters who couldn't reach their spawner would remain on the map, potentially preventing other biters from spawning. more
• Fixed script data leak in wave defense scenario. more
• Fixed that background sound didn't fade out when stopping replay. more
• Fixed that the deconstruction planner ignored tile mode & filters when cancelling deconstruction.
• Fixed signature error when updating non-steam version on OSX. more
• Fixed fast-replacing entity connected to a ghost entity by circuit network. more
• Fixed that on some maps, biter attacks could decrease almost to nothing. more
• Fixed inserter with fluid energy source could consume too much fluid when no fluid usage was given and scaling was disabled. more
• Fixed that building rolling stock could place multiple of them when there are close adjacent rails. more
• Fixed that LuaPlayer::can_place_entity would not calculate player reach the same way as manual building. more
• Fixed that steam engine in multiple connected electric networks would overproduce and waste energy. more
• Fixed problems related to opening blueprint while other blueprint is in the process of being configured. more
• Fixed cutscene starting at {0,0} instead of player position when no start_position was given. more
• Fixed electric network GUI production bar related to tertiary energy sources. more
• Fixed a crash in the pathfinder that could happen when the bounding box didn't contain the tile center. more
• Fixed tooltips not showing electric energy source information for electric-energy-interface entities. more
• Fixed that undoing a deconstruction order of entities with item requests didn't recover these requests unless the entity was actually removed. more
• Fixed that spidertron remote usage on map was bound to open item control rather than the build item control it is bound to in normal view. more
• Fixed that flamethrower turrets could fail to shoot at a target. more
• Fixed problem with rich text in blueprint library. more
• Fixed tiles would be rendered with 1px gap between them at some positions, zoom levels and screen resolutions. more
• Fixed heat pipe related drawing only working for boiler type entities. more
• Fixed that running /server-save wouldn't save anything if the server was started with --start-server-load-scenario. more
• Fixed activation working sound playing even when the entity was already active when being encountered. more
• Fixed a pathfinding-related crash. more
• Fixed crash when organizing sprites into atlases when using "not-compressed" sprite flag. more
• Fixed pipe-to-ground working sound would ignore flow rate. more
• Fixed crash when calling take_screenshot with very small resolution values. more
• Fixed that setting fluid wagon fluid through the Lua API didn't update the train inactivity value. more
• Fixed various issues related to entities leaving gaps when building too fast.
• Fixed a crash when setting specific fluids in the infinity pipe GUI. more
• Fixed that the admin GUI didn't live-update the whitelisted field. more
• Fixed crash related to migrating circuit network entities while loading the blueprint library. more
• Fixed that artillery would keep shooting at something when it moved out of range. more
• Fixed softlock in tutorial if the player took the iron plates too quickly. more
• Fixed missing blueprint components scroll bar when there is a lot of components. more

Modding

• New item flag "spawnable", every item has to have that flag to be creatable through the shortcuts directly. more
• Renamed create-blueprint-item shortcut action to spawn-item and item_to_create to item_to_spawn.
• Increased the total number of collision masks from 14 to 55. See the lua-api collision mask concepts page for which layers the game doesn't actively use.
• Changed collision mask 'layer-11' to 'rail-layer'.
• Changed collision mask 'layer-12' to 'transport-belt-layer'.
• Changed loader to only connect to the front belt, not from side. This is to fix internal problems related to modded loaders with custom sizes and side loading of it.
• Implemented NoiseExpressions::fromPropertyTree for the "offset-points" noise expression function.
• Removed rocket silo rocket prototype property "result_items" because it did nothing.
• Added draw_as_light and draw_as_glow property to sprite definitions. draw_as_shadow, draw_as_light and draw_as_glow are mutually exclusive and draw_as_shadow takes precedence.
• Unified laser and beam related ammo categories to just "laser" and "beam".
• Renamed technology "laser-turret-speed"->"laser-shooting-speed", it now affects both robots and laser turrets.
• Renamed technology "turrets"->"gun-turret", "laser-turrets"->"laser-turret", "combat-robotics"->"defender", "combat-robotics-2"->"distractor", "combat-robotics-3"->"destroyer" "tanks"->"tank", "stone-walls"->"stone-wall", "gates"->"gate"
• Internal spidertron specification in a way to make torso and leg scaling much easier.
• Renamed "source_effects" property of line trigger item to "range_effects", due to ambiguity with source_effects on action delivery. more
• Added the "linked-container" entity type.
• Removed 'small-plane', 'computer', 'railgun-dart' and 'railgun' items.
• Removed 'bait-chest', 'crash-site-assembling-machine-1-broken', 'crash-site-assembling-machine-1-repaired', 'crash-site-assembling-machine-2-broken', 'crash-site-assembling-machine-2-repaired', 'crash-site-electric-pole', 'crash-site-generator', 'crash-site-lab-broken' and 'crash-site-lab-repaired' entities.
• Removed the "auto-character-logistic-trash-slots" modifier and forceDataValues. The auto trash are now always enabled when any trash slots present.
• Added direction to SimpleEntityWithOwner and SimpleEntityWithForce.
• Constrained collision_box and collision_mask of transport belt connectable prototypes so it is not possible to build the entities in overlapping positions. more
• Added optional draw_fluid_icon_override boolean to pipe to ground prototypes. Causes fluid icon to be drawn, ignoring the usual pair requirement.
• Removed fluid turret prototype property 'indicator_light'.
• Added fluid turret prototype properties 'enough_fuel_indicator_light' and 'not_enough_fuel_indicator_light'.
• Added locomotive and car prototype properties 'front_light_pictures' and 'darkness_to_render_light_animation'.
• Renamed logistic-container prototype property 'logistic_slots_count' to 'max_logistic_slots'.
• The data stage files are no longer divided into demo and non-demo. This means the files with the demo- prefix were either merged into files without the prefix and/or the prefix was removed from the file name.

Scripting

• Renamed the clean_cursor method to clear_cursor.
• Renamed on_put_item to on_pre_build, as it is much more precise name for that event. It fires when anything is used for building: item, blueprint, blueprint record or ghost cursor.
• Changed 'control_behavior.parameters.parameters' to just 'control_behavior.parameters' for LuaDeciderCombinatorControlBehavior, LuaConstantCombinatorControlBehavior, and LuaArithmeticCombinatorControlBehavior.
• Changed LuaItemStack::active_index to return nil if the blueprint book inventory has zero slots. more
• Changed LuaItemStack::count to return 0 instead of failing when the stack is empty.
• Changed LuaControl for players in cutscenes so the character is still usable.
• Changed on_player_cancelled_crafting 'cancel_count' to report the exact number of crafts cancelled.
• Decoupled deactivation by script and deactivation by circuit network.
• mod-gui.lua no longer defines 'mod_gui' as a global variable, it is now only available when required: local mod_gui = require("mod-gui")
• Made LuaEntity::speed read work with spider-vehicle.
• Made LuaEntityPrototype::guns read work for spider-vehicle.
• Removed LuaEntityPrototype::production read.
• Removed LuaBootstrap::is_game_in_debug_mode read.
• Added LuaEntityPrototype::max_energy_production read.
• Added LuaEntity::trains_limit read/write.
• Added LuaEntity::trains_count read.
• Added LuaTrainStopControlBehavior::trains_count_signal, trains_limit_signal, set_trains_limit and read_trains_count read/write.
• Added LuaEntity::tree_gray_stage_index, read/write.
• Added LuaEntity::tree_gray_stage_index_max read.
• Added LuaEntity::can_wires_reach().
• Added LuaEntity::crafting_queue_progress read.
• Added on_spider_command_completed event.
• Added LuaEntity::get_connected_rolling_stock().
• Added 'create_at_cursor' to LuaPlayer::create_local_flying_text().
• Added LuaGameScript::map_gen_presets read.
• Added LuaStyle::extra_margin_when_activated and extra_padding_when_activated write, which also accept arrays of values.
• Added LuaStyle::size write.
• Added LuaGuiElement::name write support.
• Added LuaGuiElement::tags read/write.
• Added LuaTile::to_be_deconstructed().
• Added LuaGuiElement::bring_to_front().
• Added 'has-rocket-launch-products' filter to ItemPrototypeFilters.
• Added support to save/load LuaProfilers. They simply reset the time when saved/loaded.
• Added LuaEntityPrototype::guns for artillery turrets and wagons.
• Added LuaEntity::combat_robot_owner read/write.
• Added LuaPlayer::clear_recipe_notifications and LuaPlayer::add_recipe_notification
• Added LuaGuiElement::add "index" property, allowing insertion to anywhere in the parent element.
• Added LuaGuiElement::get_index_in_parent().
• Added support to connect/disconnect power switches through LuaEntity::connect_neighboudisconnect_neighbour.
• Added LuaForce::get_linked_inventory().
• Added LuaEntity::link_id read/write.
• Added LuaGui 'relative' (player.gui.relative). For showing a CustomGuiElement relative to some base game C++ GUI.
• Added LuaGuiElement::anchor read/write.
• Added 'alt_mode' to on_player_toggled_alt_mode event.
• Added 'cursor_position' to the custom input events.
• Added 'queued_count' to on_pre_player_crafted_item.
• Added LuaPlayer::cutscene_character read.

Use the automatic updater if you can (check experimental updates in other settings) or download full installation at http://www.factorio.com/download/experimental.

Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

• Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
  
• Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
  
• Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
  
• Disney+
  
• Britbox
  
• Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
  

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

• Pluto TV
  
• Viki
  
• Roku
  

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
If you are into Anime there is

• Crunchyroll
  
• Funimation
  
• HiDive
  

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

• Humble Bundle
  
• Fanatical
  
• IndieGala
  

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

• Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
  
• GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
  
• Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
  
• Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
  
• Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
  
• Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
  

gaming subscription
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

• Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
  
• Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
  
• EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
  
• PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
  

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

• Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
  
• Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
  

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you.
If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it.
That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog [Gives a lot of links for Spanish]
Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

• Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
  
• Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
  
• Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
  
• Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
  
• Communal religious worship
  
• Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
  
• CoronaVirus Symptoms
  
• CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
  
• Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
  
• Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
  
• World Health Organisation
  

Support

• Samaritans
  
• Mental Health UK forum on reddit
  
• Link to above's stick post for support outlets
  
• Mindful
  
• Mind.org
  

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)