4 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Utilizing Online Tools | There are probably things in your life that you never thought would happen to you. At some point, you have experienced situations you only dreamt of. While other times, you find yourself in a situation you never want to be in. I’m sure battling a deadly virus is part of the latter. Never could you imagine universities implementing online learning and prohibiting face-to-face classes.

With remote learning, no matter how short your attention span is, you still have to continue watching the educational videos sent to you by your professor. Most likely, if you are not a technologically inclined person, you will feel left behind compared to your technologically advanced classmates.

You have to familiarize yourself with the new playing field when it comes to academics. You can do this by accessing useful online tools. We have listed four factors to consider before choosing online tools to utilize.

Answer these questions first before choosing online tools!

Before discussing the different factors to help assess if an online tool is worth trying, let’s define first what online tools are. These are those that you can easily access anytime using your device, provided that you connect it to a stable internet. If you try to ask people whether they prefer online tools or applications and software, you will find out that most of them would answer the former. It is because online tools have more advantages than applications and software.

For instance, some Word to PDF online converters will let your files undergo the conversion process free of charge. While if you use an application, you might need to pay for the service that it would provide. Since it occupies a portion of your device’s storage, it can significantly affect its performance. Now that you have a clear concept of what online tools are, let’s proceed to know the things you should consider before choosing the next online tool that will help you improve your academic performance.

• Do you need a premium or free account?

With the increasing prices of necessities, you might want to avoid spending money on online tools. The good news is that you can access numerous online tools for free. But the downside is that you can use only a limited number of features. If you are going to access it a few times in a month, you can settle with free online tools. Nevertheless, these free accounts are decent enough to help you perform your tasks.

If you are not on a tight budget, you might want to avail premium accounts. In this way, you can access a lot more features compared to free accounts. It can increase your productivity and efficiency. If you would use this account several times a day, a premium account will make you get the most out of its features. It depends on what you need and how frequently you will use it. 

• Is the online tool safe to use?

Are you anxious about becoming a victim of identity theft or scams? You see these things happening everywhere because it becomes rampant today. People desperately need financial help to continue providing the needs of their families amidst the pandemic. They would even resort to deceiving others so that they can earn money. What you can only do now is to take precautionary measures to protect your data.

You must provide utmost attention to the website’s safety and security. It is to ensure that unauthorized persons can’t easily access your information. You will know if you can safely access the online tool if it uses encryption. To avoid putting any of your bank and social media accounts at risk, you must access only encrypted websites.

• Does the online tool provide a user-friendly interface?

Online tools with a user-friendly interface will make you navigate the website with ease. You can perform specific tasks without consuming a lot of search time. It is because you can easily find the location of its features. Aside from that, you can figure out the steps you have to do to access it in just a couple of minutes.

Get rid of online tools with complex interfaces. These will only make you experience difficulties in mastering how it works. With the number of requirements you have as a student, most likely you don’t have enough time to explore complicated tools.

To figure out how user-friendly the website’s interface is, you have to try using it. Once you have used some of its features, try another online tool and compare which one is more convenient to utilize.

• Does the online tool contain a considerable amount of advertisements?

The majority of online tools available for free let you view a lot of advertisements. That is why most people hate using them. These advertisements are essential because they are the primary reason why online tools can continue to provide their services without forcing their users to pay. You are probably not against their use of paid advertisements, but you might want only a considerable number of them. 

There are times that you might not want to see many advertisements. It interrupts whatever you are doing on the website. It is certainly annoying whenever there will appear several pop-ads and redirects every time you browse on the webpage. It can disrupt your workflow that will lead to inefficiency. You primarily used online tools to make you do tasks in a fast and easy manner. If the website shows multiple advertisements in a minute, then it forfeits your purpose of using online tools.

In Conclusion

If you are looking for a free but secure online tool, PDFBear is the best option you have. You can use all its features without worrying about the safety of your files. The tool automatically deletes all uploaded files from its server.  Besides that, it best matches your needs if you are leaning towards a simple interface without many pop-up advertisements.