Best Online Computer Course Websites January 24, 2017
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Recently I have had some free time on my hands and wanted to learn some more programming and take a Computer Security class (Cyber Security is a more popular buzz word for Computer Security).  I will list out all the sites I found that provide both paid, free, and semi free courses. Lets get started.

 

Free Courses:

Cybrary: http://cybrary.it/

Cybrary offers Computer Security and Computer IT bases courses. There isn’t a massive library but can offer courses that help you study for CompTIA Networking+, A+, Linux+, Security+, and Cloud+. Currently I am taking the Networking+ course they offer.

Pros:

  1. Free
  2. A decent library size of basics
  3. Offers certifications

Cons:

  1. Video production quality can be a crap shoot
  2. Only has courses in Computer Security and IT

 

Tutorials Point: https://www.tutorialspoint.com

This site is really great, not so much as a tutorial site for learning but as a how-to/reference. They have great info on things like how to do loops in assembly. I personally like video tutorials (which they have, but very few compared to their full library)

Pros:

  1. HUGE library of tutorials https://www.tutorialspoint.com/tutorialslibrary.htm
  2. Free
  3. Online “Coding grounds” to do coding in online

Cons:

  1. Limited selection of video tutorials
  2. Website can be very busy (lots of things on the screen) at times

 

Open Security Training: http://opensecuritytraining.info

Open Security Training (OST) has even more limited selection of computer security videos but may have some topics that other sites don’t. There are 29 courses (13 with videos. Mediocre quality videos of the class being instructed) on more advance topics of the security field like “Advanced x86: Introduction to BIOS & SMM” or “Exploits 2: Exploitation in the Windows Environment”. If there is the topic of a course here and on an other site, I would go with the other site.

Pros:

  1. Free
  2. Has some specific topics

Cons:

  1. No/Poor videos
  2. Basic website
  3. Very limited selection

 

Codecademy: https://www.codecademy.com/

Codecademy is free, has a nice selection of programming courses and has a nice website. I personally haven’t used the site but I know a few people who have and have heard good things about it.

Pros:

  1. Free
  2. Has a nice selection of programming tutorials
  3. Has a nice website

Cons:

  1. No selection of computer security classes

 

Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/

Coursera has a lot classes by colleges around the world. There are a lot of general programming and computer classes. They offer lots of other classes as well.

Pros:

  1. Free
  2. Lots of general computer classes
  3. Nice website

Cons:

  1. You can’t take any class at any time. They have enroll dates and usually classes happen ever few months
  2. The quality can differ heavily due to which instructor you get

 

Paid:

Team Tree House: https://teamtreehouse.com

Team Tree House has a pretty good selection of programming tutorials and the production quality is quite good.  They also have an online programming environment that works quite well. I currently enrolled and taking a python/django course, I quite enjoy it.

Pros:

  1. High quality content
  2. A nice selection of tutorials
  3. Online programming environment

Cons:

  1. Paid per month (Currently $25)
  2. No Computer Security courses (would be nice to see some)

 

Lynda: https://www.lynda.com

Lynda has a nice selection of courses both programming, computer security, and other things like Photoshop. I haven’t used it but I have “found” some courses online before.

Pros:

  1. A LARGE selection of courses
  2. Quality content
  3. Less expensive than other websites ($19.99)

Cons:

  1. Has some content/features locked behind a higher plan ($29.99)

 

Udemy: https://www.udemy.com

Udemy has courses you can buy and have access to forever. The problem is that anyone can upload a course. Some are good and others are complete crap. Some have great production quality and others are terrible webcams and shitty audio.  I would read what others say about the courses, watch all the free videos that they give you on the course and then make your decision.

Pros:

  1. Get lifetime access to the courses you bought
  2. A wide variety of courses in all fields

Cons:

  1. Pretty much a crap shoot on the quality of the course/production quality

 

 

Others:

If you are a pirate there are a couple search engines you can use to search for torrents. Many lynda and Udemy courses can be found this way. NOTE *THIS IS ILLEGAL*!!! But if you don’t give a shit about it being illegal then that is an option. My favorite public torrent search engines are:

https://www.skytorrents.in/

https://torrentsearcher.herokuapp.com/

https://www.google.com/

https://duckduckgo.com/

(yes I put google and ddg in here. Just add “torrent” at the end of your search and you get a lot of good results)

 

Summary:

Paid courses are better than free ones. The quality is higher and the selection is usually much better. If you want you can pay for a service like lynda/treehouse and then just download the videos using something like Flash Video Downloader.

 

Updates:

1/23/2017: Added tutorialspoints