While creating web applications, finding data we need can be a very difficult process. Whether it is a signup page that requires all countries/cities or a "restaurants directory" which needs the data of restaurants.

Factual is a website which can be a quick solution for reaching data. It is a free-to-use platform where anyone can share & mash open data on any subject.

There are lots of different data tables provided like:

• Video Games & Cheats
• Popular Books of the 1990s and 2000s
• Hiking Trails
• American Idol Finalists
• Beer Qualities
• & much more

It is possible to view the data in a table form, make changes, filter or export as a CSV file. Also, all data can be reached via Factual API which we’ll probably be seeing lots of applications built around it.

Secure input and data handling is hard when it comes to HTML because of many different types of malicious code (XSS).

HTML Purifier is a well documented, standards-compliant HTML filter library written in PHP. It simply:

• Removes all malicious code (better known as XSS) with an audited, secure yet permissive whitelist.
• Makes sure your documents are standards compliant. 

HTML Purifier requires PHP 5  (PHP 4 versions are not supported any more but can be downloaded). It saves so much time while developing & offers much more expertise than most of the self-coded data-handling libraries as HTML Purifier is concentrated only in this area.

This open source secure data handling solution also has a comparison chart wih other HTML filters.

Some community-written plugins for CMS softwares, WYSIWYG editors can be found in the HTML Purifier website.