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“Users who in the past would type ‘free online file converter’ into a search engine are vulnerable, as the algorithms used for results now often include paid results, which might be scams.”
Nooo, you mean turning search engines into monetization and ad delivery engines had downsides? Who would have thought!
Fucking greed at the root of another goddamned issue...
That's why I always prefer an offline converter. Also if your upload a file somewhere the website can save it for their own purpose alhough they say they won't do it.
I tend to just whip up a script of some sort that employs widely used libraries for the conversion. I know that’s more technical than most people would have the tolerance or aptitude for, but for me, it’s the least ambiguous and most secure way to do stuff like that. And then I can squirrel it away in a utility scripts directory and use it later if I need it again.
Precisely, and this is why I've never trusted online "free" converters since day one. Who the fuck knows what they're actually doing with your file, and I always assumed that most of them were fronts to steal data and IP from users who are stupid enough to upload corporate and business stuff to them.
Anyway, there's vanishingly little I haven't been able to do over the years with ffmpeg or Imagemagick, their byzantine command line structures notwithstanding.
Which is why I've been happy to trust them for files nobody cares about, like a random audio file that I got off the Internet. And it's very unlikely they'd be able to exploit my media player.
Which offline converter? I find myself often trying to convert:
- PDF to JPEG
- AVC to MP4
- OPUS to MP3
etc. I have no idea how to do that but if I type it into a search engine there's usually tools there.
Video and audio conversion can be done with Handbrake or Shutter Encoder, both are nice GUIs
Handbrake won't load the file and Shutter won't even open. But thank you.
In Windows, Foobar2000 does easy audio file conversions, once you have installed the relevant codecs.
You could try Permute. It's a pretty simple app for converting video and audio. Permute is my go-to for quick video conversion.
DBPowerAmp has an easy-to-use audio converter that supports pretty much every audio format and does batch file conversion as well. DBPowerAmp is my go-to for audio conversion.
Both of these are paid apps.
Thanks, I'll check those out.
I can’t comment on the others, but PDF to JPEG should be easy enough. ImageMagick, which another commenter suggested, is possible but not user friendly. However you can just open the PDF in many applications and export it as an image. Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop can do it. GIMP probably too.
I’m a last ditch effort you can even just open the file and screenshot it.
FFmpeg and handbrake do the latter two quite handily. The latter even has a nice program interface, rather than needing commands.
ImageMagick is capable of the first. I've had it go the other way before, and I should be most surprised if it couldn't convert a PDF to a jpg.
“Users who in the past would type ‘free online file converter’ into a search engine are vulnerable, as the algorithms used for results now often include paid results, which might be scams.”
Mm hmm.
I refuse to believe that the free service I've been using for years has been exploiting my behavior for money.. what kind of world is this?? What kind of psychopathic organization would do such a thing? Why isn't capitalism working for me? Why?