this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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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.
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.
The website mentions that there are fake offline converters that push malware as well.
Yes this can also happen. I should have written open source offline converter
What you recommend in terms of offline open-source converters?
Pandoc for documents, ffmpeg for video , imagemagick for images
What are you looking to convert?
Usually what i do is look for any converter and look for open source alternatives to it on alternativeto.net and hopefully one of the top 3 alternatives fits your use case
Psst the URL is: https://alternativeto.net/ I always stop here first to research what software options there are available and also learning what other people are using. Extremely useful and trustworthy site!
Thanks i dropped the "to"