AI & ML

I Built a PDF Toolbox That Never Uploads Your Files — Here's How

Every "free online PDF tool" uploads your files to a server. I built one that doesn't — and here's the technical breakdown. The Privacy Problem Try th…

Making "files never leave your browser" verifiable with DevTools and CSP

"Files never leave your browser" is becoming standard copy for PDF tools, image editors, and document converters. But a trust claim and a verifiable f…

Why I stopped copy-pasting JSON into online converters and built TypeMorph

Why I stopped copy-pasting JSON into online converters and built TypeMorph Every developer has done it. You grab a JSON response from an API, paste it…

The future of Siri, or: why private inference isn’t private enough

rclone crypt: encrypt files client-side before they touch any cloud

If you want files encrypted before they ever reach a cloud provider — so the provider only ever sees ciphertext — rclone crypt is the simplest tool th…

Семь браузерных инструментов без сервера: WASM, WebGPU, шифрование на клиенте

Запись в Notion - и текст на чужом сервере. Задачи в облачном планировщике - данные в чужой аналитике. Волна локальных LLM показала широкой аудитории,…

The Cookie That Never Expires

You probably remember when the tracking cookie died. Browsers blocked them, regulators demanded banners for them, and the advertising industry spent y…

I built a document converter that never uploads your files

Every time you use an online PDF converter, your file travels to a server somewhere — processed by a company you don't know, stored temporarily on har…

I'm building local voice dictation that turns talk into finished text — commit messages, tickets, clean prose — all on your own machine

I talk most of my AI-coding prompts now instead of typing them, and I wanted a tool that does more than transcribe: you speak, and it gives you finish…

I trained a neural network to break my own encrypted search. It learned nothing.

A few months ago I built a way to search documents by meaning while keeping the embeddings hidden — even from the server doing the search. I called it…

Why I Stopped Using ChatGPT and Built My

Why I Stopped Using ChatGPT and Built My Discover the shift from cloud-dependent AI to digital sovereignty and why running your own local LLM is the u…

Detecting WebRTC IP leaks in the browser: how it works and how to test it

WebRTC is a powerful browser API for real-time audio, video, and data communication. But there's a privacy trap hiding inside it: even when you're beh…

GDPR compliance for web devs: A practical technical guide (2026 edition with code examples)

Originally written for r/webdev on Reddit — sharing here for the dev.to community. I'm a developer based in Germany. After getting hit with a €900 Abm…

Launched a free DSGVO compliance scanner — scanned 200+ sites, 73% had violations

Originally written for r/SideProject on Reddit — sharing here for the dev.to community. TL;DR: Built a free tool that scans websites for GDPR/DSGVO co…

33+ Free Developer Tools That Never Send Your Data

The Problem with Most Online Formatters You know the drill. You paste some JSON into a random online formatter, or convert a CSV to Markdown, or forma…

Bulk Password Breach Check: Safe & Local Vault Auditing

Audit thousands of passwords against data breaches — completely in your browser with zero-knowledge privacy. Published: June 9, 2026 TL;DR Most bulk p…

PII masking in Polars: MaskOps 2.0, and two metrics that lied to me

MaskOps 2.0 shipped this week. Before I told anyone, I looked at my own numbers. Two of them were lying to me, in opposite directions. MaskOps is a Ru…

What a Mailman service shutdown reveals about the state of mailing lists in 2026

DreamHost is shutting down their hosted Mailman service on July 31. If you run a list there, you already know. If you don't, it's worth understanding …

Building for Indonesia? What UU PDP Actually Requires From Developers (a Practical Checklist)

If your product touches users in Indonesia, the country's Personal Data Protection Law — UU PDP, Law 27/2022 — is now fully in force. The two-year tra…

I built 50+ developer tools that run entirely in your browser — here's why privacy matters and how I did it

Every week I open a new browser tab and search for something like "json formatter online" or "jwt decoder" or "regex tester". And every week I land on…

I Built a Free File Conversion Platform That Runs Entirely in Your Browser — No Uploads, No Tracking, No Login

I Built Free Browser-Based File Tools That Run Without Uploading Your Files Why I Built File Convert Factory Most online file converters require you t…

E.L.L.A. — Embedded Local Logic Agent

Building a Privacy-First AI Assistant for Windows — The Directive Architecture Every AI assistant I've ever used made the same assumption: the intelli…

Privacy-First Analytics Is Not Blind Analytics

Privacy-First Analytics Is Not Blind Analytics is a practical operating principle, not a slogan. The useful version of analytics, automation, and soft…

Architecting isolated workspaces with Kasm: hardened, egress-controlled, disposable

TL;DR: A hardened Kasm Workspace deployment where every research session runs in an isolated, egress-controlled, throwaway container. Four layers (ser…

ChatGPT's New Memory Doesn't Ask Permission First

On June 4, OpenAI rolled out Dreaming V3 to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users in the US. The pitch is simple: ChatGPT now remembers you properly. Not because…

Privacy by Design in Your API: How to Collect Less Data Without Breaking UX

When developers think about privacy, they often think about legal compliance, consent banners, or policy pages. But privacy starts much earlier than t…

WhatsApp says it caught new spyware attacks linked to NSO Group in violation of court order

The messaging giant announced that it disrupted a phishing campaign targeting its users with NSO’s spyware.

Age verification is coming. Free Software can build it right.

In December 2025, Australia became the first country to ban under-16s from social media. Ten platforms, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, X, and the…

🚀 Rebuilding My Android App with Jetpack Compose: The Mailfo v2.0 Journey

Hey DEV community! 👋 I just completely rebuilt and launched Mailfo v2.0 , an privacy-focused temporary disposable email app for Android[cite: 1, 2]. T…

AI Independence: Why it Matters More Than You Think

AI Independence: Why it Matters More Than You Think Discover why moving toward local-first AI is about more than just privacy—it's about reclaiming yo…