• @doctortofu@reddthat.com
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    891 month ago

    “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…

  • @MemmingenFan923@feddit.org
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    561 month ago

    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.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
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      321 month ago

      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.

      • @catloaf@lemm.ee
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        21 month ago

        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.

    • @gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      21 month ago

      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.

    • Ulrich
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      01 month ago

      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.

      • @T156@lemmy.world
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        81 month ago

        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.

        • Ulrich
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          -61 month ago

          I don’t have the knowledge or the time to learn to use these tools.

              • Captain Aggravated
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                11 month ago

                Let me tell you a little bit about all those various file converter tools, be it ffmpeg, pandoc, imagemagick, whatever.

                The majority of them can be used like this: magick inputfile.bmp outputfile.jpg. If all you need is this file in that format, that’s how you do it. They’re ridicluously capable, you can do editing and compositing and such with them and whatever. If you have a use case where you do that a lot, like you just always put a watermark on images or you always desaturate them or whatever, you can write a script, then just run that script.

                They’re basically all like that. Fairly simple to use for basic format translation, shockingly capable if you want to write a script.

                • Ulrich
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                  -21 month ago

                  magick inputfile.bmp outputfile.jpg.

          • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            41 month ago

            Handbrake has a GUI, and it’s relatively straightforward to use. VLC also works well. You can also use ffmpeg on the CLI like so:

            ffmpeg -i input_video.mp4 output_video.avi
            

            imagemagick isn’t really that hard, in most cases it’s:

            convert <file1> <file2>
            

            For example:

            convert file.pdf file.jpg
            

            If that doesn’t work, try pdftoppm:

            pdftoppm input.pdf outputname -png
            

            I don’t know of a good GUI for it, I recommend just learning to use either imagemagick or pdftoppm.

            • Ulrich
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              -81 month ago

              Handbrake has a GUI, and it’s relatively straightforward to use

              I downloaded it and it immediately did not work so I’m gonna have to disagree with you there, champ.

              You can also use ffmpeg on the CLI like so:

              I’ve lost far too many hours to the CLI. I don’t fall for that trick anymore.

              • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                41 month ago

                You do you, I guess. Those are incredibly simple commands I provided, and you can intuit pretty easily how to tweak them for other formats.

                I guess it’s up to you. You can gamble with random services online, or you can spend a few minutes and learn to use a tool that’s all but guaranteed to not have malware.

                • Ulrich
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                  1 month ago

                  or you can spend a few minutes

                  This is just a fucking lie and I’m tired of hearing it. What did I just say?

                  I’ve lost far too many hours to the CLI.

                  I’ve tried to learn this shit. It’s a fucking rabbit hole. I type these commands, letter for letter, the terminal returns some completely useless error that provides me with no diagnostic information whatsoever, I spend hours searching and trying to understand why and come up empty-handed. I don’t have time for that anymore. I already have multiple jobs. It’s not how I prefer to spend my free time. And frankly, I don’t believe it anymore when software engineers feed me this bullshit.

                  You know what those web services do? I just click a button and it does what the button says. Why is that so hard?

      • @zerofk@lemm.ee
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        11 month ago

        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.

  • AwesomeLowlander
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    251 month ago

    “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.

    • @aaron@lemm.ee
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      101 month ago

      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?

  • @djmikeale@lemm.ee
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    211 month ago

    Protip: ask your favourite llm to write you a python script to convert between the formats you’re interested in. Bonus benefit: simultaneously learn a bit about programming!

    • Dizzy Devil Ducky
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      11 month ago

      As much as I’m not a fan of this, I’ll at least admit it was helpful in helping me quickly learn how to scale videos using FFMPEG. That, combined with the documentation and now I have a command saved to a reference text document to help if I ever forget.

  • @Evotech@lemmy.world
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    51 month ago

    The best is online CSR generators.

    Yes, I know people who have implemented private keys they have been given from random websites.