Why your files stay put

How a typical online tool works

You choose a file, your browser sends it to a server, the server processes it with software installed there, then sends you the result. Your file now exists in two places: on your disk and on a machine you know nothing about.

How WizeFile works

The browser downloads a page and a small program, then that program works on your machine, with your processor and your memory. The file you drop is read locally, transformed locally, and the result is handed back to you locally.

There is no path by which the file could leave, since no request is made during processing.

How to check it in thirty seconds

Open any tool on the site. Press F12 to open your browser’s developer tools, go to the Network tab, tick “Preserve log”, then start a task.

You will see the page and its files load, once, including those of the ad network that funds the site. Then, when you drop your document, the engine the tool needs loads, once. And during the whole processing, nothing. No outgoing request, no upload.

You can go further: cut your internet connection after the page has loaded. The tools keep working.

Open any tool on the site on your phoneyour tablet, with your usual connection. Once the page has loaded, turn on airplane mode, or turn off Wi-Fi and mobile data, then drop a file and start a task.

It still works. A tool that sends your files elsewhere stops dead the moment the connection drops; this one carries on, because it never needed it.

What it changes in practice

No account.

No size limit. The only real limit is the memory of your phoneyour tabletyour computer.

No waiting.

What it costs

Your machine does the work. On an older computer or a phone, a large document takes longer than it would on a dedicated server.

Memory is the real limit. A very heavy file can make the processing fail. If that happens, we’d appreciate your feedback.

Some tools don’t exist here. Audio and video processing needs an engine that is heavy to download.

Fonts, libraries, analytics

A site can perfectly well process files locally while passing your IP address to third parties some other way: a font loaded from Google, a library taken from a CDN, an analytics tool. Each of those requests sends your IP address to a company that has nothing to do with the site you are visiting.

Here, fonts and libraries are hosted on the site’s own domain. No request goes to a third party while you process a file.

Two caveats, stated plainly. The site’s host, Cloudflare, sees your IP address simply because it serves you the pages: that is true of every host, and no site can do without one. And the ad network, Google AdSense, whose code loads with the page, so it sees your IP address too. It requests no ads and stores nothing on your device until you have answered the consent window, and it never sees your files.

So what about ads?

The site is free and funded by advertising. Ads concern the pages and the visitor, never the content of your files, which doesn’t leave your phoneyour tabletyour computer whatever happens.