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      <h1>About IrisFiles</h1>

      <p>IrisFiles is a free file converter that works entirely in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to a server. Every conversion happens on your device using WebAssembly and the browser's built-in APIs.</p>

      <h2>Why this exists</h2>

      <p>In March 2025, the FBI issued a public warning about free online file converters being used to distribute malware. The warning highlighted a fundamental problem: most online converters require you to upload your files to a remote server. You have no way of knowing what happens to your files after they leave your device.</p>

      <p>IrisFiles takes a different approach. There is no server. The entire application is static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. When you drop a file into IrisFiles, it stays on your device. The conversion runs in your browser, and the result is downloaded directly, just like any other file.</p>

      <h2>What it can do</h2>

      <p>IrisFiles currently has over 120 tools across several categories:</p>

      <ul>
        <li><strong>Images:</strong> Convert between 10 formats (HEIC, AVIF, PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF, BMP, TIFF, ICO, SVG). Also compress, resize, strip EXIF data, view metadata, and combine images into an animated GIF.</li>
        <li><strong>Video:</strong> Convert between MP4, WebM, MOV, AVI, and MKV, or extract to GIF. Compress video with quality presets and optional resolution scaling.</li>
        <li><strong>Audio:</strong> Convert between MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, M4A, and AAC. Compress audio with standard bitrate tiers.</li>
        <li><strong>PDF:</strong> Merge PDFs, split a PDF into pages, convert PDF pages to images, and assemble images into a PDF.</li>
        <li><strong>Documents:</strong> Convert EPUB, RTF, DOCX, and MOBI files to plain text or PDF.</li>
        <li><strong>Fonts:</strong> Convert between TTF, OTF, and WOFF.</li>
        <li><strong>Archives:</strong> Create and extract ZIP files.</li>
        <li><strong>Unknown files:</strong> Drop any unrecognized file to identify its type. IrisFiles checks magic bytes against a 600+ format signature database and shows you what it found.</li>
      </ul>

      <h2>How it works</h2>

      <p><strong>Image conversion:</strong> For common formats (JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, etc.), IrisFiles uses the browser's built-in decoder, renders the image through Canvas, and re-encodes it with the browser's encoder. For HEIC/HEIF (iPhone photos), it lazy-loads a WebAssembly build of <a href="https://github.com/strukturag/libheif">libheif</a> (version 1.21.2) from the CDN. AVIF currently relies on native browser decoding; browsers without AVIF support cannot convert it here.</p>

      <p><strong>Video and audio conversion:</strong> IrisFiles lazy-loads <a href="https://github.com/ffmpegwasm/ffmpeg.wasm">FFmpeg.wasm</a> (version 0.12, roughly 10MB) from the CDN only when you use a video or audio tool. FFmpeg runs entirely in your browser; no media ever leaves your device. MP3 encoding uses lamejs; WAV encoding uses the Web Audio API directly.</p>

      <p><strong>PDF operations:</strong> Merge and split use <a href="https://github.com/Hopding/pdf-lib">pdf-lib</a>. Image-to-PDF uses jsPDF. PDF-to-image rendering uses pdfjs-dist. All lazy-loaded from the CDN.</p>

      <p><strong>Format detection:</strong> IrisFiles reads the first few bytes of every file (magic bytes) and checks them against a 601-entry signature database. It never relies on file extensions.</p>

      <p><strong>Batch downloads:</strong> Multiple output files are packaged into a ZIP using <a href="https://github.com/101arrowz/fflate">fflate</a>, assembled entirely in your browser.</p>

      <h2>What about quality?</h2>

      <p>Image quality sliders are continuous (1-100%) with snap points at common values. The default is 100%, meaning full quality with no extra compression applied. Lower the slider to trade some visual fidelity for a smaller file. Video compression uses CRF-based presets (High, Medium, Low). Audio compression uses standard bitrate tiers. Some tools (image-to-GIF, PDF, document, font, and ZIP tools) have no quality control because their output format uses fixed encoding.</p>

      <h2>Technology</h2>

      <ul>
        <li><strong>HEIC decoding:</strong> <a href="https://github.com/nicolo-ribaudo/heic-to">heic-to</a> (WASM, libheif 1.21.2), lazy-loaded from CDN</li>
        <li><strong>Image encoding:</strong> Browser Canvas API (toBlob)</li>
        <li><strong>Video and audio processing:</strong> FFmpeg.wasm 0.12 (~10MB WASM), lazy-loaded from CDN</li>
        <li><strong>GIF encoding:</strong> gifenc (local bundle)</li>
        <li><strong>Audio encoding:</strong> lamejs for MP3, Web Audio API for WAV, FFmpeg.wasm for OGG/FLAC/M4A/AAC</li>
        <li><strong>PDF operations:</strong> pdf-lib (merge/split), jsPDF (image-to-PDF), pdfjs-dist (PDF-to-image)</li>
        <li><strong>EXIF metadata:</strong> ExifReader + piexifjs (lossless JPEG EXIF editing)</li>
        <li><strong>Font parsing:</strong> opentype.js</li>
        <li><strong>ZIP packaging:</strong> fflate (~8KB gzipped, local bundle)</li>
        <li><strong>Format detection:</strong> Magic bytes, 601-entry signature database</li>
        <li><strong>Hosting:</strong> Static files on Vercel (zero server-side code)</li>
        <li><strong>Privacy:</strong> No analytics, no tracking, no cookies</li>
      </ul>

      <h2>Open source</h2>

      <p>The source code is available for inspection. You can verify that no files are uploaded and see exactly how each tool works.</p>
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