A free, unlimited online PDF converter with Privacy focus

[nicbars]

This is a side project I started nearly 2 months ago: an online PDF converter at https://quicklypdf.com. Over time, I’ve made various improvements, but I’m still looking for feedback and new users.

I’m aware there are many similar tools (e.g., smallpdf, ilovepdf) and competition is tough, but here’s what makes https://quicklypdf.com stand out:

1. Simplicity: No email sign-up, no user account needed. Just upload and convert.

2. Unlimited and Free: Unlike some services that require subscriptions or have daily limits, https://quicklypdf.com allows unlimited conversions, 100% free of charge.

3. High-Quality Output: Despite being free and straightforward, the conversion quality is intended to match or exceed that of paid alternatives.

4. Privacy-Focused: Uploaded files are deleted from the server within one hour for privacy. Additionally, certain features (like PDF merging or converting images to PDF) run locally in your browser—no upload needed—so you can even use them offline once the page is loaded.

I’d love any suggestions or feedback you might have. If you need an online PDF converter, please give https://quicklypdf.com a try. Thank you!

[benob]

Has anyone tried compiling a pdf processing suite to wasm, so that we not have to upload anything to servers?

[Tommix11]

This looks very good but I would like some more features. 1. Extract bitmaps from PDF (without conversion of any sort) 2. Extract typefaces from PDF 3. Convert to SVG 4. Extract and/or Remove Adobe Illustrator part from PDF 5. Convert all text to vector paths

Also, embedded png's and even jpg's can many times be compressed using lossless techniques see what Imageoptim can do for example.

Good work though. I have bookmarked your site.

[SirFredman]

I do like the about, privacy policy and terms and contions sections of the site :)

[auc]

This looks pretty good, great job!

How are you making profit from this so that it’s sustainable?

[dotancohen]

I haven't tried it yet, but what advantage does this have over pandoc?

[x187463]

What's the business model here? I'm assuming there's at least a marginal cost. As somebody who enjoys providing the world with free tools, I'm always curious how others handle the situation. Enshittification is real and comes for us all.

[elashri]

Congrats on the launch, it is interesting. Do you have plans for open source the project?

I'm a happy user of Stirling-PDF [1] which provides all my PDF needs. I do host it in my network and not accessible from internet for better privacy.

[1] https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF

[Quizzical4230]

Stirling looks amazing, thanks!

[cess11]

Not having a privacy policy while promoting the products as having a privacy focus seems borderline malicious, as does the LLM-smelling copywriting.

Running these kinds of conversions and whatnot is rather resource intensive, where's the funding coming from?

[lukol]

Congrats on the launch! How does your PDF to text feature compare to services like LlamaParse and 2markdown.com? Especially in terms of layout and image understanding. And for a privacy focused service, it would be great if your privacy policy would contain text :) Is the service hosted in the EU?

[einpoklum]

I don't quite see how a web-based PDF converter has a "privacy focus". Am I not sending my PDF to the server for processing?

Note also the "about us" and the "privacy policy" page:

https://quicklypdf.com/privacy-policy

Perhaps the HN publication is a bit premature? :-(

[redmajor12]

This whole thread reads like two chatgpt bots talking to each other. HN needs a flag for obvious LLM content.

[dec0dedab0de]

This just seems like a way to collect data by tricking non-technical people into thinking that uploading your file to a server could ever be private.

[rpdillon]

Indeed.

https://quicklypdf.com/privacy-policy

[pierre]

This is a nice UI for end users, however it seems to be a seems wrapper on top of mutool, which is distributed as AGPL. If you want to process PDF locally, legally and safely you should use their CLI instead.

[cess11]

How did you figure that out? Couldn't it be Poppler as well?

[gmalette]

Really nice! PDF editing is super underserved relative to its usage IRL, it’s always great to see new tools.

My partner needed one that has total data residency (can’t upload it) so I ended up building one as an app. It doesn’t have half the features of QuicklyPDF tho.

https://github.com/gmalette/pdf-rancher

[boo-ga-ga]

Nice tool, simplicity is a big advantage, I'm sure you will quickly start getting more and more users. Prepare to handle them all:). It would be interesting to hear how it's implemented (tech stack, PDF libs, any tech limitations etc). And, you've got a lovely logo, please don't change it!

[xiconfjs]

There is something wrong with the privacy policy @ https://quicklypdf.com/privacy-policy:

title_01

paragraph_01 title_02

paragraph_02 title_03

paragraph_03 title_04

paragraph_04 title_05

    section_list_item_01
    section_list_item_02
    section_list_item_03

[HelloUsername]

Also a lot of pages still contain a lorem ipsum

[theanonymousone]

My biggest scare in setting up a service where users can upload something, is the probability of "problematic" material. Is there any solution to this?

[boo-ga-ga]

Is it a problem your service doesn't provide sharing functionality? I.e. I can imagine illegal content can be a problem if you do an image sharing service. But if it's some utility, you don't store anything for long and that's it and forbid any illegal content in terms of use.

[perihelions]

Who are the owners of this site, which is soliciting users to upload their (often) sensitive PDF documents? (And why is it 100% free?) In what jurisdiction is it domiciled? Is it subject to the GDPR?

The Terms & Conditions are a Lorem Ipsum placeholder; the "Contact" and "About" pages are blank. There's no signaling anywhere that invites us to trust the data controllers, at a level higher than an anonymous phishing email. The HN account is blank too and exists solely to push this site onto the front page. That's a thing that's against this forum's rules, if there was any doubt.

[cess11]

It tries to load Google Tag Manager without having a privacy policy when the client is in the EU so it's probably not GDPR compliant.

[Alifatisk]

I wish it had the feature to redacting things!