this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025
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Selfhosted

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Links are almost always base64 encoded now and the online url decoders always produce garbage. I was wondering if there is a project out there that would allow me to self-host this type of tool?

I'd probably network this container through gluetun because, yanno, privacy.

Edit to add: Doesn't have to be specifically base64 focused. Any link decoder that I can use in a privacy respecting way, would be welcome.

Edit 2: See if your solution will decode this link (the one in the image): https://link.sfchronicle.com/external/41488169.38548/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaG90ZG9nYmlsbHMuY29tL2hhbWJ1cmdlci1tb2xkcy9idXJnZXItZG9nLW1vbGQ_c2lkPTY4MTNkMTljYzM0ZWJjZTE4NDA1ZGVjYSZzcz1QJnN0X3JpZD1udWxsJnV0bV9zb3VyY2U9bmV3c2xldHRlciZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWVtYWlsJnV0bV90ZXJtPWJyaWVmaW5nJnV0bV9jYW1wYWlnbj1zZmNfYml0ZWN1cmlvdXM/6813d19cc34ebce18405decaB7ef84e41 (it should decode to this page: https://www.hotdogbills.com/hamburger-molds)

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[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 5 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

~~Well, the URL is a bit weird.~~

echo "aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaG90ZG9nYmlsbHMuY29tL2hhbWJ1cmdlci1tb2xkcy9idXJnZXItZG9nLW1vbGQ" | base64 -d

gives me "https://www.hotdogbills.com/hamburger-molds/burger-dog-mold". (Without the 's'.) And then there are about 176 characters left. I suppose the underscore is some delimiter. The rest is:

echo "c2lkPTY4MTNkMTljYzM0ZWJjZTE4NDA1ZGVjYSZzcz1QJnN0X3JpZD1udWxsJnV0bV9zb3VyY2U9bmV3c2xldHRlciZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWVtYWlsJnV0bV90ZXJtPWJyaWVmaW5nJnV0bV9jYW1wYWlnbj1zZmNfYml0ZWN1cmlvdXM" | base64 -d

"sid=6813d19cc34ebce18405deca&ss=P&st_rid=null&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=briefing&utm_campaign=sfc_bitecurious"

And I suppose the stuff after the last slash is there for some other reason, tracking or some hash or whatever. But the things before that are the URL and the parameters.

But the question remains whether we have some kind of tool to do this automatically and make it a bit easier...

[–] ReedReads@lemmy.zip 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I really appreciate all of the time and effort you spent on this url. You're right, the url is weird, which is why I thought it was a good example.

But the question remains whether we have some kind of tool to do this automatically and make it a bit easier…

But you nailed it with this last sentence. Especially when one is on mobile.

Thanks for replying again.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

I know. Guess I mainly wanted to say your given solution isn't the entire story and the potential tool should decode the parameters as well, they might or might not be important. I'm often at the computer and I regularly do one-off tasks this way... But I'm aware it might not be an one-off task to you and you might not have a Linux terminal open 24/7 either 😉 Hope some of the other people have what you need. And btw... since I clicked on a few of the suggestions: I think the thing called URL encoding is a something different, that's with all the percent signs and not base64 like here.