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)
The encoding format of URLs is URL encoding, also known as percent-encoding. Content in the URL may be first encoding in some other format, like JSON or base64, and then encoded additionally using percent-encoding.
While there is a standard way to decode percent-encoding, websites are free to use base64 or JSON in URLs however they wish, so there’s not a one-size-fits-all way to decode them all. For example, the “/” character is valid in both percent-encoding and base64-encoding, so to know if it’s part of a base64-encoded blob or not, you might end up trying decoding several parts of the URL as base64 and checking if the result looks like URL-- essentially brute force.
A smarter way to do this might be to maintain a mapping between your favorite sites that you want to decode and what methods they use to encode links. Then a tool could efficiently directly decode the URLs embedded in these click trackers.
Just take the base64 bit of the url. The whole url isn’t a base64, so it decoded to garbage.
The base64 bit decodes just fine.
I’ve been working on a URL cleaning tool for almost 2 years now and just committed support for that type of URL. I’ll release it to crates.io shortly after Rust 1.90 on the 18th.
https://github.com/Scripter17/url-cleaner
It has 3 frontends right now: a CLI, an HTTP server and userscript to clean every URL on every webpage you visit, and a discord bot. If you want any other integration let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
Also, amusingly, you decoded the base64 wrong. You forgot to change the _ to / and thus missed the
/burger-dog-moldand tracking parameter garbage at the end. I made sure to remove the tracking parameters.I mean… It’s decoding into garbage because you’re feeding it more than just the base64 section. I suppose if you’re already running nginx or something you could easily make a page that uses javascript to break the link down (possibly using /, ?, = as separators) and decode sections that look like base64. If you make it javascript and client side there’s not really any privacy concerns.
EDIT: Oops. My Lemmy client didn’t load the other replies at first, I didn’t realize you already had plenty of other options.
It’s 3 lines of code in basically every programming language, no need for selfhosting, just open the terminal?
You know, it would be a really neat browser plug-in. Mouse over a URL and get the encoded bit decoded?
Got an example in BASH?Edit: someone else has a link
deleted by creator
You may want to use
-nto skip the newline and the end.You may also want to single quote the text to negate expansion when doing the opposite and encoding the text.
echo -n 'my text' | base64
Cyberchef!
This is the only correct answer
Cyberchef does this and so so much more https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef
Don’t include the non-encoded part of the data or it will corrupt the decryption. The decoder can’t tell the difference between data that’s not encoded and data that is encoded since it’s all text.
I have nothing to add except the appreciation for everyone who helped and amazement at the vastly differing ways people produced working results.
CorentinTh/it-tools does that and a lot more
