I built this in my bedroom because I was curious.
Hey! I'm Azeem, a university student obsessed with how things work. When my CS teacher talked about "The Cloud," I started wondering: why do we have to send our private files to some random server just to split a PDF?I decided to build FileMint to see if I could do it differently.
Learning the "Local First" Way
Most websites work like this: you upload a file, their server does the work, and you download the result. But I learned that modern browsers are actually super powerful.
"Why send data across the world when your own computer is sitting right in front of you?"
I spent months diving into WebAssembly (which was way harder than I thought!) to make these tools run entirely inside your browser tab. No uploads, ever.
// My "Aha!" Moment
async function diyPrivacy(file) {
// 1. Read file into browser memory
const data = await file.arrayBuffer();
// 2. Run the WASM engine (so cool!)
const worker = await loadMyCode();
// 3. Process it right here
const out = await worker.run(data);
// 4. No internet needed!
return out;
}How I Made It Work
1. WebAssembly (The Superpower)
I found out you can run C++ and Rust code in the browser using WebAssembly. It's basically a way to give your browser a "turbo boost" so it can handle big PDFs as fast as a real app on your computer.
2. The "Sandbox" Safety Net
Browsers use something called a "sandbox." It means my code can only see the file you actually pick. It can't look at your other photos or files. This makes me feel way better about using tools on the internet.
3. You Can Actually Check Me!
Another student showed me the Network Tab in Chrome (F12). If you use FileMint, you'll see NO data being sent to any server. You can even turn off your Wi-Fi after the page loads and it still works. I think that's pretty neat.