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)

  • markstos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    9 hours ago

    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.