A personal story about privacy, frustration, and building SolveBar
The Moment That Started Everything
It was a regular Tuesday evening. I had just finished designing a logo for a small side project I was working on. The file was an SVG — clean, crisp, vector-perfect. But the platform I needed to upload it to only accepted PNG.
Simple problem, right? Just convert it.
I opened Google and searched for an SVG to PNG converter. The first result looked decent. I clicked it. The page loaded with three banner ads above the fold. I found the upload button, selected my file, and watched the progress bar fill up.
Then I stopped.
I sat there staring at the screen thinking — I just uploaded a file I am going to use commercially to a website I know nothing about. I have no idea who runs it. I have no idea what they do with uploaded files. Their privacy policy is a wall of legal text I will never read. And my file is now sitting on some server somewhere.
For a logo, maybe that is fine. But what if it was a passport scan? A contract? A photo with location metadata embedded in it? A watermarked image from a client project?
I closed the tab and started thinking about it properly.
Every time I needed to crop, resize, compress or convert an image — I was handing my files to a stranger on the internet and hoping for the best.
The Problem Nobody Talks About
I started asking around — developers, designers, freelancers. Everyone had the same story. They used online image tools constantly. TinyPNG for compression. Convertio for format conversion. Some random cropping site they found on page one of Google.
And none of them had ever thought seriously about what happened to their files after upload.
The alternative was not great either. Install Photoshop — expensive, heavy, overkill for a quick crop. Install GIMP — powerful but the learning curve for basic tasks is real. Install a desktop converter app — and then deal with popups trying to install toolbars?
There was no middle ground. Either you uploaded your files to a third-party server and hoped for the best, or you installed heavyweight software for tasks that should take 30 seconds.
That was the gap. And I decided to fill it.
The Realisation: Browsers Are Powerful Enough
Modern browsers can do extraordinary things. The Canvas API, FileReader API, WebAssembly — these technologies mean that image processing that used to require server-side code or desktop applications can now happen entirely inside a browser tab.
No upload. No server. No waiting. No privacy risk. The file goes from your device into browser memory, gets processed, and the result downloads directly back to you. The image never leaves your machine.
That was the insight behind SolveBar.
I started building. One tool at a time. Every tool following the same rule: nothing gets uploaded, nothing gets stored, nothing gets logged. Your files are yours. Full stop.
Here is every image tool I built, what it does, and the real situation that made me build it.
The 11 Image Tools — and Why Each One Exists
Image Compressor
solvebar.com/tools/image-compressor
The scenario: You have a beautiful product photo — 4.2MB, sharp, professional. You need to upload it to your website. Your host has a 2MB limit. The usual solution? Upload it to TinyPNG.
TinyPNG is excellent — but you are literally sending your product images to a third-party server. For many businesses, those images are proprietary assets.
The SolveBar Image Compressor uses the browser's Canvas API to compress JPG, PNG and WebP files client-side. You adjust the quality slider. You see the before and after file size in real time. You download the compressed file. Nothing went anywhere.
Image Resizer
solvebar.com/tools/image-resizer
The scenario: A client sends you a 4000x3000px photo and asks you to resize it to exactly 1200x800 for their blog header. You do not have Photoshop. You do not want to install anything.
Online resizers work — but they require upload. And some watermark your output on the free tier, or force you to create an account to download at full quality.
The SolveBar Image Resizer takes your image, lets you set exact pixel dimensions or a percentage scale, locks aspect ratio to avoid distortion, and produces the resized file instantly. It works for JPG, PNG, WebP and GIF. The whole thing runs in your browser.
Image Cropper
solvebar.com/tools/image-cropper
The scenario: You take a great photo but the subject is slightly off-centre. You need a quick crop — maybe square for Instagram, maybe 16:9 for a YouTube thumbnail. You do not need a full editor. You just need a crop.
The SolveBar Image Cropper lets you drag a selection box over your uploaded image, choose from preset aspect ratios (square, 16:9, 4:3, freeform) or set a custom ratio, preview the result and download it. Thirty seconds. No upload. No account.
Image Format Converter
solvebar.com/tools/image-converter
The scenario: The SVG-to-PNG problem that started everything. But also — a client sends you a WebP file and your old CMS does not support WebP. Or you have a PNG and need JPG to reduce file size. Or you have a GIF you need as a static PNG.
The SolveBar Image Format Converter converts between JPG, PNG, WebP and GIF in your browser. You can batch convert multiple files at once. Output quality is controlled by a slider for lossy formats.
Image to Base64 Converter
solvebar.com/tools/image-to-base64
The scenario: You are building an email template and want to embed a small logo directly in the HTML so it shows even when images are blocked by the email client. You need the image as a Base64 data URI.
Or you are working with a REST API that expects image data as a Base64 string in a JSON payload. This tool converts any image to a Base64 encoded data URI instantly. Copy and paste directly into your HTML, CSS or JSON.
EXIF Metadata Viewer
solvebar.com/tools/exif-viewer
The scenario: You are about to post a photo on social media. That photo was taken on your phone. Your phone embeds GPS coordinates — your exact home address — into the EXIF metadata of every photo it takes. You do not know this.
EXIF metadata is invisible to the naked eye but readable by anyone who downloads your image. It can contain your camera model, exact date and time, lens settings, and precise GPS coordinates.
The irony of checking your EXIF data using an online tool that requires upload is not lost on me. The SolveBar EXIF Viewer reads all metadata entirely in your browser. The photo never leaves your device.
Color Picker from Image
solvebar.com/tools/color-picker-image
The scenario: A designer sends you a mockup image. You need to match the exact background colour in your CSS. You hover over the image — but you do not have Figma. You try to eyeball the hex code and you are off by enough to notice.
The SolveBar Color Picker lets you upload any image, click anywhere on it, and instantly get the HEX, RGB and HSL values of the exact pixel you clicked. It builds a palette of your picked colours automatically.
Image Filters & Effects
solvebar.com/tools/image-filters
The scenario: You need a quick edit on a photo — just a brightness boost and slight contrast increase before sending it to a client. Every major online photo editor requires an account. Most are subscription-based.
The SolveBar Image Filters tool gives you real-time sliders for brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, blur, sharpen, grayscale, sepia, invert and vignette. Adjust, preview, download. No account. No upload. No subscription.
Image Watermark
solvebar.com/tools/image-watermark
The scenario: You are a freelance photographer. You want to share preview images with a client but protect the full-resolution originals. You need a watermark.
The problem with watermarking tools that require upload: you are sending your original, unwatermarked, full-resolution image to a server. The SolveBar Image Watermark tool adds text or image watermarks directly in your browser. Your original never left your device.
SVG to PNG Converter
solvebar.com/tools/svg-to-png
The scenario: This one is personal — it is literally the problem that started everything. You have an SVG logo. You need a PNG. You do not want to upload it anywhere.
The SolveBar SVG to PNG converter lets you set any custom width and height, renders the SVG at that resolution using the browser's native rendering engine, and produces a crisp PNG. Complex SVGs with gradients and filters are fully supported.
Image Diff Checker
solvebar.com/tools/image-diff
The scenario: You are a developer doing UI testing. You have a screenshot from before a code change and after. You need to know what changed visually. Did the button move? Did the font shift? Did something change by 2 pixels?
The SolveBar Image Diff Checker takes two images, compares them pixel by pixel, highlights every difference in red, and gives you a percentage similarity score. All of it happens in your browser.
The Philosophy Behind All of It
Every tool on SolveBar follows the same principle: your data is yours. It does not pass through my servers. It does not get logged. It does not get stored.
This is not just a privacy feature. It is also faster. Processing that happens locally has zero network latency. No upload wait, no server queue, no download wait. You select a file, the tool runs, you get a result — usually in under a second.
And it works offline. Open SolveBar, load a tool, disconnect from the internet. The tools still work because there is nothing to connect to.
I built the tools I wished existed. Tools that respected my files the way I wanted my users' files respected.
Try Them — Free, Forever
All 11 image tools are completely free. No account. No email. No watermark on output. No file size limit behind a paywall.
SolveBar has 77 tools in total — developer utilities, crypto and blockchain tools, PDF tools, finance calculators and more. All built on the same privacy-first principle.
👉 solvebar.com — no signup required.
