I've been working on this for the last few months and just wanted to share. It's a free browser-based tool for inspecting and removing metadata from photos, videos, audio, PDFs and Office documents — and it has a small image-forensics lab built in.
Live: https://midgardmud.de/tools/exif/
Why I built it: every other "EXIF remover" online asks you to upload your private files to a server. That's the opposite of privacy. So I wrote one that runs 100% in the browser via the File API — your file never leaves your device. F12 → Network tab → drop a 50 MB photo → you'll see zero outbound requests.
What it does:
• Strips metadata from JPG/PNG/WebP/GIF/HEIC/TIFF, MP4/MOV/MKV/WebM/AVI, MP3/FLAC/OGG/WAV, PDF, DOCX/XLSX/PPTX
• Privacy Risk Score 0–100 with per-file breakdown so you see what's actually leaking
• 4 one-click privacy profiles (Anonymous / Social-safe / Keep camera / GPS-only)
• Forensics: ELA, JPEG-Ghost re-save heatmap, DQT compression fingerprint, Noise + CFA/Bayer pattern (defensible alternative to AI-image detectors), Copy-Move clone detection, embedded-thumbnail audit, RGB histogram, hex viewer, structure inspector
• SHA-256 + perceptual hash (pHash) per file
• ExifTool-compatible JSON export
• Per-tag EXIF editor + GPS spoofing for JPEG
• C2PA self-signed Content Credentials
• Works fully offline as a PWA after first visit
• 19 languages
Stack: vanilla JS, no framework, no build step, ~12k lines. libheif WASM lazy-loaded for HEIC. Web Worker for big videos so the UI stays responsive.
Happy to answer anything about how the parsers work, why I avoided React, or how the JPEG-Ghost / Copy-Move detection is implemented. Feedback very welcome.