Open-source utils for devs who don't like ads | Hacker News Reader

Open-source utils for devs who don't like ads

github.com

19 pointsthedg20 comments

On this note I really recommend cyberchef[1]: a large collection of open-source web based utils and converters that can be chained together. Oh and it's maintained by the GCHQ, the agency that cracked the german enigma codes.

[1] https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/

Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki, and Henryk Zygalski, mathematicians of the Polish intelligence service, were first in breaking the Enigma cipher.

Also first in building bomba an electrically powered aggregate of six Enigmas, which solved the daily keys within about two hours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Rejewski

> GCHQ, the agency that cracked the german enigma codes. And helped to spy on US citizens...

Isn't CyberChef[0] also local and without ads, and also open source?

[0] https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/

Just be careful if you ever need to search for the URL again in the future. Last week a colleague of mine did and the first result on DDG linked to a very sketchy, ad-filled cyberchef instance. It seems like it already got removed again though.

There's a lot of CyberChef hosted domains that aren't hosted by GCHQ. It's open source, so they're doing nothing wrong, but we can't provide assurances about the code on those sites. The official URL is https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef.

Host it yourself then you don't have to worry. I run it in a local Kube cluster and have a bookmark for it.

Awesome tool, thx for the recommendation. Also no npm and fancy build steps involved, just throwing it in the corner of a webserver :) Love it!

You don't even have to host it yourself. It runs in browser.

You can also download it and run it as a file I think.

My only complaint is that with my limited knowledge of JavaScript, the docs lack the info I need to contribute my own tools.

For example, I find myself needing a substring tool but there isn't one :(

The README isn't clear, what exactly is "data conversion utils" and what is the usage?

https://jam.dev/utilities/ gives more useful info than the git repo.

Such good feedback, on it! Thank you!!

Came to say exactly the same thing. What functionalities does this library contain?

Exactly! What does this thing do?

Outlining exactly what the tool does in the README would help a lot. I was having trouble finding that info.

Great feedback! Thank you! On it :)

love this, i always use sketchy websites for simple utils like counting number of words, validating JSON etc.

though this is nothing that can't be done on the CLI (wc, jq, grep etc) - it's obviously easier through a web interface if it's only used sparingly.

> it's obviously easier through a web interface

Why? Typing "wc file" seems infinitely easier than navigating through some web interface. Care to explain?

if I am not doing dev work, and mostly working around web applications in the day (e.g. notion, linear, etc) - i don't want to go to open the terminal and switch focus to a different application

Truly no ads

https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com