Why GPS stripping has to happen on this device
Updated 28 August 2026
The privacy job is deleting coordinates. Handing those coordinates to a stranger’s server so they can delete them is a contradiction. Strip exists so you do not have to do that.
What a cloud stripper actually receives
A typical “remove EXIF online” form is a multipart upload. The JPEG on the wire includes APP1. APP1 includes the GPS IFD. The operator of that form, their CDN, their virus scanner, and anyone with log access can read the same tags you were trying to hide — before their code deletes them on a copy they send back. You cannot audit their retention. You cannot see whether they write GPS to a side table “for abuse detection.”
Strip never takes that path. Inspect uses a parser in JavaScript. Fast mode rewrites JPEG segments in an ArrayBuffer. Deep mode uses Canvas in this process. ZIP uses JSZip in this process. The Network panel during a strip should not show image POST/PUT to strip-local. If you see one, something is wrong; stop and tell us from the contact page without attaching the photo.
Offline after load is a feature, not a slogan
Once HTML, JS, and fonts are cached, airplane mode still lets you inspect and download. That is the test we care about. A site that “processes in the browser” but still posts a thumbnail for “preview generation” fails the test. Ads, when approved, load from Google’s ad paths and are unrelated to your JPEGs; they are not an image-processing backend.
What local cannot promise
On-device code can only see bytes the browser can read. HEIC often needs a convert step. Some MakerNotes are undocumented. A Canvas export is not a bit-perfect clone of a JPEG. We document Fast vs Deep so you can choose identical pixels (Fast) versus a cleaner container (Deep). Local also means we do not store a history of your files — there is no cloud trash can to empty, because there is no cloud copy.
How this sits next to other local tools
Ultimatum ships other in-browser utilities (compress, convert, HEIC, PDF). Each one has a different file job. Strip’s job is GPS and camera tags. Using a compressor first can drop some tags as a side effect and still leave others; do not use size reduction as a substitute for an inspectable GPS-empty file. Sequence when you need both: Strip (verify), then compress or convert the cleaned output.
Read the how-to for the click path, or privacy for what hosting logs may still contain (IP and URLs, not image bytes).