Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, absolutely! All tools on Curious Utilities are completely free with no hidden costs, no premium tiers, and no feature limitations. We believe essential developer tools should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their budget.

We sustain the site through minimal, non-intrusive advertising. We'll never lock features behind a paywall or require you to create an account to access full functionality.

No account is required. Just open any tool and start using it immediately. We don't ask for your email, name, or any personal information. There are no signup forms, no login screens, and no restrictions.

Curious Utilities was built by a small team of developers who were frustrated with existing online tools that were slow, cluttered with ads, or sent data to external servers. We built the tools we wished existed and decided to share them with the developer community.

Learn more about our story on the About page.

Yes, your data is completely safe. All our tools process data entirely within your browser using client-side JavaScript. This means:

• Your data never leaves your device
• Nothing is sent to our servers
• We can't see what you paste or enter
• There are no server logs of your data

This is fundamentally different from tools that process data on remote servers. With Curious Utilities, your sensitive information—API keys, JWT tokens, configuration files—stays exactly where it should: on your device.

Client-side processing means all the work happens in your web browser, on your device, rather than on a remote server. When you paste JSON to format or a JWT to decode, the processing is done by JavaScript running locally in your browser.

The alternative—server-side processing—would send your data to our servers for processing and return the results. This creates privacy risks because your data passes through and may be logged on external systems.

With client-side processing, your data never leaves your computer, tablet, or phone.

We use minimal cookies only for essential functionality (like remembering your theme preference). We use Google AdSense for advertising, which may use cookies for ad personalization. You can opt out of personalized ads in your Google account settings.

We do not use analytics that track your individual behavior or the data you process in our tools. Read our full Privacy Policy for details.

Our tools work on all modern browsers including:

• Google Chrome (latest versions)
• Mozilla Firefox (latest versions)
• Apple Safari (latest versions)
• Microsoft Edge (latest versions)

The tools are also fully responsive and work on mobile devices (iOS and Android) and tablets. We recommend keeping your browser updated for the best experience.

Most of our tools work offline after the initial page load. Since all processing is done client-side with JavaScript, once the page is loaded, you can continue using the tool even if you lose your internet connection.

Simply load the tool once while connected, and it will continue to work offline. This is particularly useful when working in environments with unreliable connectivity.

Since processing happens in your browser, the practical limit depends on your device's available memory. Most modern browsers can handle files up to several megabytes without issues.

For very large files (10MB+), you may experience slower performance. If you're working with extremely large datasets, command-line tools on your local machine may be more efficient.

Formatting (or "beautifying") adds proper indentation, line breaks, and spacing to make JSON human-readable. This is useful for debugging, code reviews, and understanding data structure.

Minifying removes all unnecessary whitespace, making the JSON as compact as possible. This reduces file size for faster network transmission and is commonly used in production environments.

Both operations preserve the data exactly—they only change the formatting.

Yes, it's completely safe. Our JWT Decoder only decodes the token—it doesn't validate signatures or verify tokens with any external service. The decoding happens entirely in your browser.

However, remember that decoding reveals the claims inside the token. Never share decoded JWT contents that contain sensitive information, and never paste tokens into tools that send data to remote servers.

Our Unix Timestamp Converter supports:

• Unix timestamps in seconds (10-digit)
• Unix timestamps in milliseconds (13-digit)
• Various human-readable date formats
• ISO 8601 format

The tool auto-detects whether your input is in seconds or milliseconds based on the number of digits.

Our Cloud Cost Calculator provides estimates based on publicly available pricing from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. However, actual costs may vary due to:

• Reserved instance discounts
• Committed use discounts
• Regional pricing differences
• Data transfer costs
• Additional service fees

Use our estimates for planning and comparison purposes, but always verify with official pricing calculators before making purchasing decisions.

If you encounter a bug, please email us at contact@curiousutilities.com with:

• Which tool you were using
• What you expected to happen
• What actually happened
• Your browser and device (e.g., "Chrome on Windows 11")
• A sample of the input that caused the issue (if it doesn't contain sensitive data)

We investigate every bug report and appreciate your help in making our tools better!

We'd love to hear your ideas! Send your suggestions to contact@curiousutilities.com. We review every request and prioritize tools that solve real problems for the developer community.

Many of our best features have come from user suggestions, so don't hesitate to share your ideas.