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Encoding

3 ZeroUtil articles cover encoding, published between April 2026 and May 2026. Each one is written to explain the mechanism rather than list steps, and links to the free browser tools that do the job.

These articles sit alongside the security & privacy , qr & barcode and developer tools toolsets.

Article title card. Two pairs of boxes, the upper joined by a single amber arrow and the lower by arrows in both directions, with the line: one of these has no way back
Security & Privacy

Hashing vs Encryption vs Encoding: The Three Things People Keep Confusing

Three transformations that all produce gibberish and solve different problems, with the measured cost of picking the wrong one for passwords.

A hand holding a phone whose camera is framing a QR code, with a printed restaurant menu on the table behind it
QR & Barcode

How QR Codes Actually Work: A Practical Guide

What the squares mean, what error correction costs in millimetres, why upper case makes a smaller code, and the reasons a printed QR fails to scan.

Article title card. Three grey squares and an arrow leading to four narrower amber bars, with the line: 3 bytes become 4 characters
Developer Tools

Base64 Explained: What It Is, Why It Exists, and When Not to Use It

What Base64 does to your bytes, the three variants that produce most decode failures, and the places it still earns its keep.

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