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These 2 free compression tools protect your privacy
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Fast Company TechnologyEN
October 23, 2026

These 2 free compression tools protect your privacy

Sometimes you just need to make a file smaller, quality be darned. Maybe it’s your kid’s school play performance that probably doesn’t need to be preserved in pristine 4K resolution. Or perhaps it’s a PDF that won’t fit within your email provider’s attachment size limits. Whatever the case, it’s worth bookmarking a couple of free tools that can squish your files down without uploading them to some untrustworthy server somewhere or making any other needless compromises. This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures! Quick and easy file compression For a simple way to make your files smaller, check out ​vidshift.io​ (for videos) and ​nanofile.io​ (for everything else). ➜ Vidshift and Nanofile are free online tools for compressing files, both from the same developer. ⌚ It takes just a minute to start uploading and compressing, though the actual compression times depend on the size of your files. Both tools are free with no sign-ups or ads, and the compression all happens entirely offline. 1️⃣ Let’s start by looking at ​Nanofile​, which works for images, audio files, and documents. Open up the site, then either use the “Browse your device” link or drag a file directly onto the page. Nanofile will automatically recognize your file type and offer some options to make it smaller. Nanofile works for images, audio files, and documents. With MP3s, for instance, Nanofile can lower the bit rate, mix down from stereo to mono, and strip out cover art. For PDFs, you’ll see a quality slider and a way to compress any included images. There’s also a handy comparison for audio files and images, so you can look for any discernible differences. When you’re done, just click the Download button to grab your compressed file. 2️⃣ As for ​Vidshift​, while it’s billed primarily as a way to convert between video file types, it also has a compression tool to make your videos smaller​. ☝️ Make sure to visit ​Vidshift’s Compressor page​, not the main page—which is for converting between video formats. The latter tool can wind up making your videos larger. After choosing a video, select a target size from one of the presets or use the “Custom” button to choose how small the video should be. (You can see the current size of the video in megabytes underneath the file name at the top.) Vidshift is incredibly effective at compressing videos, specifically. The smaller you go, the more you’ll notice blocky compression artifacts in your videos. Using the resolution settings can make your video smaller with less obvious blockiness, though the video won’t look as crisp, especially when viewed on larger screens. As long as you’re making adjustments, Vidshift has some other useful video editing tools worth noting, including a trimmer​, cropper​, and ​GIF converter. Note that while both Vidshift and Nanofile require an internet connection to load, the actual file processing happens entirely on your own local device. I confirmed this by adding and modifying files in both tools while my computer was disconnected from the internet. 🎁 One more bonus tip: The same developer also makes a tool for converting text between uppercase and lowercase​, for instance if you type out a rant in ALL CAPS and then decide to tone it down a little. Just don’t expect the quieter prose to make your documents any smaller. Vidshift​ and ​Nanofile​ are both available in any browser, but they work best on desktop devices. Both sites are free to use, with no registration and no usage limits. The sites use Google Analytics to collect aggregate data on things like how visitors arrived at the site and the compression options people choose, but the developer says they have no access to your content and do not share any data for marketing purposes. Treat yourself to all sorts of brain-boosting goodies like this with the free Cool Tools newsletter—starting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app that’ll tune up your days in truly delightful ways.

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Curated from Fast Company Technology. Classified as Business & Technology by AI, which sometimes makes mistakes.

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Fast Company10/23/2026

This new tool layers Wikipedia articles onto a map to make your half-hour walk more interesting

How much do you really know about the world right outside your door? A trending tool has the answers, highlighting all there is to see, do, and discover within a 30-minute walk of your location. On Local Wiki, users can input their location—either directly or through a postal code, town, area, or nearby landmark—and see a color-coded map of every Wikipedia article geotagged within 30 minutes on foot. The so-called “encyclopedia for round here” includes everything from local parks to cultural hot spots and even historical events. If it has a Wikipedia entry, it will show up on the map, and thousands of social media users are already singing the site’s praises. The man behind Local Wiki Local Wiki was created by Scottish designer and writer Neil Scott, whose post sharing the project on X has garnered more than 1.4 million views in just over a day. Forget 15 minute cities, here is everything that is on Wikipedia located within a 30 minute walk of where you are:https://t.co/oRsYGmwehL— Neil Scott (@MrNeilScott) October 22, 2026 Scott tells Fast Company that his version of Local Wiki builds on a concept by his friend Ed Jefferson, who created a more traditional wiki restricted to the Wikipedia articles geotagged within 1.5 miles of a given location. “I’m a visual person, so I wanted to see where all those places sat on a map,” Scott says over email. As a self-described psychogeographer (someone who studies the connection between environments and human behavior) and flâneur (someone who walks through urban settings observing the hustle and bustle around them), Scott takes special interest in the stories of the places around him. He hopes Local Wiki might inspire others to do the same with their own neighborhoods. “The internet shouldn’t be an end in itself; it should help us explore the real world. I love the idea that this might get people outside,” he says. But for those who’d rather stay indoors, he also hopes it inspires more people to contribute to Wikipedia. Given that Local Wiki is entirely based on Wikipedia’s geotagged data, Scott says “the credit really belongs to the editors who wrote those articles.” Scott’s post about Local Wiki is his most successful to date. While most commenters lauded the tool and shared the hidden gems they discovered in their neighborhoods, others complained that there’s little to see on the Local Wiki if you don’t live in a big city. “It became a source of both pride and shame, with people telling the world how much or how little Wikipedia coverage their area has,” Scott says. “I think people also shared it because it’s so simple: a reminder of what the web is like when it isn’t trying to sell you something.”