The honest page.

Tooly McToolface is a workshop of free web tools. There's one person behind it. This page exists to answer the three questions that keep coming up when people first find the site.

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Why is it free?

Because hosting a static site costs about $5/month. Because I built the tools for myself first. Because the internet used to have a lot more small, useful things, and fewer enterprise SaaS pitches, and I miss that internet.

More practically: the Tooly tools run entirely in your browser. There's no server processing your files. There's no database storing your history. Every byte of computation happens on your device, paid for by your electricity. My monthly cost to keep this site alive is the price of one coffee.

Here's the actual budget:

So how will it stay free?

Short answer: small, tasteful ads, eventually.

Longer answer: when traffic justifies it (probably around 100,000 visits/month), I plan to run ads from EthicalAds or Carbon Ads — two networks that serve text-based, developer-focused ads without tracking. No retargeting pixels. No profiles built on you. No "you looked at compression tools once and now every site shows you AI marketing" experience.

If the honest ad route doesn't cover costs, the honest alternative is: put a "Support" link in the footer and accept one-time donations. No subscription products. No "Tooly Pro."

Who built this?

One person, in their spare time, over a few weekends.

I'm not a design agency. I'm not a VC-backed startup. I'm not trying to flip this for a quick exit. I just got tired of free tools that aren't actually free, and I had the time to build the thing I wished existed.

If you want to say hi, disagree with me, suggest a tool, or report a bug, email toolymctoolface@gmail.com. Every email gets read.

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The principles, formalized

These are the rules I'm committing to. If any of them ever get violated, file a GitHub issue (or email me) and I'll take it seriously.

1. Nothing leaves your browser. Files, JSON, HEIC photos — processed locally using JavaScript + Canvas + WebAssembly. No uploads to any server, ever.
2. No required accounts. No "sign up to unlock." No email capture before the tool works.
3. No tracking. No Google Analytics. No Facebook pixel. No user profiling. Netlify's built-in server logs count IPs and paths for operational purposes; they don't build user profiles. If ads ever appear on the site, they'll be via EthicalAds — text-based, no cookies, no behavioral targeting, no user data shared. You'll see them announced here before they go live.
4. No dark patterns. No manipulative design. If a button looks like a button, it does what you'd expect.
5. No crippled free tier. The tools on this site are the whole tools. There's no "Pro" version hiding the good features.
6. Some tools are open source. Format Flipper is on GitHub under an MIT license, with documented architecture and passing tests. More tools will be extracted over time. If this site ever disappears, you can clone the repo and keep using the tool forever.

Keyboard shortcuts.

Tooly has a command palette for jumping between tools from the keyboard, which is handy if you find yourself flipping between JSON Fixer, Regex Rambler, and Diff Checker a lot.

• ⌘K / Ctrl+K — open the command palette from anywhere
• ↑ ↓ — navigate the results
• ↵ — open the highlighted item
• Esc — close the palette

Inside each tool, standard things work as you'd expect: ⌘V pastes into any input — and on most tools there's now a dedicated Paste button for mobile browsers that gate clipboard access. Esc closes any open overlay, and Tab cycles through focusable controls in the usual reading order.

What if you change your mind later?

Fair question. Anyone can say "no tracking" today and quietly add it next year when the pressure to monetize hits.

The best accountability I can offer is this: Tooly is fully static. It's just HTML and JavaScript files on a CDN. If I ever add tracking, enterprising users will see it in the network tab within minutes, and it would break the one thing this site is actually about. That would destroy the project faster than anything else.

The stronger guarantee is the open-source one. Format Flipper is already on GitHub with an MIT license. If this site disappears, shuts down, or changes direction, you can clone the repo and keep using the tool — forever, offline, with no dependency on me. Over time, more tools will move to the same arrangement.

The only sustainable path is: stay honest, stay small, and let the site be worth what it promises to be.