I'm launching a free in-browser file converter this Sunday. What conversion always breaks for you?
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On Sunday (Aug 30) Softorino Online Converter goes live here on Product Hunt. It's a free converter for video, audio and GIFs that runs entirely in your browser, so files never leave your device. No sign-up, no ads, no watermarks. You can already try it at https://convert.softorino.com and before launch day I want to catch the annoying cases: what's the one conversion that always turns into a fight or sends you to a sketchy website? I'll make sure the worst offenders work on day one, and I'll be around answering everything.
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@yelyzaveta_kibets I like the focus on keeping things simple no ads, watermarks, or account needed. That’s refreshing. 🙌
@david_turner12 Simple was the whole brief, every converter I tested made me close 3 popups before I could even drop a file. Thanks David, and if a conversion you care about ever breaks in it, I want to hear about it first.
@yelyzaveta_kibets That definitely makes sense Popups are probably one of the biggest reasons I leave these converter sites. I’ll definitely keep that in mind and let you know if I come across any conversion that gives me trouble.
@david_turner12 Please do, a real broken file beats any feature request. I'd rather hear about the ugly one that failed at 90 percent than the ones that worked)
Different corner of the format world, so take this as a shape, not a format list: I also run free in-browser converters, however only for text and flashcard decks, no media.
The thing I'd warn you about is that the answers to your question and the bug reports you get on Monday are two different sets. People answer with formats. What actually breaks is one weird input inside a format that already "works". My worst one took weeks to find: a double quote at the start of a field puts the parser into quoted mode, and if it never closes, one stray character silently swallows every row after it. The file converts, no error, output is a third of the input. Nobody reports that as a conversion failure, they report it as "it lost my data".
So the launch-day question I'd ask my own tool is not which formats work, it's what it does when the input is wrong. Silent partial output is the one that costs you trust, a clear refusal doesn't.
For an in-browser one, the equivalent I don't have to deal with is size. A phone tab has a ceiling a desktop tab doesn't, and "runs entirely in your browser" is exactly the promise that makes a 4GB file someone's first test. What does convert.softorino.com do when the file doesn't fit?
@siarheihamanovich Silent partial output getting reported as it lost my data instead of a conversion failure is such a sharp observation, the user is right both times and the bug report is still useless haha. You've changed my launch-week test plan: less which formats work, more feeding it broken files on purpose to see if it fails loudly. Thank you for taking the time, fellow no-upload person.
@yelyzaveta_kibets Thanks, and good luck on Sunday.
I could not find a size limit stated anywhere on the convert.softorino.com landing page. For a tool that decodes inside the tab that number exists whether or not it is written down, and the person who finds it will find it with a file they care about.
What makes it a launch-day problem rather than a someday problem: MKV to MP4 sits first in your list and is probably your most clicked page, and MKV is exactly where the multi-gigabyte files live.
The good part is you already own the honest failure path. "Too large for a browser tab, WALTR does this offline" is a real answer and it is already on that page. A tab that just dies is not.
For what it is worth I get to ignore this one entirely. My inputs are text, a big one is 60k characters, and the browser never blinks. Your failure mode is the one I never have to design for.
@siarheihamanovich You just found my launch-week homework, the size ceiling exists whether I write it down or not, and MKV is exactly where the huge files live. Stating the honest limit on the page beats a dying tab every time, that goes on the fix list before Sunday. Thank you for taking the time twice, this is the most useful reply of my week.
The fact that everything runs in the browser is really useful, especially for quick conversions. 🔒
@oliver_graf1 Quick one-off conversions are exactly why I skipped the upload-to-server model, the wait usually takes longer than the conversion itself. Curious what you convert most often, video or audio?
@yelyzaveta_kibets I mostly convert videos, especially when I need to quickly change the format or reduce the file size. Being able to do that directly in the browser without uploading the file sounds really convenient.
@oliver_graf1 Video was my guess, and format switching is the core case I built for. One honest caveat on size: it converts rather than compresses, so a smaller file is a side effect of the codec change and not a dial you control yet. The compression ask keeps coming up though, so I am writing it down.
Interesting choice of the date. Why did you choose Sunday tho? :)
@busmark_w_nika Honestly? Sunday boards are quieter, and a small free tool gets a real shot at the top spots when it's not sharing the day with 5 VC launches. Fewer eyeballs overall but weekend browsers are the die-hards, and a decent Sunday finish carries into the Monday newsletter. Let's see if the theory survives contact with reality haha :)