Why it works this way
Most tools for stripping metadata or blurring faces ask you to upload the photo to a server. That is a strange bargain: to stop a stranger learning where you live, you first send the file to a stranger.
Everything here runs in the page. Your browser opens the file, edits it in memory, and saves it back to your disk. There is no image server, no upload endpoint, and no code path that sends a picture anywhere. Disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it still works — which is the simplest proof of the claim.
How it works
Cropping, black and white, and pixelation are arithmetic on pixel values held in your device's memory. Face detection uses a small neural network, about 230 KB, that ships with the page and runs on your processor.
The file you download is encoded from those pixels alone, by code that never sees the original file's metadata block. That is why nothing survives: carrying it across is not switched off, it is impossible.
What it will not tell you it can do
Face detection misses faces turned away, distant, or in shadow. It reports how many it found rather than implying it found them all.
A covered face is not anonymity on its own — clothing, tattoos, room interiors and paperwork identify people too. Metadata removal is the one part that is total, because the exported file is built from scratch.
What it costs
Every feature is free and will stay that way. Paying $29 once removes the small imagesterilizer.com mark from the corner of your downloads; a $59/month business plan adds team use, a commercial licence and API access.
There is no tracking, no analytics and no advertising. An account exists only if you buy something, and it holds your email address and which plan it bought — never a photo or anything read out of one.
Questions
- Who is behind it?
- It is built and run by a small independent developer, not a company with an interest in your photos.
- How can I verify the privacy claim?
- Open your browser's network tab and watch the requests while you edit a photo — your image never appears. Or set the tab to offline and keep working.
- Is there an API?
- Yes, for automating the same operations server-side. One request a minute is free. It is a separate service that does receive the image, processes it in memory and retains nothing.