Compression doesn’t require a server; it can run entirely in your browser.
... why should it even require a browser?
It is a perfect honeypot. Do local compression for the majority, but if the IP comes from a government IP block, serve a different page and upload...
Just in case somebody's trying to compress the unredacted Epstein files. Gotcha.
Probably for people who can't / don't want to install something on their computer. It's easier to say "bookmark this page instead of that page" than to get people to install a local app.
Also this way you can use the same tool across desktop and mobile
Or save yourself $15 and just make a function to something that you probably already have on your Linux system:
shrink_pdf ()
{
if [[ $# -ne 2 ]]; then
echo 'Usage: shrink_pdf <input file> <output_file>' 1>&2;
echo ' make sure to enclose file name in quotes' 1>&2;
echo ' if it has spaces' 1>&2;
return;
fi;
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile="$2" "$1"
}
Change options as you want, and run it like:
shrink_pdf Original.pdf Compressed.pdf
I work in Infosec and blocking these sites is an unending game of whackamole.