Announcements – The Zamzar Blog

Announcing Zamzar’s GDPR compliance

by The Zamzar TeamMay 25, 2018

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is upon us! Hopefully this spells the last of companies you have never heard of desperately trying to get you to click a button in an email!

At Zamzar we aren’t interested in using your data as a marketing commodity, and we never have been. We wrote last month about the hard work we have been doing to extend the data protection measures we already take to add extra safeguards for your data.

Today we are pleased to announce that we have completed the steps necessary for full GDPR compliance.

What steps has Zamzar taken?

We have taken a number of measures to increase protection for your data – here’s a summary of the key points:

> Strengthened security for your data
We have taken a number of steps to further improve how we secure your data. At the start of the year we turned on secure HTTPS encryption for all users of the main Zamzar website, and more recently we have switched many of our internal services to encrypt your data when it is “at rest” (i.e. stored) within our infrastructure.

> Rigorously reviewed our 3rd party vendors
We use a number of third party services to convert your files and have taken the opportunity to review each of their data practices to ensure they provide contractual guarantees for keeping your data safe.

> Dropped personalised advertising in the EU
We have taken the decision to stop serving personalised advertising to anyone using Zamzar’s main website from the EU. Ads will still be served, but no personalised data will be shared with 3rd party advertisers.

> Updated Policies
We have updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policies to provide detailed information on how we access, process and handle your data, who we share it with it and what steps we take to secure it. We have also made our Cookie Policies clearer (see our Web and API versions).

> Made available a Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
We have put together a standard “Data Processing Agreement” (DPA) which you can sign if you use Zamzar’s services to process data for your own customers. Email us at dpa@zamzar.com if you’d like a copy of this agreement.

What does this mean for YOU?

The steps we have taken will ensure that when you use our services you will have even stronger guarantees that your data is protected. You can check to see what data we store, how long we store it for, who we share it with and crucially what your rights are in relation to it.

We have pro-actively applied most of these measures to all customers (not just EU citizens).

What do you need to do?

You don’t need to take any explicit actions to carry on using Zamzar, but should review our new Terms and Privacy policies so that you are aware of how we handle your data.

If you use our website (at https://www.zamzar.com)
You should review our new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy to make sure you are happy with the contents before using our services.

If you use our Developer API (at https://developers.zamzar.com)
Check out our updated Terms or Service and Privacy Policy to ensure you understand how we handle your data.

If you use Zamzar as a “Data Processor”
If you use our services to process your own customer data the GDPR requires you to sign a “Data Processing Agreement” with us. If you signed up for an account to use our services before 25th May we provide a standard Addendum that you can sign – just email us at dpa@zamzar.com to request a copy. If you signed up after that date check out our standard DPA agreements for the Web App and API.

Still have questions?

If you have any questions about Zamzar and GDPR do let us know by emailing us at info@zamzar.com and we’ll get back to you.

This is just the beginning …

Protecting your data is a journey and it doesn’t end with an arbitrary deadline. Tomorrow we’ll be back working hard to provide you with amazing file conversion services and taking steps to continue keeping your data safe and secure.

Happy converting!
The Zamzar Team.

Announcing HTTPS – secure file conversion for everyone

by The Zamzar TeamJanuary 19, 2018

A nefarious spy. Probably from the government. Likely trying to crack your files. We’re pleased to announce that we just launched support across the entire Zamzar website for HTTPS for all users.

Effective immediately this means that the entire site is now secured with the familiar green padlock:

All files uploaded to or downloaded from the website will automatically be protected from prying eyes, enabling you to be safe in the knowledge that your file conversions are being protected by industry standard secure encryption.

In June 2013 Edward Snowden first revealed the full extent of government spying on their citizens via the Internet and the extent to which Internet connections were actively mined for data. HTTPS helps to protect against this snooping and gives you assurances that your data cannot be seen or tampered with. It does this by scrambling the data sent between your computer and the secured website into indecipherable characters, so that it is not possible to snoop on it.

Here at Zamzar we have long been supporters of efforts by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to fight for privacy protection online, and we’re proud to continue supporting the efforts being made to make the web a more secure place to be.

Happy secure converting!
The Zamzar Team.

New on the API – import & export files

by The Zamzar TeamDecember 12, 2016

You can now use the Zamzar file conversion API to import files for conversion from Amazon S3, HTTP / HTTPS URLs and FTP / SFTP servers. You can also export converted files back out again too.

transfers-overview

This opens up some interesting possibilities:

Convert files that aren’t on your servers
Import files from one location and export elsewhere
Grab files from password-protected URLs / FTP servers
Use AWS credentials for access to Amazon S3

To test this out, first make sure you are signed up for a an API account, then check out our docs on:

For example, here’s one single cURL command which will grab the Twitter logo, convert it from PNG to JPG and upload the JPG file to a public Amazon S3 bucket:

curl https://api.zamzar.com/v1/jobs -u GiVUYsF4A8ssq93FR48H: \
-X POST \
-d "source_file=https://developers.zamzar.com/assets/app/img/social-twitter.png" \
-d "target_format=jpg" \
-d "export_url=s3://zamzar-public/"

We’d love to hear your feedback on these features – please let us know what you think! We’re also here to work with you on any issues you hit getting up and running, so do get in touch.

Happy Converting!
The Zamzar Team.

Use Zamzar to convert files from your Desktop !

by The Zamzar TeamJuly 18, 2016 Leave a comment

We’re excited to announce that we just launched three new applications which allow you to convert files right on your desktop !

Dropbox Converter – Convert files to various formats directly within your Dropbox account.
Hot Folders – Monitor folders on your desktop & automatically convert files to other formats.
Zamzar Bash – Convert files directly from the command line.

Using the Zamzar API

These apps all build on top of our powerful file conversion API which allows you to bake file conversion into your application using a tiny amount of code and a simple REST API. Our API supports the conversion of 100’s of formats and is cloud-based to scale with your needs, whether you’re converting 1 file or 100,000.

We have made the source code for all these applications publicly available, so you can grab it, and build your own apps and tools on top of it (for both commercial and personal use).

Thanks to Michael Walsh and Joe Anderson for their efforts in developing the code for the Dropbox Converter and Hot Folders respectively, building on their initial efforts at our York University Hack Day.

Happy (desktop) converting,
The Zamzar Team.

Convert MIDI and MID files to MP3, AAC, WAV and more

by The Zamzar TeamFebruary 24, 2015 1 Comment

Release your audio files ! Zamzar now has the ability to convert MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) files into a variety of of other audio formats, including MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC and more.

MIDI files are popular with musicians and recording engineers since they provide a standardized template for saving musical arrangements (or sequences) into a common file format which can be played back across a variety of different computing environments. The MIDI specification holds that the file itself doesn’t contain any actual music, rather it comprises a set of instructions which describe how the audio has been arranged, including the notation, pitch, and velocity as well as control signals for volume, vibrato and audio panning. Since MIDI files don’t contain the audio itself, the quality of its playback depends entirely on the quality of the device being used to playback the file (and the audio samples from that device). This means that audio quality can vary greatly depending on the system setup being used.

Sometimes MIDI files use the MID file extension – These files are exactly the same format as a MIDI file but use a three letter file extension, normally because they were created on a computer system limited to three character file extentsions (for example MS DOS).

Zamzar now offers the ability to convert these files into audio formats which will guarantee that the sound you hear will be replicated on a friend or colleagues computer.

You can use Zamzar to perform all of the following conversions online for both MIDI and MID files:

aac – Advanced Audio Coding File
ac3 – AC3 Audio File
flac – Free Lossless Audio Codec
m4a – Compressed video file
m4r – iPhone Ringtone File
mp3 – Compressed audio file
mp4 – MPEG-4 Video File
ogg – Ogg Vorbis Compressed Audio File
wav – Windows audio file
wma – Windows Media Audio

Go convert your MIDI files !

Happy converting,
The Zamzar Team.

Announcing the file conversion API

by The Zamzar TeamJanuary 26, 2015 Leave a comment

We’re delighted to officially announce our brand new file conversion API which allows you to integrate file conversions into your apps and projects using a simple REST-based API – check it out now at https://developers.zamzar.com.

1,100+ conversions !

The API is launching today with support for 1,100+ different conversions, so whether you need to convert documents such as WordPerfect or MS Publisher into PDFs, videos into animated GIFs or PSD’s into JPG’s we can help. Check out the full list of formats at https://developers.zamzar.com/formats – we support documents, images, videos, audio, eBooks, compressed & CAD files.

Simple to use

We have designed the API to be simple to use with comprehensive documentation, code samples and support direct from the development team so that you can get up and running quickly – perform complex file conversions in just a few lines of code.

Try it now ! Just copy and paste this code to get a list of all available API formats:

curl https://api.zamzar.com/v1/formats -u GiVUYsF4A8ssq93FR48H:

Production ready

Our services are cloud-based so we can meet your conversion demands, whether you are converting 1 file or 10,000.

The API can scale with your needs, so if your app or website needs a huge burst of file conversions we can handle it, seamlessly.

Free to test

Get up and running in minutes by signing up for a free API account (no payment needed), and start converting files immediately.

You can use your test account to convert files for free whilst you are evaluating the API.

Happy Developing !
The Zamzar Team.

Convert AIFF / AIF files to MP3, WAV, AAC and more – online and free

by The Zamzar TeamOctober 13, 2014 Leave a comment

The Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an Apple Mac OSX audio file format, usually denoted by files using either the AIFF or AIF file extension. You can now use Zamzar to convert AIFF or AIF files into a variety of other audio formats using our online conversion tool.

AIFF files tend to be much larger in size than compressed audio files such as MP3, because it is an uncompressed and lossless audio format. This can be useful for preserving audio quality and allowing more rapid streaming of audio files from disk to applications, but filesizes can grow to be large, very quickly. The format tends to appear most often on Mac OSX systems.

If you need to convert an AIFF or AIF file Zamzar now supports conversion to all of the following formats:

aac – Advanced Audio Coding File
ac3 – AC3 Audio File
flac – Free Lossless Audio Codec
m4a – Compressed video file
m4r – iPhone Ringtone File
mp3 – Compressed audio file
mp4 – MPEG-4 Video File
ogg – Ogg Vorbis Compressed Audio File
wav – Windows audio file
wma – Windows Media Audio

AIFF – A potted history

commodore-amiga-a500 The AIFF format has a long (and somewhat glorious) history.

Originally developed by Apple Computers in 1988 for the Mac OSX operating system, it was based on the Interchange File Format (IFF) developed by Electronic Arts, which was designed to ease the transfer of data between software produced by different companies. IFF files were widely used on Commodore Amiga systems, most notably for various graphic formats.

According to the official AIFF specification document the new AIFF format was “… the result of several meetings held with music developers over a period of ten months in 1987-88” – back in the days of an unusually collaborative Apple Computing 🙂

Happy converting,
The Zamzar Team.

[Amiga image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/quagmirez31/4046472613]