smallpdf.com

Readiness by lane

Green: smallpdf.com. Thin bar: Web Tools peer median.

Priority fixes for smallpdf.com

Ordered by impact and by how common each practice is among peers.

1. Priority 1 · Harden

   HSTS kept for at least a year

   Observed: Strict-Transport-Security was sent with a max-age of 180 days, below the one-year benchmark.

   Why it matters: HSTS tells browsers to use HTTPS for your host on every later visit, which removes the window where a first HTTP request can be intercepted.

   What to do: Send Strict-Transport-Security on HTTPS responses. Start with a short max-age (for example 300 seconds), confirm every subdomain works over HTTPS, then raise it in steps to 31536000. Add includeSubDomains only when all subdomains are HTTPS. HSTS preload is optional and hard to undo; hstspreload.org itself does not recommend it by default.

   On Amazon CloudFront: Attach a response headers policy with Strict-Transport-Security to each distribution.

   30% of Web Tools peers do this. Limit: Read from the homepage response only; other pages or regions may send different headers.

   Guide: HTTPS and TLS Guide for Website Owners

2. Priority 2 · Accelerate

   Modern image formats in use

   Observed: The homepage had 17 images and none used WebP or AVIF.

   What to do: Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG or PNG fallback, either through an image CDN or by generating both formats at build time.

   37% of Web Tools peers do this.

   Guide: AVIF, WebP, JPEG, and PNG: Choose the Right Image Format

3. Priority 3 · Harden

   Certificate lifetime of 100 days or less

   Observed: The certificate from Amazon had a 197-day validity period, longer than the 100-day maximum that applies from March 2027.

   What to do: Move to automated issuance and renewal now, while you still have time to test it.

   87% of Web Tools peers do this.

   Guide: HTTPS and TLS Guide for Website Owners

4. Priority 4 · Harden

   X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff

   Observed: The homepage response did not include X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff.

   What to do: Send X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff on all responses and make sure each file is served with the correct Content-Type.

   On Amazon CloudFront: Enable it in a response headers policy (security headers section).

   44% of Web Tools peers do this.

   Guide: A Practical Website Health Check for Owners

What smallpdf.com already does well

Practices fewer than half of Web Tools peers use.

• security.txt publishedsecurity.txt with a contact found.4.8% of peers
• CAA records limit who can issue certificatesCAA limits issuance to amazon.com, amazonaws.com, amazontrust.com and others.14% of peers
• DMARC policy enforces quarantine or rejectDMARC policy p=quarantine.23% of peers

What we saw

Homepage checked

https://smallpdf.com/

Homepage response

HTTP 200

TLS

TLSv1.3, HTTP/2

Certificate

Amazon, 197-day validity, expiring 2027-01-12

CDN or edge

Amazon CloudFront

DNS operators

Amazon Route 53

HSTS

max-age 180 days

DMARC policy

p=quarantine

Homepage HTML

381 KB, br

Images on homepage

17 (svg 11, png 11)

Limits: homepage only, one location, one moment. Header checks reflect the homepage response; other pages may differ.

Stack and providers

Seen in the homepage response, certificate and DNS. Provider pages compare how their customers configure the same checks.

All 31 checks

Select a gap for the method and fix. How each check works

Compare with other Web Tools sites

• minhaconexao.com.br77
• pdfsimpli.com77
• sejda.com77
• snaptube.com77
• tiktokio.com77

Web Tools readiness benchmark