Base64 is one of the encoding methods used to convert data into a string format. It is primarily employed to transmit or store binary data as text data. Base64 encoding is commonly utilized in email systems to encode binary files such as images or videos into text format for transmission.
Base64 was developed as part of the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) standard. It was designed to allow binary data to be transmitted as ASCII characters in email systems, ensuring safe transmission of binary data in text-based transmission systems.
The Base64 algorithm converts 3 bytes of binary data into 4 ASCII characters iteratively. The resulting characters are mapped to one of the characters in the Base64 character set.
It allows binary data to be transmitted in text-based transmission systems.
It can be safely used in URL, email, and other text-based protocols..
Base64 implementation is straightforward and supported in most programming languages.
The size of the resulting text is approximately 33% larger than the original binary data, leading to increased data size.
Additional processing for encoding and decoding may lead to slight performance overhead.
Base64 encoding and decoding processes require additional computation, resulting in some performance overhead. However, in most cases, the performance impact is negligible. Despite the increase in data size, it is commonly used for safe transmission in text-based systems.