1. What Is Encoding?
Encoding transforms data into a different format (such as Base64, Hexadecimal, ASCII, or URL Encoding) so that it can be safely transferred across communication channels or consumed by different systems. Encoding is 100% reversible and uses publicly known translation tables with no security or secret keys.
2. Why Base64 Is Not a Hash or Cipher
A Base64 string can be immediately decoded by anyone using standard decoding functions (`atob()` in browser JavaScript or `base64 -d` in bash). A cryptographic hash permanently destroys the original byte sequence.
3. Why Hashes Are Often Hex or Base64 Encoded
A cryptographic hash output is natively raw binary bytes (e.g. 32 raw bytes for SHA-256). To display or transmit this binary output in text files, HTML, or JSON, it is encoded into Hexadecimal (64 printable characters) or Base64 (44 printable characters).