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A user password, set with Protect PDF, is required to open the file at all. Permissions are flags stored inside the encryption that control what a reader can do after opening, such as printing, copying, editing, annotating, or filling forms, and they only take effect when an owner password is set. Change Permissions lets you allow or deny each action individually, while Protect PDF applies the strictest set as soon as you add an owner password.
Protect PDF and Change Permissions use 256-bit AES encryption, the PDF 2.0 standard, applied by QPDF running in your browser. The encryption itself isn't practical to brute-force, so the weak point is the password: use a long passphrase and send it through a different channel than the file. Permission flags are a separate matter, since they rely on the reader honoring them and some third-party tools ignore them.
No. Unlock PDF needs the password and then saves a copy with no encryption or restrictions left, and none of the tools crack or brute-force passwords. For a file that opens fine but blocks printing or copying, use Remove Restrictions instead, which asks for the owner password if the file has one.
Sign PDF places a drawn, typed, or uploaded signature image on the page, with an option to flatten it so nobody can move or delete it later. Digital Signature applies a cryptographic signature with your own X.509 certificate (.pfx, .p12, or .pem), which proves who signed and that the file hasn't changed since, and Validate Signature checks signatures already in a file. Certificate signing may need an internet connection to fetch the certificate chain, and self-signed certificates will show warnings in Adobe Reader.
Use the redaction tool in the PDF Editor, which permanently removes the marked content from the page instead of just covering it with a box. Redaction only deals with what's on the page, so if the file's properties, comments, or attachments could reveal the same information, run Remove Metadata or Sanitize PDF on the result as well.
Remove Metadata strips only the document properties: title, author, dates, producer, XMP data, document IDs, and application-specific data, and it leaves pages, forms, links, and bookmarks untouched. Sanitize PDF goes further and can also flatten forms and delete annotations, embedded JavaScript, attachments, layers, links, and structure tags, with each item selectable. Both are irreversible, so keep your original file.
Flatten PDF burns form fields and annotations (comments, highlights, stamps, sticky notes, signature fields) into the page content, so they look the same but can no longer be edited, moved, or removed. Use it after a form is filled in or a signature is placed and before you send the file, because there's no way to unflatten. Text stays selectable and searchable, and bookmarks are kept.
No. Encrypting, unlocking, sanitizing, and signing all run as WebAssembly in your browser, so the document, the password you type, and your certificate's private key stay on your device. The one network exception is Digital Signature, which may contact your certificate authority's servers to fetch the certificate chain; the document itself is still never sent.