diff --git a/src/bootstrap/main.php b/src/bootstrap/main.php
index 531459c..1a96c66 100644
--- a/src/bootstrap/main.php
+++ b/src/bootstrap/main.php
@@ -268,15 +268,6 @@ final class di {
 // Initialize our Dependency Injector
 registry::set('di', new di());
 
-// Setup php for working with Unicode data, if possible
-if (extension_loaded('mbstring')) {
-    mb_internal_encoding('UTF-8');
-    mb_http_output('UTF-8');
-    mb_language('uni');
-    mb_regex_encoding('UTF-8');
-    setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_US.UTF-8");
-}
-
 require_once CodeHydrater_FRAMEWORK . 'bootstrap/common.php';
 require_once CodeHydrater_FRAMEWORK . 'bootstrap/requires.php';
 require_once CodeHydrater_FRAMEWORK . 'bootstrap/auto_loader.php';
diff --git a/src/classes/database/model.php b/src/classes/database/model.php
index 265e4ae..5de15dd 100644
--- a/src/classes/database/model.php
+++ b/src/classes/database/model.php
@@ -357,7 +357,7 @@ class model {
    * This FN requires SSL connection to the database.
    * So, the KEY does not get exposed!!!!
    */
-    public function mysql_aes_encode(string $data, string $key, bool $bind = true) {
+    public function mysql_aes_encode(#[\SensitiveParameter] string $data, #[\SensitiveParameter] string $key, bool $bind = true) {
       $safe_text = addslashes($data);
       $safe_key = addslashes($key);
       $parm = ($bind) ? ":{$safe_text}" : "'{$safe_text}'";
@@ -374,7 +374,7 @@ class model {
      * This FN requires SSL connection to the database.
      * So, the KEY does not get exposed!!!!
      */
-    public function mysql_aes_decode(string $field_name, string $key, bool $add_as = false) {
+    public function mysql_aes_decode(string $field_name, #[\SensitiveParameter] string $key, bool $add_as = false) {
       $safe_field = addslashes($field_name);
       $safe_key = addslashes($key);
       $as = ($add_as === true) ? " AS `{$safe_field}`" : "";
diff --git a/src/classes/mb_strings_fns.php b/src/classes/mb_strings_fns.php
deleted file mode 100644
index 5c8dc2c..0000000
--- a/src/classes/mb_strings_fns.php
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,44 +0,0 @@
-<?php
-
-declare(strict_types=1);
-
-/** 
- * @author Robert Strutts <Bob_586@Yahoo.com>
- * @copyright (c) 2024, Robert Strutts
- * @license MIT
- */
-
-namespace CodeHydrater;
-
-class mb_strings_fns {
-    
-    public static function isUTF8(string $string) {
-        return mb_check_encoding($string, 'UTF-8');
-    }
-
-    // Check if string contains multibyte characters
-    public static function has_multibyte_chars(string $string) {
-        return strlen($string) !== mb_strlen($string, 'UTF-8');
-    }  
-    
-    // Override to get the length of a string with multibyte support
-    public function strlen($string) {
-        return mb_strlen($string);
-    }
-
-    // Override to convert a string to lowercase with multibyte support
-    public function strtolower($string) {
-        return mb_strtolower($string);
-    }
-
-    // Override to convert a string to uppercase with multibyte support
-    public function strtoupper($string) {
-        return mb_strtoupper($string);
-    }
-
-    // Override to get a substring from a string with multibyte support
-    public function substr($string, $start, $length = null) {
-        return ($length !== null) ? mb_substr($string, $start, $length) : mb_substr($string, $start);
-    }
-}
-
diff --git a/src/classes/string_fns.php b/src/classes/string_fns.php
deleted file mode 100644
index c0d3b84..0000000
--- a/src/classes/string_fns.php
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,98 +0,0 @@
-<?php
-
-declare(strict_types=1);
-
-/** 
- * @author Robert Strutts <Bob_586@Yahoo.com>
- * @copyright (c) 2024, Robert Strutts
- * @license MIT
- */
-
-namespace CodeHydrater;
-
-class String_fns {
-    public static function isUTF8(string $string) {
-        // Empty string is valid UTF-8
-        if ($string === '') {
-            return true;
-        }
-
-        // Convert string to array of bytes
-        $bytes = unpack('C*', $string);
-
-        // Pattern matching state
-        $state = 0;
-        $expectedBytes = 0;
-
-        foreach ($bytes as $byte) {
-            // Single byte character (0xxxxxxx)
-            if ($byte <= 0x7F) {
-                $state = 0;
-                continue;
-            }
-
-            // Start of multibyte sequence
-            if ($state === 0) {
-                // 2 bytes (110xxxxx)
-                if (($byte & 0xE0) === 0xC0) {
-                    $expectedBytes = 1;
-                }
-                // 3 bytes (1110xxxx)
-                elseif (($byte & 0xF0) === 0xE0) {
-                    $expectedBytes = 2;
-                }
-                // 4 bytes (11110xxx)
-                elseif (($byte & 0xF8) === 0xF0) {
-                    $expectedBytes = 3;
-                }
-                // Invalid UTF-8 start byte
-                else {
-                    return false;
-                }
-                $state = $expectedBytes;
-                continue;
-            }
-
-            // Continuation byte (10xxxxxx)
-            if (($byte & 0xC0) !== 0x80) {
-                return false;
-            }
-
-            $state--;
-        }
-
-        // Check if we finished the last multibyte sequence
-        return $state === 0;
-    }
-    
-    // Check if string contains multibyte characters
-    public static function has_multibyte_chars(string $string) {
-        return (bool) preg_match('/[\xC2-\xDF][\x80-\xBF]|\xE0[\xA0-\xBF][\x80-\xBF]|[\xE1-\xEC\xEE\xEF][\x80-\xBF]{2}|\xED[\x80-\x9F][\x80-\xBF]|\xF0[\x90-\xBF][\x80-\xBF]{2}|[\xF1-\xF3][\x80-\xBF]{3}|\xF4[\x80-\x8F][\x80-\xBF]{2}/', $string);
-    }  
-    
-    // Get the length of a string
-    public function strlen($string) {
-        return strlen($string);
-    }
-
-    // Convert a string to lowercase
-    public function strtolower($string)  {
-        return strtolower($string);
-    }
-
-    // Convert a string to uppercase
-    public function strtoupper($string)  {
-        return strtoupper($string);
-    }
-
-    // Get a substring from a string
-    public function substr($string, $start, $length = null) {
-        return ($length !== null) ? substr($string, $start, $length) : substr($string, $start);
-    }
-
-    // Reverse a string
-    public function strrev($string) {
-        return strrev($string);
-    }
-}
-
diff --git a/src/classes/strings/mb_string_fns.php b/src/classes/strings/mb_string_fns.php
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f303fff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/classes/strings/mb_string_fns.php
@@ -0,0 +1,159 @@
+<?php
+
+declare(strict_types=1);
+
+/** 
+ * @author Robert Strutts <Bob_586@Yahoo.com>
+ * @copyright (c) 2024, Robert Strutts
+ * @license MIT
+ */
+
+namespace CodeHydrater\strings;
+
+class mb_string_fns {
+    
+    public static function isUTF8(string $string) {
+        return mb_check_encoding($string, 'UTF-8');
+    }
+
+    // Check if string contains multibyte characters
+    public static function has_multibyte_chars(string $string) {
+        return strlen($string) !== mb_strlen($string, 'UTF-8');
+    }
+    
+    // Return character by Unicode code point value
+    public static function chr(int $codepoint, ?string $encoding = null): string|false {
+        return mb_chr($codepoint, $encoding);
+    }
+    
+    // Parse GET/POST/COOKIE data and set global variable
+    public static function parse_str(string $string, array &$result): bool {
+        return mb_parse_str($string, $result);
+    }
+    
+    // Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the end of a string
+    public static function rtrim(string $string, ?string $characters = null, ?string $encoding = null): string {
+        return mb_rtrim($string, $characters, $encoding);
+    }
+    
+    // Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning of a string
+    public static function ltrim(string $string, ?string $characters = null, ?string $encoding = null): string {
+        return mb_ltrim($string, $characters, $encoding);
+    }
+    
+    // Finds position of first occurrence of a string within another, case insensitive
+    public static function stripos(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    int $offset = 0,
+    ?string $encoding = null
+): int|false {
+        return mb_stripos($haystack, $needle, $offset, $encoding);
+    }        
+    
+    // Finds first occurrence of a string within another, case insensitive
+    public static function stristr(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    bool $before_needle = false,
+    ?string $encoding = null
+): string|false {
+        return mb_stristr($haystack, $needle, $before_needle, $encoding);
+    }
+    
+    // Find position of first occurrence of string in a string
+    public static function strpos(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    int $offset = 0,
+    ?string $encoding = null
+): int|false {
+        return mb_strpos($haystack, $needle, $offset, $encoding);
+    }
+    
+    // Finds the last occurrence of a character in a string within another
+    public static function strrchr(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    bool $before_needle = false,
+    ?string $encoding = null
+): string|false {
+        return mb_strrchr($haystack, $needle, $before_needle, $encoding);
+    }
+    
+    // Finds the last occurrence of a character in a string within another, case insensitive
+    public static function strrichr(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    bool $before_needle = false,
+    ?string $encoding = null
+): string|false {
+        return mb_strrichr($haystack, $needle, $before_needle, $encoding);
+    }        
+    
+    // Finds position of last occurrence of a string within another, case insensitive
+    public static function strripos(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    int $offset = 0,
+    ?string $encoding = null
+): int|false {
+        return mb_strripos($haystack, $needle, $offset, $encoding);
+    }
+    
+    // Find position of last occurrence of a string in a string
+    public static function strrpos(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    int $offset = 0,
+    ?string $encoding = null
+): int|false {
+        return mb_strrpos($haystack, $needle, $offset, $encoding);
+    }
+    
+    // Finds first occurrence of a string within another
+    public static function strstr(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    bool $before_needle = false,
+    ?string $encoding = null
+): string|false {
+        return mb_strstr($haystack, $needle, $before_needle, $encoding);
+    }        
+
+    // Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning and end of a string
+    public static function trim(string $string, ?string $characters = null, ?string $encoding = null): string {
+        return mb_trim($string, $characters, $encoding);
+    }
+           
+    // Make a string's first character uppercase
+    public static function ucfirst(string $string, ?string $encoding = null): string {
+        return mb_ucfirst($string, $encoding);
+    }
+
+    // Override to get the length of a string with multibyte support
+    public static function strlen($string) {
+        return mb_strlen($string);
+    }
+
+    // Override to convert a string to lowercase with multibyte support
+    public static function strtolower($string) {
+        return mb_strtolower($string);
+    }
+
+    // Override to convert a string to uppercase with multibyte support
+    public static function strtoupper($string) {
+        return mb_strtoupper($string);
+    }
+
+    // Override to get part/substring from a string with multibyte support
+    public static function substr($string, $start, $length = null) {
+        return ($length !== null) ? mb_substr($string, $start, $length) : mb_substr($string, $start);
+    }
+    
+    // Count the number of substring occurrences
+    public static function substr_count(string $haystack, string $needle, ?string $encoding = null): int {
+        return mb_substr_count($haystack, $needle, $encoding);
+    }
+}
+
diff --git a/src/classes/strings/string_facade.php b/src/classes/strings/string_facade.php
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..18704df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/classes/strings/string_facade.php
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+<?php
+
+declare(strict_types = 1);
+
+/**
+ * @author Robert Strutts <Bob_586@Yahoo.com>
+ * @copyright (c) 2025, Robert Strutts
+ * @license MIT
+ */
+namespace CodeHydrater\strings;
+
+class string_facade {
+    
+    private static ?bool $mb_default = null;
+
+    /**
+     * Set the default multibyte behavior.
+     * Pass `true` to force multibyte, `false` to force single-byte, or `null` to auto-detect.
+     */
+    public static function set_multibyte_default(?bool $flag): void {
+        self::$mb_default = $flag;
+    }
+    
+    protected static function is_multibyte($str) {
+        // Use override if set
+        if (self::$mb_default !== null) {
+            return self::$mb_default;
+        }        
+        
+        $enabled = extension_loaded('mbstring');
+        if ($enabled === false) {
+            return false;
+        }
+        return mb_detect_encoding($str, mb_detect_order(), true) !== false &&
+               preg_match('/[^\x00-\x7F]/', $str);
+    }
+
+    protected static function get_class($str) {
+        return self::is_multibyte($str) ? 'mb_string_fns' : 'string_fns';
+    }
+
+    public static function get_fn($method, ...$args) {
+        if (empty($args)) {
+            throw new InvalidArgumentException("At least one argument is required for multibyte check.");
+        }
+
+        $class = "\\CodeHydrater\\strings\\" . self::get_class($args[0]);
+
+        if (!method_exists($class, $method)) {
+            throw new BadMethodCallException("Method $method does not exist in class $class.");
+        }
+
+        return call_user_func_array([$class, $method], $args);
+    }
+
+    // Optional: Static passthrough
+    public static function __callStatic($method, $args) {
+        return self::get_fn($method, ...$args);
+    }
+}
diff --git a/src/classes/strings/string_fns.php b/src/classes/strings/string_fns.php
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fb78f8a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/classes/strings/string_fns.php
@@ -0,0 +1,200 @@
+<?php
+
+declare(strict_types=1);
+
+/** 
+ * @author Robert Strutts <Bob_586@Yahoo.com>
+ * @copyright (c) 2024, Robert Strutts
+ * @license MIT
+ */
+
+namespace CodeHydrater\strings;
+
+class string_fns {
+    
+    public static function isUTF8(string $string) {
+        // Empty string is valid UTF-8
+        if ($string === '') {
+            return true;
+        }
+
+        // Convert string to array of bytes
+        $bytes = unpack('C*', $string);
+
+        // Pattern matching state
+        $state = 0;
+        $expectedBytes = 0;
+
+        foreach ($bytes as $byte) {
+            // Single byte character (0xxxxxxx)
+            if ($byte <= 0x7F) {
+                $state = 0;
+                continue;
+            }
+
+            // Start of multibyte sequence
+            if ($state === 0) {
+                // 2 bytes (110xxxxx)
+                if (($byte & 0xE0) === 0xC0) {
+                    $expectedBytes = 1;
+                }
+                // 3 bytes (1110xxxx)
+                elseif (($byte & 0xF0) === 0xE0) {
+                    $expectedBytes = 2;
+                }
+                // 4 bytes (11110xxx)
+                elseif (($byte & 0xF8) === 0xF0) {
+                    $expectedBytes = 3;
+                }
+                // Invalid UTF-8 start byte
+                else {
+                    return false;
+                }
+                $state = $expectedBytes;
+                continue;
+            }
+
+            // Continuation byte (10xxxxxx)
+            if (($byte & 0xC0) !== 0x80) {
+                return false;
+            }
+
+            $state--;
+        }
+
+        // Check if we finished the last multibyte sequence
+        return $state === 0;
+    }
+    
+    // Check if string contains multibyte characters
+    public static function has_multibyte_chars(string $string) {
+        return (bool) preg_match('/[\xC2-\xDF][\x80-\xBF]|\xE0[\xA0-\xBF][\x80-\xBF]|[\xE1-\xEC\xEE\xEF][\x80-\xBF]{2}|\xED[\x80-\x9F][\x80-\xBF]|\xF0[\x90-\xBF][\x80-\xBF]{2}|[\xF1-\xF3][\x80-\xBF]{3}|\xF4[\x80-\x8F][\x80-\xBF]{2}/', $string);
+    }  
+// Return character by Unicode code point value
+    public static function chr(int $codepoint): string|false {
+        return chr($codepoint);
+    }
+    
+    // Parse GET/POST/COOKIE data and set global variable
+    public static function parse_str(string $string, array &$result): bool {
+        return parse_str($string, $result);
+    }
+    
+    // Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the end of a string
+    public static function rtrim(string $string, ?string $characters = " \n\r\t\v\x00"): string {
+        return rtrim($string, $characters);
+    }
+    
+    // Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning of a string
+    public static function ltrim(string $string, ?string $characters = " \n\r\t\v\x00"): string {
+        return ltrim($string, $characters);
+    }
+    
+    // Finds position of first occurrence of a string within another, case insensitive
+    public static function stripos(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    int $offset = 0
+): int|false {
+        return stripos($haystack, $needle, $offset);
+    }        
+    
+    // Finds first occurrence of a string within another, case insensitive
+    public static function stristr(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    bool $before_needle = false
+): string|false {
+        return stristr($haystack, $needle, $before_needle);
+    }
+    
+    // Find position of first occurrence of string in a string
+    public static function strpos(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    int $offset = 0
+): int|false {
+        return strpos($haystack, $needle, $offset);
+    }
+    
+    // Finds the last occurrence of a character in a string within another
+    public static function strrchr(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    bool $before_needle = false,
+): string|false {
+        return strrchr($haystack, $needle, $before_needle);
+    }
+    
+    // Finds the last occurrence of a character in a string within another, case insensitive
+    public static function sstrrichr(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    bool $before_needle = false,
+): string|false {
+        return strrichr($haystack, $needle, $before_needle);
+    }        
+    
+    // Finds position of last occurrence of a string within another, case insensitive
+    public static function strripos(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    int $offset = 0,
+): int|false {
+        return strripos($haystack, $needle, $offset);
+    }
+    
+    // Find position of last occurrence of a string in a string
+    public static function strrpos(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    int $offset = 0,
+): int|false {
+        return strrpos($haystack, $needle, $offset);
+    }
+    
+    // Finds first occurrence of a string within another
+    public static function strstr(
+    string $haystack,
+    string $needle,
+    bool $before_needle = false,
+): string|false {
+        return strstr($haystack, $needle, $before_needle);
+    }        
+
+    // Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning and end of a string
+    public static function trim(string $string, ?string $characters = " \n\r\t\v\x00"): string {
+        return trim($string, $characters);
+    }
+           
+    // Make a string's first character uppercase
+    public static function ucfirst(string $string): string {
+        return ucfirst($string);
+    }
+
+    // Override to get the length of a string with multibyte support
+    public static function strlen($string) {
+        return strlen($string);
+    }
+
+    // Override to convert a string to lowercase with multibyte support
+    public static function strtolower($string) {
+        return strtolower($string);
+    }
+
+    // Override to convert a string to uppercase with multibyte support
+    public static function strtoupper($string) {
+        return strtoupper($string);
+    }
+
+    // Override to get part/substring from a string with multibyte support
+    public static function substr($string, $start, $length = null) {
+        return ($length !== null) ? substr($string, $start, $length) : substr($string, $start);
+    }
+    
+    // Count the number of substring occurrences
+    public static function substr_count(string $haystack, string $needle): int {
+        return substr_count($haystack, $needle);
+    }    
+}
+