Show HN: YourNote, a note-taking app that puts users’ data first
yournote.app
yournote.app
The founder of YourNote here. YourNote is a user-first note-taking app. By user-first, we mean that user's personal data (which are the notes) are guaranteed to be secure and private if you use YourNote. This is achieved by using Blockstack and Gaia for user authentication and user data storage. So, at any point in time, user and only the user has access to their notes. Even if their Gaia storage gets hijacked, their data is encrypted using the keys only the user holds so it's basically impossible to access a user's data for a third party. This establishes two things.
1. Data Security
2. Data Privacy
So with YourNote and Blockstack, we can be sure that we are good on those fronts. Another thing that makes YourNote interesting is that it uses open standard (markdown with frontmatter) for storing notes. So even if YourNote gets taken down, the user can still access their data using any text editor as the data is stored on their own storage. Also, if the user starts hating YourNote for some reason, they can export their data and either use a text editor for accessing them, or fork YourNote and make their own app. So basically, another thing that YourNote guarantees is -
3. Data Accessibility
I believe these three things are very important for a note-taking app which stores data that is more "personal" and "valuable" to the user than photos, media, and other data.
HN, I would love to know what you think about the idea and the product. I know that it's a long way to go before this can become something that people will readily jump ship on, but I hope it's a valid start.
What is Gaia?
Gaia is a storage system built by the Blockstack team. It is different from IPFS and others in the sense that it allows the user to choose where they store their data. This storage location is called Gaia hub. This approach gives users absolute control over their data which is unlike other distributed storage systems.
You can learn more about them here.
https://blockstack.org/what-is-blockstack/ https://github.com/blockstack/gaia
at any point in time, user and only
the user has access to their notes
When I use your app, you can do anything you want to my data. You might promise me that the Javascript you delivered to my browser is treating my data in a certain way. Storing it in encrypted form or whatnot. But that is just a promise. Reality is: you can ship me code that does whatever you like.
Another thing that can be done is that I distribute my application in such a way that its code is directly linked to the open source GitHub repo. It can be done by having some script as the distributable that clones and runs the source code (it's a very bad way though). It would be interesting to know if any other open source project in the privacy space is already doing something extreme like that.
However, that already exists. I can use NextCloud in this manner and the have a note app.
But with YourNote, my other aim is to allow users to also move out of the app in case they don't feel like using it. That's why we have features like "Export Notes" that exports the data in clean, hierarchical `.md` files. This way they always have easy access to their data.
This might be a stretch, since it is not true. You cannot make this guarantee. No one can make that guarantee today.
I wanted to point it out anyhow because it often is overlooked.
Not sure about the line in your copy. Maybe it is possible to state more clearly what the actual privacy and security mechanisms.
Of course not! Don't lie about who has access to your users data and what is possible to do with it. That's not fucking cool. It doesn't matter if there's no way to do it. You don't go making false claims.
We'll be making our first public release at the beginning of February. It will combine decentralized file storage, messaging, identity, and contacts in an easy-to-use API for dapps that operate from within its framework.
I'd be very interested to hear your feedback. I'm @canadaduane on twitter and @duane@refactorcamp.org on mastodon.
In no particular order,
1. QOwnNotes - https://github.com/pbek/QOwnNotes
2. Joplin - https://github.com/laurent22/joplin
3. Zim Desktop Wiki - https://github.com/jaap-karssenberg/zim-desktop-wiki
Boostnote was pretty good as well, but it seems like after the change in leadership, there has been some issues.
Guess I'll close the tab ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, why would your average user care about 'blockstack'? That's an implementation detail that might be cool to you, but it's an irrelevant thing to put front and center. Even most nerds would be unaware of what this is.
More here: https://github.com/blockstack/gaia#user-control-how-is-gaia-...
I haven't used Standard Notes before but from what I see now, it looks close to what we plan to make. I wonder how they store the data and what happens with data in case they disappear. I will look more into it.
* already open-source
* client side encryption
* multi platform / multi device
* offline access, local backups
I think you suggest a point, though, that it seems that it would be ideal to have a general secure and accessible file storage implementation, with specific apps where needed.
And personally, along the lines of what you're saying, I'm actually more concerned about finding a really good, local note-taking method than even involving the cloud or de-centralized Internet in some way.
https://github.com/aviaryan/VSCodeNotebook
But if you want to access your notes on different devices (mobile phones for example), that's where something like YourNote comes handy.
Maybe this app puts users' data first, but but the user.
Googles pretty damn good at auth... why is this better?
What’s Gaia? What‘s a hub? Should I now how to roll my own?
This is getting a little bit too common for projects to just shoot features that are completely opaque to the user.
Or, either, I’m just getting old.
But I tend to believe that’s not the case.
With Memrey we offer our users 256 bit AES encryption. If a user encrypts their notepad not even we can decrypt the users data.
Also we plan to integrate PDF backups emailed to you on a monthly basis. Right now you can download a PDF backup of any notepad, but automatically emailing it every month would be a nice way of having it be worry free.
If you get a chance I would be curious to know if you think Memrey would solve your issues? It is one of the most advanced notebook products on the market.
I have used the comments and feedback mentioned here to add an FAQ section on the landing page. Thank you, everyone. :pray:
If this product is free and takes off, how do you plan to monetize the website?
My suggestion would be to put this in a FAQ somewhere. I'd imagine to the great majority of people this wouldn't be a big deal, but it would help explain the motivation and, for some people, evaluate trustworthiness.