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Comment by aloukissas | Hacker News Reader

How is this different than Dropbox Dash (formerly known as Command-E)? What I love about Dash is that no metadata/index leaves my computer - are you taking the same approach?

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We went the opposite route: users’ entire index is stored on the cloud. We know that’s not for everyone, but the search results it enables are significantly more powerful, and we make clear commitments to our users: (1) we never access users’ personal information without explicit permission; (2) all information is encrypted both in transit and at rest, and (3) we will never sell users’ information. We’ve gotten SOC 2 Type II compliant to give our users assurances about the way their data is being handled and our dedication to information security.

Got it. FWIW, the search experience with command-e has been fantastic and super powerful since the beta, so I'm not sure how much more powerful this is to require me to leak all my info to the cloud. It'd be hard to believe it's a 10x improvement e.g.

Cool to hear Command E search has improved a lot -- it's good for the space generally. Curious what platforms you're searching mostly on -- for the majority of Needl users their information is already on the cloud (granted a startup having your data is different than Google).

We've also found searching messaging platforms (Gmail / Slack) and the generative aspect to be the most difficult. Finding links to docs that you know the title of is less challenging. So if you just use Command E for Dropbox / Drive / Local, then it's almost certainly the right solution for you.

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