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Comment by seirim | Hacker News Reader

hi, my feedback is that I would like to be able to create an account, because I have my browser (Firefox) set to always clear all cookies and history on shutdown, so when I re-open this later I assume all my added channels would be lost, and would need to start from scratch. If it wasn't for that, I think it's great and would use it.

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Hey Seirim, totally valid concern. The app uses localStorage so yes, clearing cookies/history on shutdown would wipe your channels. Accounts are off the table for now since the whole point is zero sign-in friction and zero data collection. But if it helps, you can download the PWA app to your mobile and use it. Thank you very much!

Hoping NoSuggest would be useful to you in any ways.

Ok, there must be a way, though, just encrypt the personal channels chose with the user's password so you don't know what they have chosen, and don't track anything? And I think most people aren't too worried about it being known what their favorite 10 channels are, for example, yeah? And if you don't track what they actually watch at all, that info isn't very interesting.

That is a fair point and I hear you. The encrypted account idea is interesting. How about an export/import feature where you can save your channel list as a file and reload it anytime, or even a shareable link that encodes your channels in the URL like PCPartPicker does with builds. It would be faster than login. And no account creation and no tracking as promised. Would that solve your problem?

Yes that would be cool. Just generally I'd say I'm ok with making accounts for 1000 other things that are a lot higher stakes info than my favorite youtube channels. But if it becomes a bookmark or something saveable than ok cool maybe that works.

If you manually disable persistence for a website you shouldn't complain that there is no persistence. It's not other people's job to workaround limitations you yourself setup. Consider having your setup clearing data for this specific site if you want that data to persist.

I'm not complaining, I'm giving feedback to a creator that might help them be aware of some user situation they hadn't considered. A lot of people clear their browser cache at some point (I would hope) and would lose all the settings they put into this app and therefore lose all the progress they made in their setup, and it would be frustrating for them, not just me.

This data isn't stored in the cache and of you delete that stored data for a website, then yes you will no longer have the stored data.

I think a better angle to push for is having accounts so that data can be shared among multiple devices.

Maybe wrap it in tauri?

Interesting idea but that moves it away from being a zero install web app which is core to what NoSuggest is. The PWA angle is the whole point, especially for mobile.

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