Next-Gen Email Platform Nilas Grabs $8M, Preps Its Own Email Client | Hacker News Reader

Next-Gen Email Platform Nilas Grabs $8M, Preps Its Own Email Client

techcrunch.com

36 pointsjlees13 comments

No mention of end to end encryption, or encrypted storage. I suppose the primary target is enterprise and people who like when it just works, because I can hardly see a product designed for my "personal data" not allow encryption (unless the business is based around using this data ;))

Also, insert rant about node.js on the desktop and atom-shell because it's a piece of shit here.

Hi @pikzen, thanks for the comment. One of the advantages of our platform is that you're actually paying for us to run it---so we don't have to sell user data to get by.

We don't specifically support end-to-end encryption in the base email API because a centralized holder of keys is little better than no encryption at all. End-to-end encryption is something we'd love to see built on top of the platform though.

I wonder if the name is an anagram of "snail"? Quite funny, if a bit far-fetched. :)

Edit: nope, they actually explained it themselves:

The word ‘nilas’ actually means “young sea ice” that will grow into icebergs.

Although, it is an anagram of snail, just not intentionally so... I can't believe I didn't notice that until you pointed it out.

That's somehow more fitting then the other anagrams of "Nails" and "Slain"

As a paying "Inbox developer program" user, I'm a bit shocked that I had to find about this through HN.

We're prepping something special for existing members of the developer program, details will follow shortly :) Unfortunately the timing didn't align perfectly with the TC article, but we definitely haven't forgotten you.

Is there an RFC for their new mail API?

Hi there, Christine from Nilas here. No RFC, but we do have API docs[1] and source code[2]. :)

1. https://nilas.com/docs 2. https://github.com/inboxapp/inbox

So it's RESTful. Kinda funny, how mail came before the web. But now this and the gmail API rely on http.

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8954100.

Funny, we are releasing a closely related product in a few days. We also have RESTful APIs (doc: https://github.com/MLstate/PEPS/wiki/Developer-Manual).

The repo is available at https:/github.com/MLstate/PEPS

How is using Javascript or forking Atom equals to building native email clients on desktops? I seriously don't get that part.

There's also no clear picture as how Nilas any better than other services. What incentive is there to use Nilas over other products?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com