I have just recently switched away from Mendeley because of an insanely user-hostile thing they've just done to lock-in their users. Mendeley has started encry

I have just recently switched away from Mendeley because of an insanely user-hostile thing they've just done to lock-in their users. Mendeley has started encrypting users' bibliography files (from version 19), claiming variously that encryption is required by GDPR (?!?!) and/or that it improves security on a multiuser system. (Neither of these excuses holds water.) The keys are not available to the users whose data were encrypted. The encryption is completely proprietary and there are no tools available for letting users work with the now-encrypted databases. Previously, users could access their data by running `sqlite3` on a plain sqlite database in their profile directory. Not only did users take advantage of this, but a small ecosystem of third-party tools and scripts had sprung up to help people take control over automating repetitive tasks in managing their bibliographies. Well, now Mendeley has encrypted everything, that's the end of that. No more tools and scripts. No more user control over one's own data and workflow. There's now only the limited (for my purposes, useless) "export database" facility in the client. It only exports a limited subset of the fields in the database. Alternatively, I could register as a developer, get an API key, and develop a full web-style app to get hold of my own data. ("Did you just tell me to go fuck myself, Bob?") The Zotero people suspect that Mendeley's move was retaliatory for Zotero's implementation of import-from-Mendeley [1]. The Mendeley twitter account has dismissed this - literally - as being "fake news" [2]. Super weird. I reverse-engineered the encryption they'd put in, in order to export my own data and migrate to Zotero. I wrote up the instructions for others to follow [3], but it's really not easy, not portable, not reliable, and not something users should ever have to do just to get access to their own data! Anyway, at this point, I don't trust Mendeley as far as I can throw them, and I thoroughly regret ever recommending to my friends that they use the tool. After nine years of using Mendeley, though, I've switched to Zotero, and it's at least as good, and in some ways better. Plus it's properly open. [1] https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/mendeley_import https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/mendeley_import [2] https://twitter.com/mendeley_com/status/1006919608471818240 https://twitter.com/mendeley_com/status/1006919608471818240 and several others. Really, the official twitter responses from Mendeley to people discussing this issue were bizarrely dismissive and mocking. [3] https://eighty-twenty.org/2018/06/13/mendeley-encrypted-db https://eighty-twenty.org/2018/06/13/mendeley-encrypted-db