9 ms·

Show HN: YourNote, a note-taking app that puts users’ data first

68 points by aviaryan 8y ago

aviaryan 8y ago
Hi HN, 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.
- Sujan 8y ago
  What is Blockstack? What is Gaia?
  - aviaryan 8y ago
    Blockstack is like a framework that allows people to create and access decentralized apps on top of it. It enables that by letting users created a decentralized ID that is stored on the blockchain (bitcoin) and giving users access to the apps based on that ID (like authentication). 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://blockstack.org/what-is-blockstack/ https://github.com/blockstack/gaia https://github.com/blockstack/gaia
    - JeffMerlet 8y ago
      What happens if one day Blockstack and Gaia go definitely away?
      - aviaryan 8y ago
        Even if Blockstack goes away, you can still access your data (in encrypted form) as Gaia is nothing but a storage system that is a wrapper over existing storage providers (aws, google cloud, and more). Now, the question is how you will decrypt it. Blockstack stores auth information on the Bitcoin blockchain so I guess you will be able to access your Blockstack credentials as long as Bitcoin blockchain is accessible and you have access to your secrets. Also, Blockstack and Gaia are open-source so it's unlikely they disappear with no trace.
- TekMol 8y ago
  at any point in time, user and only the user has access to their notes I don't think that is true. 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.
  - joekrill 8y ago
    I mean, this is effectively called "life" (as it stands today). You have to trust people. You have to trust someone, at some point. That's why we have things like privacy policies and service agreements. There can ALWAYS be a malicious actor somewhere in the chain. Even if you were to hand write a clone of this app in assembly and compile it yourself: can you trust the compiler? Can you trust your CPU? Can you trust your monitor?
  - aviaryan 8y ago
    That is true, and the only way to fix that is when users see the code and run it themselves (I plan to open source very soon). Apart from that, I don't think I can provide any other guarantees. No open source project can. If they are discovered doing something bad, they go rekt. That's how it usually is. So what's the point here? Should I not have a line like this in my copy? 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.
    - beatgammit 8y ago
      Or more simply, just allow users to self host. Users can trust one version of the app, and then only update when they need a new feature, at which point they can choose to trust that version. However, that already exists. I can use NextCloud in this manner and the have a note app.
- canadaduane 8y ago
  Neat! I agree, and although it may not be clear what all of this means to everyone, this is the beginning of how "blockchain" (I use the word loosely) is going to prove its value. At Mainframe, we're working on something similar, called "Noted", and we offer some of the same guarantees but take it one step further: we rely on no centralized infrastructure at all, not even DNS. Congrats on getting this released!
  - aviaryan 8y ago
    Thanks. I wonder how are you doing that? Is there any way I can learn more?
    - canadaduane 8y ago
      Sure! Check out https://github.com/MainframeHQ/js-mainframe https://github.com/MainframeHQ/js-mainframe. This is a browser-like desktop app that has ambitions to embed portions of itself at the OS layer some day (we call it "mainframeOS" right now, with that ambition in mind). 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.
hknd 8y ago
The landing page doesn't show me anything about this product, and just forces me to login with 'blockstack'. Guess I'll close the tab ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- aviaryan 8y ago
  Oops, the info about the product is at the bottom. And I should have added a screenshot or illustration too. I added one in the background now. Here is how the app looks. https://i.imgur.com/T3ZVj35.png https://i.imgur.com/T3ZVj35.png
  - alphakappa 8y ago
    That should be the first thing a visitor sees on the home page. Users don't owe you a click on 'learn more'. Explain the product, and maybe even allow them to use it without creating an account, and only ask them to sign up/sign-in when absolutely necessary (like, if they try to save a note, or if they are leaving with some unsaved work) 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.
    - aviaryan 8y ago
      You are right. I made this keeping Blockstack people in mind and didn't realize I should change that before launching publicly. I am working on a new homepage now.
    - aviaryan 8y ago
      Updated the landing page quickly. It shows more info about the app along with a screenshot.
cocoa19 8y ago
This sounds like a great idea. If this product is free and takes off, how do you plan to monetize the website?
- aviaryan 8y ago
  I can ask users for a one-time charge to sign up on the app. Also, maybe I can add some "pro" features which I am unsure of, at the moment. Not really sure to be honest, let's see.
  - dduncan 8y ago
    Are you planning to take a shot at getting funding through this Blockstack "App Mining" program (https://app.co/mining https://app.co/mining)? If so: 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.
    - aviaryan 8y ago
      Yes, we plan to use that as a means to sustain ourselves till we can actually make some money from this. Thanks for pointing, I have mentioned it in the landing page's FAQ now.
      - Flenser 8y ago
        Could you make it so we don't have to log out to see the link to that page.
anonvom6 8y ago
There are a few open source alternatives that let you store your notes locally. In no particular order, 1. QOwnNotes - https://github.com/pbek/QOwnNotes https://github.com/pbek/QOwnNotes 2. Joplin - https://github.com/laurent22/joplin https://github.com/laurent22/joplin 3. Zim Desktop Wiki - https://github.com/jaap-karssenberg/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.
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  What issues does Boost have now? It seemed like one of the better options for code notes
  - cdurth 8y ago
    I am also curious, still my daily note app, haven't noticed anything (app facing wise, not following OSS drama if there is any)
  - yangikan 8y ago
    It doesn't store its notes as markdown. It uses a format called cson. Still easy to parse, but cant open Boost notes in another editor easily.
- jacobtwotwo 8y ago
  I've been using joplin for several months now and I'm loving it. The GUI client isn't perfect and there are a couple missng abilities from the iOS app (e.g. duplicate note), but nothing has been a show stopper and it's both easy to set up and very reliable.
trulyrandom 8y ago
The site is a little light on details, but I assume my notes will be stored in a distributed way? What are some key advantages of this over something like Standard Notes (https://standardnotes.org https://standardnotes.org), which allows backing up notes to multiple different cloud storage providers.
- aviaryan 8y ago
  It's not distributed. Your data will be stored on a storage provider of your choice and it will only be accessible to you (or others with whom you share). More here: https://github.com/blockstack/gaia#user-control-how-is-gaia-decentralized 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.
ac130kz 8y ago
Loading takes 15 seconds, Blockstack account is required, which is not what I would want to. Maybe this app puts users' data first, but but the user.
- aviaryan 8y ago
  Haha, I am sure I can optimize the loading time. A blockstack account is required for reliably managing the auth. It's much better than relying on Google for it or coding one of our own IMHO.
  - TickleSteve 8y ago
    why? Googles pretty damn good at auth... why is this better?
yuchi 8y ago
> Store your notes in the default gaia hub or use your own. > You are always in control of where your data is stored. 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.
canadianwriter 8y ago
I just switched to Standardnote recently and have been liking it so far - they are privacy centric as well, making all notes encrypted. What is the main benefit of this over Standardnote? I only have a few notes in there so if I do switch now is the time to do it...
superkuh 8y ago
All the things this program claims to solve are problems it created by being something other than just an actual notepad application running on your local computer.
- dduncan 8y ago
  I think this is only true if (a) Your local computer is part of an existing secure, cloud-based personal solution for sharing generic files, and (b) You have note-taking capabilities to work on a common note-taking file format across the devices in (a). 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.
- aviaryan 8y ago
  Obviously, local note-taking is the best and that's what I used to do when I used VSCodeNotebook. https://github.com/aviaryan/VSCodeNotebook 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.
8bitsrule 8y ago
I usually need to see some reason for turning on google-analytics. I didn't at first ... empty page. After I did that, I have no idea what block-stack auth is (why should I trust that?), no idea what Gaia is. Guess I'm not the audience.
nearpoint 8y ago
I read your Medium post and was curious what you would think about Memrey https://www.memrey.com https://www.memrey.com 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.
viralpoetry 8y ago
Curious that nobody mentioned https://standardnotes.org/ https://standardnotes.org/ * already open-source * client side encryption * multi platform / multi device * offline access, local backups
aviaryan 8y ago
We are live on Product Hunt! :tada: I have used the comments and feedback mentioned here to add an FAQ section on the landing page. Thank you, everyone. :pray:
vibeland 8y ago
Taking back ownership of personal data!
- somewhiteb0y 8y ago
  Data is currency!
burkesquires 8y ago
I think it is worth a mention that Simplenote (https://simplenote.com https://simplenote.com) is a simple note taking application available, at no cost, on all of the platforms mentioned. I use it because it syncs better than notes on my iPhone.
- nearpoint 8y ago
  Memrey sync way better than simplenote I kid you not. In fact no other application sync as fast as Memrey, its core technology is built for this stuff. And it is available for all platforms as well.

68 points by aviaryan 8y ago

Hi HN, 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.

Sujan 8y ago
What is Blockstack? What is Gaia?
- aviaryan 8y ago
  Blockstack is like a framework that allows people to create and access decentralized apps on top of it. It enables that by letting users created a decentralized ID that is stored on the blockchain (bitcoin) and giving users access to the apps based on that ID (like authentication). 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://blockstack.org/what-is-blockstack/ https://github.com/blockstack/gaia https://github.com/blockstack/gaia
  - JeffMerlet 8y ago
    What happens if one day Blockstack and Gaia go definitely away?
    - aviaryan 8y ago
      Even if Blockstack goes away, you can still access your data (in encrypted form) as Gaia is nothing but a storage system that is a wrapper over existing storage providers (aws, google cloud, and more). Now, the question is how you will decrypt it. Blockstack stores auth information on the Bitcoin blockchain so I guess you will be able to access your Blockstack credentials as long as Bitcoin blockchain is accessible and you have access to your secrets. Also, Blockstack and Gaia are open-source so it's unlikely they disappear with no trace.
TekMol 8y ago
at any point in time, user and only the user has access to their notes I don't think that is true. 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.
- joekrill 8y ago
  I mean, this is effectively called "life" (as it stands today). You have to trust people. You have to trust someone, at some point. That's why we have things like privacy policies and service agreements. There can ALWAYS be a malicious actor somewhere in the chain. Even if you were to hand write a clone of this app in assembly and compile it yourself: can you trust the compiler? Can you trust your CPU? Can you trust your monitor?
- aviaryan 8y ago
  That is true, and the only way to fix that is when users see the code and run it themselves (I plan to open source very soon). Apart from that, I don't think I can provide any other guarantees. No open source project can. If they are discovered doing something bad, they go rekt. That's how it usually is. So what's the point here? Should I not have a line like this in my copy? 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.
  - beatgammit 8y ago
    Or more simply, just allow users to self host. Users can trust one version of the app, and then only update when they need a new feature, at which point they can choose to trust that version. However, that already exists. I can use NextCloud in this manner and the have a note app.
canadaduane 8y ago
Neat! I agree, and although it may not be clear what all of this means to everyone, this is the beginning of how "blockchain" (I use the word loosely) is going to prove its value. At Mainframe, we're working on something similar, called "Noted", and we offer some of the same guarantees but take it one step further: we rely on no centralized infrastructure at all, not even DNS. Congrats on getting this released!
- aviaryan 8y ago
  Thanks. I wonder how are you doing that? Is there any way I can learn more?
  - canadaduane 8y ago
    Sure! Check out https://github.com/MainframeHQ/js-mainframe https://github.com/MainframeHQ/js-mainframe. This is a browser-like desktop app that has ambitions to embed portions of itself at the OS layer some day (we call it "mainframeOS" right now, with that ambition in mind). 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.

hknd 8y ago

The landing page doesn't show me anything about this product, and just forces me to login with 'blockstack'. Guess I'll close the tab ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

aviaryan 8y ago
Oops, the info about the product is at the bottom. And I should have added a screenshot or illustration too. I added one in the background now. Here is how the app looks. https://i.imgur.com/T3ZVj35.png https://i.imgur.com/T3ZVj35.png
- alphakappa 8y ago
  That should be the first thing a visitor sees on the home page. Users don't owe you a click on 'learn more'. Explain the product, and maybe even allow them to use it without creating an account, and only ask them to sign up/sign-in when absolutely necessary (like, if they try to save a note, or if they are leaving with some unsaved work) 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.
  - aviaryan 8y ago
    You are right. I made this keeping Blockstack people in mind and didn't realize I should change that before launching publicly. I am working on a new homepage now.
  - aviaryan 8y ago
    Updated the landing page quickly. It shows more info about the app along with a screenshot.

cocoa19 8y ago

This sounds like a great idea. If this product is free and takes off, how do you plan to monetize the website?

aviaryan 8y ago
I can ask users for a one-time charge to sign up on the app. Also, maybe I can add some "pro" features which I am unsure of, at the moment. Not really sure to be honest, let's see.
- dduncan 8y ago
  Are you planning to take a shot at getting funding through this Blockstack "App Mining" program (https://app.co/mining https://app.co/mining)? If so: 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.
  - aviaryan 8y ago
    Yes, we plan to use that as a means to sustain ourselves till we can actually make some money from this. Thanks for pointing, I have mentioned it in the landing page's FAQ now.
    - Flenser 8y ago
      Could you make it so we don't have to log out to see the link to that page.

anonvom6 8y ago

There are a few open source alternatives that let you store your notes locally. In no particular order, 1. QOwnNotes - https://github.com/pbek/QOwnNotes https://github.com/pbek/QOwnNotes 2. Joplin - https://github.com/laurent22/joplin https://github.com/laurent22/joplin 3. Zim Desktop Wiki - https://github.com/jaap-karssenberg/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.

skinnymuch 8y ago
What issues does Boost have now? It seemed like one of the better options for code notes
- cdurth 8y ago
  I am also curious, still my daily note app, haven't noticed anything (app facing wise, not following OSS drama if there is any)
- yangikan 8y ago
  It doesn't store its notes as markdown. It uses a format called cson. Still easy to parse, but cant open Boost notes in another editor easily.
jacobtwotwo 8y ago
I've been using joplin for several months now and I'm loving it. The GUI client isn't perfect and there are a couple missng abilities from the iOS app (e.g. duplicate note), but nothing has been a show stopper and it's both easy to set up and very reliable.

trulyrandom 8y ago

The site is a little light on details, but I assume my notes will be stored in a distributed way? What are some key advantages of this over something like Standard Notes (https://standardnotes.org https://standardnotes.org), which allows backing up notes to multiple different cloud storage providers.

aviaryan 8y ago
It's not distributed. Your data will be stored on a storage provider of your choice and it will only be accessible to you (or others with whom you share). More here: https://github.com/blockstack/gaia#user-control-how-is-gaia-decentralized 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.

ac130kz 8y ago

Loading takes 15 seconds, Blockstack account is required, which is not what I would want to. Maybe this app puts users' data first, but but the user.

aviaryan 8y ago
Haha, I am sure I can optimize the loading time. A blockstack account is required for reliably managing the auth. It's much better than relying on Google for it or coding one of our own IMHO.
- TickleSteve 8y ago
  why? Googles pretty damn good at auth... why is this better?

yuchi 8y ago

> Store your notes in the default gaia hub or use your own. > You are always in control of where your data is stored. 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.

canadianwriter 8y ago

I just switched to Standardnote recently and have been liking it so far - they are privacy centric as well, making all notes encrypted. What is the main benefit of this over Standardnote? I only have a few notes in there so if I do switch now is the time to do it...

superkuh 8y ago

All the things this program claims to solve are problems it created by being something other than just an actual notepad application running on your local computer.

dduncan 8y ago
I think this is only true if (a) Your local computer is part of an existing secure, cloud-based personal solution for sharing generic files, and (b) You have note-taking capabilities to work on a common note-taking file format across the devices in (a). 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.
aviaryan 8y ago
Obviously, local note-taking is the best and that's what I used to do when I used VSCodeNotebook. https://github.com/aviaryan/VSCodeNotebook 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.

8bitsrule 8y ago

I usually need to see some reason for turning on google-analytics. I didn't at first ... empty page. After I did that, I have no idea what block-stack auth is (why should I trust that?), no idea what Gaia is. Guess I'm not the audience.

nearpoint 8y ago

I read your Medium post and was curious what you would think about Memrey https://www.memrey.com https://www.memrey.com 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.

viralpoetry 8y ago

Curious that nobody mentioned https://standardnotes.org/ https://standardnotes.org/ * already open-source * client side encryption * multi platform / multi device * offline access, local backups

aviaryan 8y ago

We are live on Product Hunt! :tada: I have used the comments and feedback mentioned here to add an FAQ section on the landing page. Thank you, everyone. :pray:

vibeland 8y ago

Taking back ownership of personal data!

somewhiteb0y 8y ago
Data is currency!

burkesquires 8y ago

I think it is worth a mention that Simplenote (https://simplenote.com https://simplenote.com) is a simple note taking application available, at no cost, on all of the platforms mentioned. I use it because it syncs better than notes on my iPhone.

nearpoint 8y ago
Memrey sync way better than simplenote I kid you not. In fact no other application sync as fast as Memrey, its core technology is built for this stuff. And it is available for all platforms as well.