If the owner of the standard notes will now be a proton, doesn’t that contradict this principle? I have a proton email account but I don’t want it linked to my standard notes account. I don’t strongly trust companies that offer packaged services like google or Microsoft. I prefer to have one service from one company. I am afraid that now I will have to change where I save my notes. What do you guys think about this?

  •  LWD   ( @LWD@lemm.ee ) 
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    3 months ago

    I’ve been self-hosting Standard Notes for a while, and if you think it’s something you can pull off, I’d recommend it. Especially if you can get by without folders, (too many) fancy editors, or some of the extra cloud stuff they have been offering.

    If you don’t feel like self-hosting, there are other options too, like

    • The non-self-hostable but E2EE-encrypted and open-source Notesnook
    • The closed source but extensible Obsidian, which doesn’t seem very interested in locking you into any tying
    • The somewhat clunky but powerful and open-source Joplin
    • Maybe Logseq, too.

      +FOSS like Joplin and unlike Obsidian
      +plaintext markdown files like Obsidian and unlike Joplin’s janky database
      -less feature-rich than obsidian
      -block-based instead of note-based, so a slight paradigm-shift is required

      • I regret I’m probably never escaping Obsidian. For a closed-source piece of software it has such a beautiful ecosystem of themes and plugins. I love to use it for writing my blog articles, and the mostly strict adherence to the markdown spec, the HTML rendering and plugins that add support for Pandoc (and Zotero)…

        But by default I can’t seem to get Logseq in that space, even if I really want to, where I only organise files based on metadata and folders.

        •  LWD   ( @LWD@lemm.ee ) 
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          13 months ago

          How do you get “trapped” in it? I’ve never used it seriously, but my last experiment on Android requires you to create a folder to write Markdown files to. Which seems about as portable as any app can possibly be; it could disappear from your devices tomorrow, and you’d still have all your stuff, right?

          FWIW Markor also lets you edit Markdown files locally on Android, and it’s probably a far cry from Obsidian but it could easily serve as a drop-in replacement in such a scenario.

          • It’s not about the files, I’m very happy with files being local and easily synced and messed with. It is as you say, you create a folder which Obsidian reads as a “vault” and create .md files and folders in there, plus the hidden folders that let Obsidian organise plugins…

            But I’m also not exclusively using it on Android, it’s my desktop driver for just about everything text. Especially please with the community plugins which make it extremely accessible for someone with additional needs when it comes to reading or writing, the recent improvements to tables and the plugins that integrate it with Pandoc and Zotero.

            I was never able to replace what it was with anything except maybe Logseq, and even the Logseq couldn’t replace all of the functionality and theming. I tried living a few days in Logseq, just moving my vault there, but it didn’t work so well.

            It’s not a major issue, I would like to move to FOSS but it’s not an emergency like moving away from Google is an emergency.

            •  LWD   ( @LWD@lemm.ee ) 
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              13 months ago

              Thanks for the detailed answer! I was aware of the community plugins (and I’m very pleased Obsidian isn’t trying to sell them to anyone) but wasn’t sure if there was anything else going on under the hood… Plugin configuration definitely makes sense.

              And gives me an excuse to start exporting the stuff I’ve got in my local Standard Notes instance too. I like their interface, but their mobile clients kept throwing me out by switching to the default server, and the web client disabled non-official synching too, so I’m starting to like the idea of having an actual copy of the notes rather than hoping SN doesn’t have another fit.

              • Again, depending on your needs perhaps Logseq is fine. It seems that developers of each app (Logseq and Obsidian namely) have this expectation of how users want to use their apps but in my experience they are both configurable to use Tags, Folders or Links to organise content. This lets you take notes and organise in several ways.

                Logseq is FOSS, Obsidian is not and is more popular (thus larger community plugins/themes ecosystem). That’s the main difference.

                I would love for someone to walk me around what SN can do and walk someone around what Obsidian can do.

    • I know these apps but none of them is as good as standard notes in my opinion. Notesnook seems fine but I don’t like fact that it is based in Pakistan. I used Joplin before buying a sub for standard notes so I know it.

      Currently I have also subscription on Crypt.ee for photos but there is also a notes app integrated. Maybe I’ll start using it. Developer of cryptee was very active on reddit and he seems like a man who values privacy and security.

      But I hope that simply proton will not force the migration of standard notes accounts to proton accounts and for old users everything will be as before.

      •  LWD   ( @LWD@lemm.ee ) 
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        33 months ago

        Is there anything won’t with the company itself being in Pakistan, if it’s explicitly hosting your data in Germany? I’m not aware of any nation-level threat going on over there, and their client is open-source on all platforms, so I don’t imagine there’s much that would be compromised.

        • Idk, maybe I’m wrong. Notesnook is recommended by privacyguides at all. All my mistrust comes from the fact that such countries are not famous for respecting human rights. What if the government forces the owners to give up the keys? Maybe it’s an unrealistic scenario cause data is encrypted.

          •  LWD   ( @LWD@lemm.ee ) 
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            33 months ago

            You’re asking the right questions.

            Regarding keys: they never store those. If they did, that would be a problem from the beginning. The whole point of E2EE encryption is that the servers and server owners should never be able to access your data even if you wanted them to.

              •  LWD   ( @LWD@lemm.ee ) 
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                33 months ago

                If you’re worried about backdoors, you can build every client from source and verify the code. IIRC they haven’t paid for an audit, but if they failed to protect your passwords/keys that’d be really bad for their reputation. And considering their target demographic, it’s pretty important to keep that part of the reputation alive.

  • Average Joe wants an easy all-in-one solution. That’s what Google, Apple and Microsoft offer. An ecosystem. If you want to fight that, you need to be able to offer that. So that’s what Proton is doing.

    Of course it’s better to have it seperated. And the security and privacy nerds will likely keep doing that anyways. But Average Joe doesn’t want to take a hassle and rather looses privacy than do that.

    Issue is, things are only as secure as the least secure point. Average Joe using Google and Microsoft means your data also goes there when interacting. When Average Joe is swayed by a place that is privacy-friendly ánd convinient, it makes your weakest link also stronger.

    Meanwhile, Average Joe is also more save then when he was using Google or Microsoft services. Even when he would be less save than if he had his stuff seperated.

    It helps everyone.

    With that in mind, I applaud it. But I won’t use it. I use Proton for mail, Joplin for notes (encrypting them in Joplin and syncing with NextCloud), and my passwords are also elsewhere than ProtonPass.

  • If they treat it the way they do with Simplelogin, then you can choose to keep your accounts separate. Just the option to log in via your Proton account will be a future option if they end up including standard notes as a premium feature.

  • I’ve mentioned this issue a few times, then “But Proton has proven to be good! It’s OK” is the usual response, that’s when i remind them of how Google also used to be good. I don’t really use a notes taking app, but in general after Google, the idea of “one login, a gazillion apps” is something i dislike in principle because even if the one central authority doesn’t go evil, one login incident and you’re locked out of everything you depend on.

    Yeah, I’ll continue using Protonmail but that’s likely all I’ll use from them and diversify on the rest.