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?
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.
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
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.
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.
