AB Design
AB Design
Take a look at some of the note-taking apps, text editors and writing tools on the Google Play Store. The choice is near overwhelming, but IMO one very nice piece of software, Standard Notes, stands out. It combines clean, minimal design with class-leading privacy features and a strong focus on productivity.
To understand what makes Standard Notes different, it's important to consider that most note-taking apps suffer from at least two or more serious drawbacks, each of which is either a dealbreaker or a prominent red flag. These drawbacks typically include:
If something's worth writing, it's usually worth reading. Long-form content written on the laptop should be accessible for proofing on the phone, briefer notes ("grab some milk from 7-11") are often a godsend when synced from device to device.
A note-taking app on the Play Store might seem to tick all the right boxes, but how about the company that makes it? As a general rule, I would only hand over my notes to companies that are as secure, transparent, and reputable as the ones I use for email and cloud storage.
In 2024, following protracted talks, Standard Notes joined Proton's ecosystem of privacy tools.
If your content is private or confidential, and you need to sync it across various devices, you almost certainly need an app that supports Zero Knowledge Encryption. This means notes are encrypted on your device before being saved to the cloud, and that your data and login credentials are hidden from company staff.
Introduced in Android 11, this permission is a privacy nightmare. If granted, it gives the app carte blanche to access just about any file on the system. Despite the obvious security issues, it's a permission many text editors and note-taking apps request.
Standard Notes is different. It's a tool that works extremely well. It's undergone four security audits (including a cryptography design review and two full penetration tests), it has all the features I'm looking for and adheres to values I respect. On top of this, a lot of credibility accrues from its 2024 acquisition by Proton.
For me, these are the app's most important features and values:
1
One of Standard Notes' key strengths is Zero Knowledge Encryption, which is where user content is encrypted at the device level rather than in the cloud. This ensures class-leading security and means even company employees don't have access to users' data.
2
According to their website, Standard Notes uses stronger encryption technology than industry-leading password managers. For some people, this might finally answer that perennial question of where you should keep your most important credentials.
3
Standard Notes adheres to a conservative design philosophy that eschews change simply for the sake of it – the company freely admits to declining most feature requests, for example. This design philosophy is also evident in the app's clean, minimal UI.
4
Standard Notes is committed to full transparency and open source principles. The app's source code is available for independent review on GitHub; links to the reports for each of the company's third-party security audits can be found on the website.
To start using the app, you'll probably want to bring some of your existing text files on board. This can be done by using the Import button in the Account menu at bottom left. Pretty much any text file can be imported, including TXT, HTML, PHP, CSS, JS, and XML formats.
When working on a note, you'll see a really nice design feature. It's a green or red status icon to the right of the note's title, both of which will be replaced by a small spinner when you pause editing. Soon after, either the green icon will re-appear ((indicating that your edits have been saved, encrypted, and uploaded to your cloud-based account), or you'll see the red icon, which means you've gone offline and your changes have only been saved locally.
Also to the right of the note's title is the Note Options menu (three horizontal dots). At the top of this is the History section and a tab, Sessions, that lists the note's most recent revisions. Click on any session to review and compare it to the current version; if required, select it to replace the current revision. IMO, these are useful tools if you need to revert to an earlier version of the note, but not ones I tend to use.
The table below shows how Standards Notes compares to some of its competitors.
Standard Notes
Joplin
Notesnook
Samsung Notes
Apple Notes
Search functionality is restricted to a Find In Note tool rather than an app-wide scan. I'm guessing this'll be fine for most people, but it might be a problem for "power users" who need full control over their content. Search and Replace functionality is also missing, which is odd since it's a standard feature on pretty much all decent text editors.
Exporting notes is simple: use the Note Options menu and select Export. The note will be saved to your downloads folder with the name Standard Notes and a TXT extension. If you need to move the file to a different folder, you can easily rename it and, if necessary, give it a new extension.
Standard Notes offers three plans:
Free You get what is essentially a plain text editor, plus audited zero knowledge encryption, cross-platform syncing, lightning fast autosave, an option to receive email backups (daily or weekly), and a clean, user-friendly workspace. For many users this plan might be sufficient – it's certainly enough for basic content creation, jotting down ad-hoc notes, and storing passwords and credentials.
Productivity ($90/year) Refer to the Standard Notes website for a full description of what this plan offers. Included with this plan is something called a Web Clipper, which is a Chrome or Firefox extension that enables you to clip all or parts of a web page and save them to your Standard Notes web app. It's an interesting tool with a range of potential applications, some of which may indeed – as the plan's name suggests – help improve productivity and time efficiency.
Pro ($120/year) As above
There's no denying that prices are higher than competitors, but IMO you get what you pay for. For me, quality, verifiability and transparency easily outweigh concerns over a few extra dollars. I also believe the assurance you get from buying into Proton's ecosystem is worth its weight in gold.
Internet / Tech
NextDNS is a DNS resolver – a security / privacy service that's designed to block ads, trackers, malware and phishing domains on pretty much any standard PC, laptop or phone.
Internet / Tech
Paywalls are a near-universal feature of the internet media landscape, but how do users perceive them, and what's the easiest and most effective way to bypass them?