'Notes' note-taking application

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Posted by MadaboutDana
Mar 15, 2023 at 09:57 AM

Hm, that is concerning. MalwareBytes hasn’t complained about it on macOS, but that isn’t necessarily reassuring… I hate undisclosed online activity!

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>The site is a legitimate part of github and there may be a good reason
>for such a connection, e.g., checking for updates. Nevertheless, call me
>conservative, but I dislike initiative in tools; I would have expected
>some option during Notes’ installation for allowing such activity, but I
>recall none.
> >I may continue testing Notes, but will be keeping it nicely firewalled
>for the time being…

Posted by luc0x61
Mar 15, 2023 at 06:58 PM

Now, that is rather *unpleasant*, to say the least. I asked on the GitHub repository about that behavior. To me, an application that connects behind your back is definitively a no-no

Posted by rubymamis
Mar 15, 2023 at 08:31 PM

Hello, I’m the founder of Notes.There’s nothing strange about this, that’s just part of the auto-update feature, which runs when you open the program.

What it does is to check on this page https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nuttyartist/notes/master/UPDATES.json if there’s any new version. That’s it.

You can disable this feature in two ways:

1. Open Notes
2. Click on the ‘three dots’ menu
3. Click on ‘Check For Updates’
4. Tick ‘Don’t notify me automatically every time there’s a new update’

And the other way would be compiling Notes from source and specifying the -DUPDATE_CHECKER=OFF option, which will completely disable any update checking features.

It’s very nice to hear some kind words from you hear, and I want to say we learn from each and every criticism, so thanks!

I’m here if you have anything else to ask.

luc0x61 wrote:
Now, that is rather *unpleasant*, to say the least. I asked on the
>GitHub repository about that behavior. To me, an application that
>connects behind your back is definitively a no-no

Posted by zjeffer
Mar 16, 2023 at 10:49 PM

Hi,

I’m one of the maintainers of Notes. We provided an answer to this here: https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes/discussions/530

Basically, the reason for the external connection is to check for new versions. This can be disabled inside the app itself, or by building from source with a specific CMake option.

We will definitely take your feedback into account, and make sure we don’t unnecessarily contact external servers without the user’s knowledge. However, I personally feel like checking for updates is an exception to this: an application which has the ability to check for updates, will of course contact external servers.

If you have further questions or feedback, feel free to post it in the GitHub discussion above.

Thanks,
zjeffer

Posted by MadaboutDana
Mar 17, 2023 at 09:41 AM

Thanks very much for the explanation – it’s very reassuring ;-)

However, it might be an idea to do what so many other apps (e.g. Obsidian) do, namely give users the choice between manually prodding a “Check for updates” button and setting updates to “Automatic”?

I suspect that would solve the upset!

I like Notes, but do wish it had elegant punctuation (e.g. “smart” apostrophes) and a more consistent treatment of fonts (emboldening something changes both the size and type of font, for example). But it’s still early days!

Keep up the good work!

zjeffer wrote:
Hi,
> >I’m one of the maintainers of Notes. We provided an answer to this here:
>https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes/discussions/530
> >Basically, the reason for the external connection is to check for new
>versions. This can be disabled inside the app itself, or by building
>from source with a specific CMake option.
> >We will definitely take your feedback into account, and make sure we
>don’t unnecessarily contact external servers without the user’s
>knowledge. However, I personally feel like checking for updates is an
>exception to this: an application which has the ability to check for
>updates, will of course contact external servers.
> >If you have further questions or feedback, feel free to post it in the
>GitHub discussion above.
> >Thanks,
>zjeffer

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