 out a new design for Pages (FKA documents) on Skiff. As tens of thousands of individuals and teams have signed up to use Skiff, we’ve received thousands of feature ideas and support requests via our 

. Many of these requests center on the same theme: making it easier to find and organize your information on Skiff.

Now, pages are structured with three new features: Titles, icons, and descriptions.

New page titles synchronize with your dashboard and file tree, making it easier for you to organize, find, and share pages in your workspace.

Icons enable creative customization for every page in Skiff. Click the icon at the top of every page (or to the left of page titles in the sidebar) to customize the page icon. Choose the icon and color that best fit your work.

Optional page descriptions provide additional context and information. To edit a page description, select the page’s title, and an area for description text will open. From there, add any relevant information, context, or descriptors to the page.

Comments or questions? Join our Discord here → 

So much of the difficulty with privacy and security

 products has little to do with the privacy or security itself. There’s nothing about verifying signatures or X25519 that warrants a clunky interface. And yet, we’re left with green text on black backgrounds, pop-ups that exist to dismiss, and tomes that describe arcane log in processes.

Security certainly adds new constraints. It can make good design harder. But too often, a carelessness towards design precludes the usefulness of the security in the first place. What’s the use of PGP, if your friend sends the wrong key by mistake anyway? (

Even PGP's creator got fed up with its design

Bringing user-friendly design to security matters. Technical skills cannot be a prerequisite to digital security. The people whose lives and reputations depend on it are rarely cryptographers or engineers themselves. And in a world of instant checkouts and auto-magic links even minor inconveniences can be a dealbreaker. We need to stop asking whether people care about privacy and start asking whether we, as designers and engineers, care enough about how people interact with privacy. If we’re truly to make the internet private for everyone –as we have set out to do at Skiff– usability must be front and center.

At Skiff, we’ve built a privacy-first platform for collaboration. Security is built into every feature and aspect of our product from onboarding to the emojis and the text editor. That means we've had to face usability challenges with almost everything we've built. We're still learning but along the way we've come up with a framework to help guide us. For each feature, we ask ourselves, does it:

anticipate, not dictate, a user’s actions?

make insecure behaviors difficult to perform?

require no extra effort compared to a less secure alternative?

reinforce an emotional sense of security?

People don't always follow instructions (no matter how pretty). They do what's convenient.

The principles behind these questions are hopefully straightforward: for 1 and 2, it's that users will do what's convenient regardless of any instructions; they set the constraints and decide the path, not us. For 3 and 4 – while users set the path, there's still a lot we can do to frame and organize it; it's our job to re-pave common actions and fence off undesirable ones (see image above). For 5, it's that any extra time cost should be put on us during development, not on our users; otherwise, it's impossible to be a true alternative. And 6 – for users to intuitively trust the product, the interface must reflect the underlying security.

Applying this framework to a real product is 

. Consider our account recovery process. When you forget your password on Skiff, there’s not much we can do since we don’t store passwords in any form on our servers (we use zero-knowledge proofs for authentication). Users instead need to generate a random symmetric key that they store physically. This can reduce account safety to a crumbled up piece of paper and lead to a bad experience for forgetful users.

Skiff’s design and security teams worked closely together to make this process smoother and more secure. Our security team integrated 

 to split the recovery key into three pieces. Now, one key is stored on paper, another in the browser, and a third is encrypted and stored on the server. To recover an account, two out of the three shares must be combined. This ensures that at no point can the server decrypt user data, while still giving forgetful users a backup on their browser.

Our design team, meanwhile, updated the onboarding UX to make it nearly impossible for a user to misconfigure their recovery keys. This all comes together in the most boring way possible (we hope). When you forget your password, you check your email inbox and set a new password. It just works. For all the extra implementation details, the user actually has to do 

Skiff’s public link feature follows a similar template. It implements a novel cryptographic protocol to ensure Skiff never has access to the link or document. But as far as users are concerned it’s just a toggle – same as any site.

Make no mistake – secure design isn’t always about invisibility. Being conspicuous serves a critical purpose too. Responsive indicators, well-placed labels, even sounds and animations can create a sense of security. As long as the design is honest, these components can reinforce and validate the actual security.

Other more subtle factors also play a role. When it comes to tone and voice, we’re careful to avoid exclamations, excessive emojis, and condescending descriptors like “my documents.” It's hard to trust a platform, if it's too playful.

We still have some pixels to push (like the ones in the envelope icon above).

Down to the last pixel, we also strive for every element to be aligned, centered, and perfectly set. It's not out of unbridled perfectionism. A single visual artifact puts in question all the things you can’t see. And in aggregate, it's unsettling even if subtle.

There’s a reason Skiff doesn’t default to dark mode. As tempting as monospace type and command-line interfaces can be, they alienate often more than they help. The initial coolness of feeling like a hacker might build some sense of security, but it's short-lived. Fun becomes gimmicky. And over time, these references can detach how the product looks from the how the product actually works.

We're currently putting these principles to work at Skiff, but there's still much to improve.
‍
If you’re working on your own security projects, feel free to fork and contribute to our open source design system: 

Finally, for product engineers and designers excited by the intersection of security and usability – if you want to help us craft new design patterns for a privacy-first future, 

Secure Design Patterns

allows Skiff users to effortlessly collaborate on documents by sharing end-to-end encrypted links. This enables their shared collaborators - including those without Skiff accounts - to work together, view, and edit files with end-to-end encryption.

Public, end-to-end encrypted link sharing allows users to collaborate on a document while maintaining complete privacy: Even users without Skiff accounts can save and edit the file. At all times, the link and file remain end-to-end encrypted, and Skiff never has access to the document or even the link itself. Furthermore, editing or viewing permissions can be revoked from the link at any time, to further protect control and the shared document.

Sharing a document publicly is straightforward and described below:

Click the "Share" button in the security toolbar

Under "Public Link" select the option in the dropdown that says "Anyone with the Link"

• This allows all users with the link— including those without Skiff accounts— to access the document
• Link sharing can be turned off by the user at any time to revoke access to the document

4. Toggle between "can view" and "can edit" to change the permission level you want to give to users

• These permissions can be changed at any time allowing document owners to revoke editing and/or viewing access
5. Copy the link and share it with anyone you like (note: we always recommend doing so over a secure communication channel, )
6. Based on the permission level you selected, users will be able to simply view, or directly edit the file

Users accessing a view-only document via the link won't see other users on the document, and they won't be able to edit or share the document. If the original user disables link sharing, or unshares another shared user, the link will expire, and all users using the link will no longer see the document.

Users who are link shared with editing permissions on will be able to edit the document in real-time and save new versions. Just like current document editing, all users— logged in and not logged in — can see edits in real time. While logged in users will show up as their username, when anonymous editors are active and/or editing, we generate a random username from a list of fruit names, preceded by 'anonymous' and a rank (Anonymous-Colonel-Elderberry).

Public users will not be able to view other online or shared users, and thus cannot share or change permissions on the document. At any time if the original user changes, the permissions (turns off link sharing, upgrades users to editors, etc.), the document and original link will expire and the user will need to be sent the new link in order to download the document again.

To better understand how anonymous editing works, let's consider Alice (our Skiff user), and her friend Bob (not a Skiff user).

Currently, our E2EE link sharing model already allows users without accounts to access documents shared via links. As detailed in Skiff's 

, a secure link to share a document is generated by combining the document identifier and a client-side generated random encryption key. This random link encryption key is used to encrypt the document's session key, which is used to encrypt the document. When Alice shares the link with Bob, the server first verifies that Bob has the correct link key (without the server ever needing access to the actual link encryption key), and subsequently sends the encrypted document key to Bob (which can be decrypted with the link key). If Bob is simply listed as a viewer on the document, we simply stop here.

If the shareable link is given editing permission, Bob uses a temporary authentication token to listen and send document updates and maintain real-time document state. If Bob had a Skiff account, we would create a token that cryptographically authenticates Bob's user information. Instead, because Bob is only trying to access and edit a single document without an account, we embed information about the document and Bob's access method into the token itself. This temporary access token is used while Bob listens and sends updates to the document.

Every time Bob sends an update, we verify that this temporary authentication method maintains a cryptographically valid document identifier for this editing session. If so, Bob is allowed to both send and listen to updates for a given document. In order to save the publicly editable document, we verify Bob's token contains the appropriate document identifier, and proceed to save the link-shared document.

Link sharing - which is widely used by Skiff users to work freely and collaborate securely - represents a critical piece of our usable, privacy-first platform.

Secure Public Links

To answer the question: No, Notion is not end-to-end encrypted. Almost all productivity apps that consumers use today were not built with security in mind, including 

, Google Workspace, and other note-taking apps. Although they have invested in better security practices, data is generally stored with the most basic levels of symmetric encryption, which can leave sensitive information open to exploitation from employees, service providers, or other hackers and malicious actors.

This has led to some catastrophic data breaches, such as Evernote’s 

 that exposed millions of user accounts, including consumers’ most sensitive information stored inside their notes. For some people, this could be years of personal notes, memories, interviews, work information, health tracking, or financial information that could lead to fraud or identity theft exposed (not to mention significant personal or professional consequences). With a variety of options for writing, collaborating, and sharing online, consumers have prioritized the security and encryption of their cloud products.

Notion has become an all-in-one workspace for numerous different consumer needs, from writing wikis and todo lists to personal notes and project management. However, given this level of critical data stored inside the product, end-to-end encryption has emerged as a clear need for any product entrusted with our life’s notes and thoughts. Read on to learn more about Notion’s security practices and some excellent, consumer friendly end-to-end encrypted products.

End-to-end encryption is a type of encryption where only the communicating parties 

 and read messages, files, or notes. It works by each party generating a secret key (private key) that only they know as well as a set of public keys that can be shared with other individuals. Users’ public keys are then used to encrypt messages, while private keys are used to decrypt messages, files, or data once encrypted. In an end-to-end encrypted product, only users, and not service providers or anyone else, have access to their private key, ensuring that any encrypted data can only be decrypted on a user’s device. This has led to the emergence of the terms “

 encryption” to describe this security model.

End-to-end encryption is a different paradigm for building products, wherein users maintain all control over their data. As a result, companies have had to redesign the way products work to respect privacy out of the box. This includes writing new search algorithms that work with client-side encryption but can still perform fast, free full text search over all of a user’s data.

What is the difference between encryption and end-to-end encryption?

is a type of encryption where only the sender and receiver can see the contents of a message, or of files and notes uploaded to the cloud. This is in contrast to “encryption” as a broader term, where the contents of the message can be seen by anyone who has the encryption key - generally including a service provider. In this case, because Notion advertises “encryption” and “soc2 compliance” but not “end-to-end encryption,” this means that every Notion user is trusting Notion employees and policies to not access, improperly use, or arbitrarily remove their content.

Most productivity apps, including Notion, market security controls and encryption - generally specifying that data is secured using 

 bit encryption. However, this type of encryption is considered standard across the industry and does not add any technical guarantees that another party - Notion employees, hackers in the event of a data breach, or law enforcement - could access your notes and information.

As a result, end-to-end encryption is considered more secure because it prevents all third-parties from being able to access the contents of everything you write. Given its prevalence in messaging (see more on this below, or 

), end-to-end encryption has become a required privacy standard for all consumer communication and productivity apps.

Without end-to-end encryption, it’s critical to closely read a company’s terms of service and privacy policy. For example, Notion’s privacy policy has an extremely 

 detailing different ways your personal information might be used, or how it could be shared with third parties. This could be deeply concerning, as a company’s security policies will dictate how your life’s work stored in your Notion workspace could be shared. Even if it isn’t monetized, the risks to your sensitive information remain high without end-to-end encryption.

End-to-end encryption has become a standard in all messaging products today, including 

. This ensures that only senders and recipients can see the content of their messages, and not cloud providers or device makers.

End-to-end encryption is also a common security need for cloud storage providers, where the costs of exposing customer data, credit card information, or other sensitive information could be extremely high. Popular end-to-end encrypted cloud storage providers include Skiff and 

, whereas Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive are not end-to-end encrypted.

In some of the most alarming cases of non end-to-end encrypted providers hurting users, individuals of some productivity apps have been de-platformed and kicked out of their accounts, such as when the creator of popular TV show 

 was unexpectedly and involuntarily banned from Dropbox, or a well known journalist was removed from their 

. As a result, end-to-end encryption empowers individuals to work more creatively, freely, and effectively knowing that their personal information is kept completely private.

Using the full encrypted Skiff product suite

Skiff's fully encrypted product suite offers privacy-first file storage, real-time collaboration, notes, wikis, calendar, and email.

Every Skiff user has access to the following products:

 (all data end-to-end encrypted, unlike Notion)

Skiff's paid tiers include additional storage, email aliases, custom domains, and so much more, such as full version history on Pages and Skiff Domains:

If you’re looking for an alternative to Notion that is more private and uses end-to-encryption, or client-side encryption, consider these products below.

 is a multi-device product for writing notes. Generally perceived as a replacement to products like Apple Notes, Standard Notes maintains highly rated native applications (iOS, Android, and more), and the company has had good transparency on their product and security features.

 is an open-source note-taking app that has become increasingly popular for consumers. Beyond simply writing, Joplin focuses on sharing features for collaborating on notes with others. Unlike Standard Notes and Skiff, however, Joplin is 

 end-to-end encrypted by default; this can be configured from inside the app. As a result, consumers looking for a simpler experience may select one of the other options.

: Skiff is a privacy-first, end-to-end encrypted workspace with products for notes, file sharing, cloud storage, and email. 

 a macOS app and mobile apps on iOS and Android for both their Pages product (notes, wikis, file storage and sharing) as well as for Skiff Mail. Skiff offers 10 GB of storage on their free plan, as well as an integrated workspace product for writing, collaboration, and sharing privately.

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) provides much-needed privacy and security benefits to consumers without any significant downsides. E2EE keeps your information private to you alone, preventing the risks from data breaches or service provider employees accessing your account information. Given how much personal information is stored in a Notion workspace, Evernote account, or note-taking app, it is critical to choose a trustworthy, end-to-end encrypted provider and join millions of consumers making this critical shift.

Is Notion end-to-end encrypted?

While Web3 might seem like a general term that characterize an abstruse set of technology, infrastructure, and finance, it may transform and re-shape every aspect of the world’s technological stack. Web3 encompasses many different areas, from cryptocurrencies and the metaverse, to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and new layer-one blockchains. A key underlying philosophy of Web3 is the core ideological belief of moving control of platforms, information, and services away from a centralized authority, and instead spreading this authority in a democratic way, where participants, creators, and individuals can govern organizations and providers, from new email services to storage layers.

This may mean owners of a particular token get to vote on any new changes to the currency’s governing protocol, such as the 

 (ENS), or creators of NFTs being compensated for their work without requiring traditional media and organizations to earn exposure and make a living.

The possibilities of Web3 are endless - partly driven by the space’s ability to attract talent and teams all 

 - in particular, Asia (Singapore/Taiwan), North America (New York and California), and Europe (Germany and more).

There is no playbook on what a successful Web3 company looks like, where there team lives, or how they operate, but there are several common practices that have been adopted by the ever-growing number of web3 companies and organizations.

There have always been hubs where certain industries have concentrated. For example, financial services is largely concentrated in New York’s 

, entertainment in Los Angeles, and tech in Silicon Valley. Web3 startups are not born in any geographical location and instead share one important similarity: They are all almost always working in distributed teams. Distributed teams help Web3 companies leverage employees and team members not only in different cities but often even in different countries and time zones, from New York and Paris to Warsaw and Auckland.

The biggest advantage to distributed teams is their ability to attract the best talent no matter an individual’s geographic location. The cons include coordination and communication challenges arising from coworkers living in different time zones - a real and serious issue that can be alleviated or mitigated by using the right tools. 

GitLab has an excellent and comprehensive guide

What productivity tools Web3 companies use

Any Web3 company needs a complete software stack to operate successfully. Requisite needs include the ability to communicate efficiently and effectively across an organization, write and collaborate on projects synchronously and asynchronously, and the ability to store company files for easy retrieval at a future date. Many teams also opt for 

, and tools that allow for community management functionality may be necessary.

There are no shortage of Web2 productivity apps, email solutions, and file storage products that accomplish this. For communicating efficiently and effectively, millions of teams opt for Slack, Gmail, or the Microsoft suite. For collaborating synchronously and asynchronously: Google Docs, Notion, 

. For storing files on the cloud: Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box are popular.

Yet, these tools generally fail to suit the myriad needs of distributed teams working on complex technical problems.

Firstly, these companies’ modus operandi is antithetical to the philosophy and beliefs that underpin the distributed web. Most companies listed above store your data on centralized servers with minimal to no oversight. They also frequently monetize and collect your data and sell it to third parties, or sell ads directly to you - all not ideal traits for teams that want to move towards democratized and decentralized organizations and collectives. For example, Gmail is not an end-to-end encrypted communication platform, and all message or email content (as well as all attachments) are accessible by the technology provider.

Finally, distributed teams using a combination of the products above may constantly have to context switch to stay productive during the workday. Swapping from a traditional email product (Gmail/Outlook) to Discord, Notion, and Dropbox can be a dizzying experience which undermines focus, efficiency and the overall enjoyment of any work process. It also becomes challenging for teams to remember where the most critical information is stored.

While many Web3 companies still use a combination the products listed above, numerous organizations have migrated to using Skiff Mail, Pages, and Drive for communication and collaboration.

Skiff: Privacy-first, Web3-native collaboration

Skiff is a comprehensive communication and collaboration ecosystem that integrates end-to-end encryption, complete privacy, and powerful collaboration into an easy-to-use experience. Today, Skiff’s product suite includes:

 - Privacy-first, end-to-end encrypted Web3 native mail for email and wallet email.

 - Privacy-first, end-to-end-encrypted real time collaboration for notes, wikis, and documents.

 - Privacy-first, end-to-end encrypted file storage that is also integrated with IPFS (distributed file storage).

 (as well through an iOS, Android, and MacOS app) make Skiff the ideal collaboration tool for Web3 companies.

We designed Skiff to meet all the most critical needs mentioned above for distributed and high-functioning teams. These include synchronizing information and communication into one platform, keeping all sensitive data private and end-to-end encrypted, and enabling seamless real-time collaboration.

 lets teams communicate internally and externally with ease and security. Every email sent between Skiff Mail users is end-to-end encrypted, and, even for unencrypted external providers, Skiff never stores a copy of any messages sent. Furthermore, Skiff Mail is available on iOS and Android, so co-workers never need to worry about missing any important email.

 empowers co-workers to collaborate both in real-time as well as asynchronously on a fully end-to-end encrypted feature-rich document editor. Using comments, mentions, and replies, team members can have engaging discussions over a period of days.

 enables individuals and companies companies to store files of all types on an end-to-end encrypted platform that is also fully compatible with the InterPlanetaryFileSystem (IPFS). IPFS storage ensures that files and data are not stored in any centralized server, increasing censorship resistance and data accessibility. For many teams around the world, particularly in Web3, this is a necessity.

Skiff’s full suite of products also solves the two big issues that Web3 companies may experience using a chaotic combination of Web2 tools: A lack of privacy and the challenges tracking information across numerous tools.

In contrast, Skiff is built on a privacy-first platform that uses public and private keys for encryption and identity. Skiff allows teams to store data decentralized on IPFS, and allows users to sign-up, log-in, and link crypto wallet to their Skiff account. Skiff currently supports MetaMask, 

, with more coming soon. Unlike typical email providers, wallet addresses are a first-class form of communication on Skiff.

Skiff also allows Web3 companies to switch seamlessly and effortlessly between its products, meaning that companies no longer have to jump across several different products. Furthermore, this enables the cost-saving measures of paying for a single subscription for multiple products. Today, the world is only at the beginning of Web3, but Skiff is working tirelessly to provide the best collaboration platforms for the future.

, or watch some of our video tutorials on our YouTube channel 

Why Web3 companies use Skiff Mail, Calendar, Pages, and Drive

 has made the next generation of products for writing, sharing, and collaborating popular among consumers. Big tech and startups alike have offered new productivity solutions, from 

. Similarly, new note-taking formats and features, such as markdown formatting, mobile sync, and project management functionality, have made consumer expectations for new note-taking apps significantly higher.

However, with new AI features and constant data breaches, consumers must be incredibly careful when choosing to trust a note-taking app. 

In this blog, we’ll walk through many of the newest and most popular apps for note-taking, personal productivity, and corporate communications (wikis, document sharing, and more). In particular, we’ll cover key areas to consider for more privacy and security minded users, including these apps’ privacy policies, encryption protocols,

 is an app that ensures that the notes you store in it are only accessible by you and nobody else. This is done by encrypting the notes with a key that only you know, meaning that even if somebody managed to get access to the app's servers, they would not be able to read your notes. As we store more personal information in our notes than in our homes, this degree of privacy is essential

End-to-end encryption for files is a way of encrypting data so that only you or an intended recipient can access it. This is in contrast to traditional methods of encrypting data, which typically involve the use of a central server. End-to-end encryption ensures that no one but the intended recipient can read the data, even if it is intercepted by a third party. This makes it an essential tool for protecting sensitive data, such as medical records or financial information.

: End-to-end encryption is a communication method where only the people communicating can read the messages. This type of encryption requires the use of two unique keys, one of which is public and one of which is private. The public key can be shared with anyone, but the private key must be kept secret. In order for two people to communicate using end-to-end encryption, they must first exchange public keys. Once they have done so, each person can use their own private key to encrypt messages before sending them. The recipient can then use the sender's public key to decrypt the message.

In the notes context, end-to-end encryption means only the person writing notes can see them, or any intended recipients if sharing. Given how prevalent end-to-end encryption is in all messaging apps (

), we expect privacy-first and encrypted notes app to support it.

: For a privacy or security minded user, 

 may yield important security protections from unauthorized access to your account. Even if someone knows your password, they won't be able to access your account unless they also have your second factor, which could be a code from your phone or a fingerprint.

: AES-256 bit encryption typically means a provider using a basic good practice to encrypt data at rest instead of storing it in plain text. Generally, this provides quite a week layer of protection as it fails to mitigate any privacy risks from the provider, law enforcement or others accessing data, or if the note-taking provider suffers a data breach where employee credentials or login credentials are exposed (which is unfortunately 

). As a result, this standard does not live up to most consumer needs for a secure note-taking app.

Google Keep, Evernote, Apple Notes, Microsoft OneNote?

Unfortunately, the most popular consumer productivity apps were not built with strong consumer privacy protections in mind. Most products have great usability and compatibility features, including web apps (accessible from all web browsers, including Chrome, Safari, and Firefox), mobile apps, and cloud synchronization, that we use to evaluate privacy-focused alternatives. All note-taking products below have either free versions or student plans for accessibility.

 is incredibly popular, compatible across many devices, and easy-to-use. The company introduced many of the modern rich text processing features all note-taking apps use today, such as embeddings, pinned or favorite notes, and simple tagging and organization tools for individual notes. It provides simple synchronization across devices and mobile apps.

However, Evernote provides relatively weak privacy protections - the service does not offer end-to-end encryption and has suffered from significant 

 in the past. Given this, we recommend choosing a service with end-to-end encryption, 2FA, and more sophisticated privacy protections.

: Apple notes is native to every Apple device, including iPhones, iPads, Mac, and more. Notes also synchronize to users’ iCloud accounts, enabling simple backup for quick notes and writing. As a result, it is a popular default choice for consumers. By default, notes are not end-to-end encrypted, but consumers can create “secure notes” that are end-to-end encrypted with a user-chosen 

. This does add a level of privacy protections and optionality for users but not the same level of privacy-by-default that the cloud services mentioned below can provide.

 is a familiar product to existing Dropbox users. It provides a very simple, minimalist text editor with a basic set of features for planning, distributing tasks, and working together - suggesting a more team-based usage context. Notes, as with all files on Dropbox, are not end-to-end encrypted. For Dropbox users, we recommend reading our blog on encrypted cloud storage 

: Google Keep is generally quite similar to Apple Notes in privacy and 

. Notes are “encrypted in transit” and “at rest,” but not end-to-end encrypted, yielding many of the same privacy concerns that plagued the note-taking products mentioned above.

: Notion is also not end-to-end encrypted and not considered a security-minded note-taking app. However, the product’s extensive templates for shopping lists, education, and project management have made it quite popular among consumers and students.

: OneNote is Microsoft’s note-taking addition to their office suite. The product is simple, easy-to-use, and provides a text editor familiar to many current office users. However, notes 

 end-to-end encrypted, which means you may want to take your private notes and thoughts to one of our top picks listed below.

Generally, we highly rank providers that are 

 and easy-to-use, and offer great value for users. Once you commit to a note-taking app, you may want to import years of content from other providers and local files. As a result, it’s important to know that a company’s prices, product features, and policies will not change significantly from when you sign up.

 is a privacy-first, end-to-end encrypted workspace that offers note-taking and collaboration, email (Skiff Mail), and file upload, storage, and sharing (Skiff Drive). Every email, file, and note on Skiff is end-to-end encrypted, keeping your personal information private to you. The company also offers a sophisticated technical 

 covering encryption and most client code, and a technical 

Skiff offers iOS, Android, Mac/macOS, and more native applications for their note-taking, collaboration, and mail products, which can easily be 

. Generally, Skiff is well suited for most applications, particularly for users who are looking for a broader collaboration suite (beyond just notes) or may be collaborating in groups or professional organizations.

 is a well-featured note-taking app that provides cross platform apps as well as end-to-end encrypted storage. Standard Notes offers marketing materials emphasizing how encryption, security, and privacy yield critical benefits for collaboration and creativity. Standard Notes’ source code is 

 and links to information about cryptographic audits and security.

For features, Standard Notes emphasizes covering critical note-taking functionality but not overwhelming users. This includes nested folder structures, pinned notes, and daily backups to ensure you can always revert to a previous version of a note, spreadsheet, or todo list. One note for potential users is that the paid plans go up significantly in price, to $59 and $99 per year, and offer additional note-taking features (such as spreadsheets) and more sophisticated backup and retention policies. On some other products on this list (including Skiff), these usability features, like tables, are included in the free plan.

: Joplin is a note taking app that allows users to create and organize notes in a variety of ways. Notes can be created in a variety of formats, including text, images, and audio, and can be organized into notebooks for easy access. Joplin also includes a variety of features for note taking, such as the ability to add tags and search for notes.

, maintains Linux, Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps, and also offers built in cloud-sync functionality called “Joplin cloud.” Finally, Joplin scores highly on their use of end-to-end encrypted to keep all user notes private. For more convenience features Joplin offers a web clipper directly integrated into the notes app to allow for cataloging, storing, and sharing webpage content. Joplin can also be 

 is a largely different class of note-taking and productivity, where notes become graphs and your mind considered a web of knowledge. Obsidian also offers cross-platform apps for Windows, Linux (multiple distributions), macOS, and other platforms, and is particularly marketed towards more technical users. Note that Obsidian uses a more barebones markdown editor, relying on MD syntax for all text formatting.

For a consumer coming from Evernote, Notion, OneNote, or a similar product, we would advise trying Obsidian along another product on this list as it has the largest learning curve. However, if you are an expert with markdown, experts, linking, and graph views, Obsidian could be an excellent choice. Like many other configuration options, Obsidian leaves end-to-end encryption as an option for the user; you can create either end-to-end encrypted vaults, or “

” vaults where Obsidian maintains a copy of the encryption keys. For this reason as well, unless you are prepared to manage your own keys and passwords, an app like Skiff or Standard Notes may yield a more intuitive experience when privacy is a required first-class feature.

: End-to-end encryption is a type of data security where only the sender and the intended recipient can access data, or a user can encrypt data without giving access to a cloud provider or other party (including law enforcement). The data is encrypted at the source before it is sent over the network, and can only be decrypted by the intended recipient. This type of encryption is often used for file storage, so that only the sender and the recipient can access the stored files.

: The best note-taking apps offer robust import, export, and conversion features that allow consumers to easily transfer data in and out. In some cases, this process can be automated to just one or two clicks, such as Skiff’s one-click Google Drive and Docs import. Otherwise, many providers accept imports for TXT files, Doc/Docx files, and markdown (MD) files as well. When you’re transitioning to a new note taking app, having a migration plan is critical to ensure compatibility and accessibility for your information.

: Most people do not read privacy policies when they sign up for websites or apps. This is a mistake. Privacy policies are important because they tell you what information the company collects about you, how they use it, and whether they share it with others. If you do not read the privacy policy, you may be giving the company permission to do things with your personal information that you do not want them to do. To avoid this, take the time to read the privacy policy before you use any website or app. If you do not understand something in the policy, look for an explanation elsewhere on the website or contact the company to ask for clarification.

: Terms of service are also often inscrutable - lengthy and filled with legal jargon that can be difficult to understand. However, it is important to take the time to read and understand the agreement before agreeing to it. Here are a few tips to help you read and understand a terms of service agreement:

1. Read the agreement in its entirety. Don't just skim through it. In particular, you’ll care about what limits providers may put on your account, or when you may be denied access to your account (when you exceed storage space?).

2. Be aware of what you are agreeing to. For example, if you are agreeing to allow a company to collect your personal data, make sure you understand how that data will be used and what rights you have to it.

3. Make sure you are comfortable with the terms of the agreement before agreeing to it. You should never agree to something you don't fully understand or are not comfortable with.

There are numerous reasons to choose a privacy-first, encrypted notes app that protects your sensitive information above all else. Beyond simply protecting your information from being accessed by unauthorized individuals, encrypting your notes can also help to prevent data loss in the event that your devices are lost, stolen, or accessed by a malicious individual.

Finally, in a world where privacy is generally fleeting and rare, encrypted notes apps keep our personal information private and owned by us - restoring many of the critical expectations we have for our personal writing and communications. We highly recommend trying one of the privacy-first, encrypted note-taking products mentioned above in “our top picks.”

Have any questions? Reach out to us on our 

The best encrypted note taking apps in 2023

Collaborating in real-time is a technical challenge across networking, infrastructure, product, and text editing. For many internet users, Google Docs introduced real-time collaboration to writing, with text emerging from multiple colorful cursors when working together. Today, remote collaboration and remote work go hand-in-hand, with real-time editing a daily necessity.

Yet, organizations today require greater privacy and security standards, particularly as they collaborate across time zones and share data containing critical personal or professional information. Given these requirements, new security standards, such as end-to-end encryption, have become requirements for many business contexts and consumer messaging.

This article explores the nuances of how real-time collaboration operates in an end-to-end encrypted environment, where no centralized server has access to users’ sensitive data in plain text. After giving an overview of how collaboration works today on products such as Google Docs, we’ll cover new, distributed models that change the privacy paradigm and enable seamless real-time work while preserving end-to-end encryption of all user and document data.

A brief history of collaborating in real-time

 used to achieve a particular goal. The most common use for operational transforms is in computer science, where they are used to create and maintain consistency in a distributed system.

Google Docs is a popular example of a system that 

. Google Docs is a cloud-based word processing and spreadsheet application that allows users to collaboratively edit documents in real-time. When multiple users are editing a document at the same time, each user's edits are tracked by an operational transform. These transforms are then applied to the document on each user's screen, so that everyone sees the same document, with the most up-to-date changes.

Operational transforms are a powerful tool for maintaining consistency in a distributed system. However, they can also be used for other purposes. For example, operational transforms can be used to create a shared whiteboard that multiple users can draw on simultaneously.

Operational transforms are a fascinating topic with a wide range of applications.

In a collaborative system defined by operational transforms, a single centralized entity is required to maintain track of the current system state and apply operations to that state. When Google Docs was released 

, this was the only way to collaborate in real-time on the web.

However, the prospect of having every key and edit pass through centralized Google servers may now give users pause. With privacy scandals rippling through big tech in recent years, hundreds of millions of users are choosing to limit the amount of personal and sensitive data shared with these companies.

Collaborative documents frequently involve incredibly sensitive personal or corporate information, from new designs to client lists. As a result, end-to-end encryption has become a necessity. In this model, no centralized authority has access to user data, making operational transforms impossible. This has led to a new, state-of-the-art data structure for collaborating in real-time: The CRDT.

What are CRDTs, and how do they enable secure, real-time editing?

) are a category of data structures used to achieve 

 (CmRDT). CRDTs are an important category of data structures for distributed systems, as they can be used to achieve various consistency models including eventual consistency and strong eventual consistency. Eventual consistency is a weaker form of consistency that allows for some stale reads, but guarantees that all writes will eventually be visible to all readers. Strong eventual consistency is a stronger form of eventual consistency that guarantees that all writes will be visible to all readers within a bounded time period. CRDTs can be used to implement both of these consistency models.

 across multiple nodes in a distributed system. Each node in the system has its own copy of the CRDT data structure. The individual copies of the CRDT are kept in sync by exchanging updates between the nodes. When a node makes a change to its copy of the CRDT, it propagates the change to the other nodes in the system. The other nodes then apply the change to their own copies of the CRDT. This process continues until all the nodes in the system have the same copy of the CRDT.

The key property that allows CRDTs to achieve strong eventual consistency is commutativity. Commutativity is a property of mathematical operations that states that the order in which the operations are performed does not affect the result. For example, the addition operation is commutative because the order of the operands does not affect the result:

The multiplication operation is also commutative:

However, the subtraction operation is not commutative:

The order of the operands does affect the result of the subtraction operation.

CRDTs are designed to be commutative. This means that the order in which the updates are applied does not affect the final state of the CRDT - an absolutely critical property when considering how real-time collaboration works. This property is important because it allows the updates to be applied in any order, without affecting the result. This is crucial for achieving strong eventual consistency, because it means that the updates can be applied asynchronously. As long as all the updates are eventually applied, the CRDT will reach the same final state, regardless of the order in which the updates are applied.

There are many different types of CRDTs, each of which is designed for a specific type of data. The most common types of CRDTs are counters, sets, and maps.

 are the simplest type of CRDT. They are designed to track a single number, such as the number of likes on a post. Counters have two operations: Increment and decrement. These operations are commutative, so the order in which they are applied does not affect the result.

 are another common type of CRDT. They are designed to track a set of values, such as the set of users who have liked a post. Sets have two operations: Add and remove. These operations are also commutative, so the order in which they are applied does not affect the result.

 are the most complex type of CRDT. They are designed to track a mapping of keys to values, such as the mapping of user IDs to user names. Maps have four operations: Put, remove, get, and clear. These operations are not commutative, but they are 

. This means that the order in which they are applied does affect the result, but applying the same operation multiple times has the same effect as applying it once.

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