 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

Looking to clean out your inbox from unwanted senders, spammy newsletters, and annoying advertisements? You could benefit from an email unsubscribe service to enhance your privacy, increase your focus, and protect your time.

In this article, we’ll review the most powerful email unsubscribe features that protect your inbox from unwanted emails.

Using an email unsubscribe service is a proactive step to protect your privacy, reduce your digital footprint, and keep your inbox clean. As we continually sign up for online services, shop, or engage with various websites, our email addresses often become targets for newsletters, promotions, and unsolicited offers. This can lead to a barrage of unwanted emails, distracting us from critical communications and reducing productivity.

Emails may also contain trackers, and online services may sell or share lists of user email addresses or user data for profit. As a result, using an email unsubscribe list can be a critical personal privacy-protecting decision as well.

Finally, using an unsubscribe service supports greater digital security by limiting exposure to potential spam and phishing campaigns. With new services constantly being hacked or compromised, you never know if an inbound marketing or update email could yield big negative consequences.

 is a privacy-first, end-to-end encrypted email service featuring 10 GB of free storage and a built-in calendar, drive, and note-taking app.

Skiff offers a powerful unsubscribe product called “noise canceling.” Noise Canceling does the heavy lifting that other unsubscribe products don't do: It automates unsubscribing from hundreds of annoying, malicious, or spammy senders all at once - keeping you more private, protected, and focused.

To learn more, check out the full page on Skiff's 

Noise Canceling email unsubscribe feature

: Due to end-to-end encryption, Skiff does not work with some legacy email connections, like Yahoo Mail.

: Leave Me Alone is another email unsubscribe service promising privacy-respecting and easy-to-use tech to clean up your inbox. Leave Me Alone works with most major email providers - they advertise “Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail, iCloud… [and more].”

: Leave Me Alone is slightly less popular than some other options here (under 300,000 users according to their website), and the paid plans are hard to justify when, for the price of a Leave Me Alone paid plan, you could upgrade to a premium account on Skiff Mail or another service mentioned.

 offers simple and easy inbox-based tools for quickly unsubscribing from incoming emails. The product’s “rollup” feature provides what is effectively a daily summary of your emails, enabling you to skip reading tedious or annoying emails one-by-one. This product is best used when you want to connect one legacy email account (like Yahoo) and simply reduce incoming email volume.

However, you might want to read the cons below before trying them out - Unroll.Me misled users in the past about selling user data, which could be completely disqualifying for any privacy-conscious users.

: Unroll.Me faced some privacy concerns in the past, wherein it was revealed that they sold anonymized user data to third parties. Check out 

. While they have since clarified their policies and improved transparency, some users may remain wary or look for such functionality in other services. Additionally, its focus is primarily on newsletters and subscriptions, so users might need other tools for broader email management.

 brings a touch of AI into your email management. By learning your email habits, it efficiently categorizes and prioritizes emails, sending unwanted emails into a separate folder. Its “SaneBlackHole” feature ensures that once you drag an email into this folder, you’ll never see an email from that sender again.

: It comes at a price, with the basic plan starting at $59 per year. Some users have found the learning curve to be a bit steep initially. Also, many users should be concerned about the privacy implications of using AI models directly in your inbox. At this price point, you could subscribe to a premium version of 

 or other full mail products, making it possible to get more value for your money.

 identifies bundles of related mail, allowing you to efficiently act on them as a group. One of its standout features is the ability to unsubscribe from a list and all future lists from that sender.

: The dashboard might be overwhelming for users who prefer simplicity, and there's no mobile app available.

: Cleanfox is not just an email unsubscribing tool but also an eco-conscious digital companion. Cleanfox has a relatively friendly user interface and is capable of identifying and displaying newsletters you're subscribed to, allowing you to either delete them or unsubscribe with just a click. Compared to the other services on this list, Cleanfox’s standout feature is its environment-centric approach. For every unsubscribed email, Cleanfox plants a tree, adding a touch of environmental responsibility to your digital cleanup. Furthermore, the platform provides insights into the carbon footprint of your stored emails, educating users about the environmental impact of digital clutter.

For environmentally focused users, Cleanfox may be the best option to sustainably clear out your inbox.

: Cleanfox primarily focuses on newsletters, meaning you might still need another tool for other types of unwanted emails. Also, while its ecological impact is commendable, some users might be looking for a more feature-rich experience centered purely on email management. Generally, if you have a legacy email provider that works with Cleanfox and are comfortable with their privacy policy, you may want to try it out.

: Polymail is an email client designed for saving time through automations and quick shortcuts. Beyond the basic functions of sending and receiving emails, Polymail provides advanced features like email tracking, follow-up reminders, message templates, and read receipts.

Polymail’s unsubscribe feature complements its suite of productivity tools, letting users quickly detach from unwanted mailing lists with ease.

: Polymail's main strength lies in its productivity tools and not specifically in email unsubscribing, which means there are more specialized tools out there for users seeking advanced unsubscribe functionalities.

: Clean Email's main goal is to help users organize, clean, and unsubscribe from emails in bulk. Its algorithms categorize your emails so you can quickly view and unsubscribe from multiple senders simultaneously.

: The user interface, while comprehensive, might be a tad complex for some users. Some advanced features also require a subscription.

 barely makes the cut, as it only works with Outlook at this time. The product indicates it has over 100,000 users and can be integrated directly with Microsoft 365, providing an easy-unsubscribe feature directly in your Outlook inbox.

: Because it is less popular and only works with Outlook, we recommend choosing a more powerful, multi-platform unsubscribe product.

What email unsubscribe service do you use? Join our 

 communities and feel free to weigh in on the conversation.

The 9 best email unsubscribe services in 2023

In this piece, we will outline the differences between 

 - two end-to-end encrypted, privacy-first email providers. At the most basic level, both email providers focus on privacy above all, including end-to-end encrypting all email content. However, if you are investigating private email providers, considering leaving your existing email provider, or 

 (Gmail or Outlook) to an email service which provides end-to-end encryption, this piece is critical for you to read.

 was founded in Hanover, Germany in 2011 with the express goal of fighting against surveillance and for email privacy. Since then, Tutanota has expanded beyond email and delivered a privacy-first email and calendar combination.

 was founded in 2020 in New York, USA. Skiff’s goal is to bring privacy-first, end-to-end encrypted communication and collaboration to world by delivering best in class security with usability and intuitive user experiences.

 as their main form of email encryption and security. End-to-end encryption is a method of communication where only the communicating parties can read the messages. This is done by each party encrypting their messages using recipients’ public keys before sending them, and wherein the other party decrypts users’ messages. This means that even if a malicious actor were to intercept the messages in transit, or recover encrypted data from the email provider, the hacker or malicious actor would not be able to read them.

For more detail on how Tutanota and Skiff use end-to-end encryption and public key cryptography, check out 

. Generally, both products use similar encryption schemes wherein each user has encryption and signing keypairs for sending secure messages to other users, as well as for communicating externally.

Skiff Mail and Tutanota share many similarities in terms of this security functionality, but there are also key differences that could make the difference in helping you choose your next email account, particularly depending on your use cases and preferences. Let’s go through some of the key features of each email service.

In recent years, Tutanota has run into legal troubles as German courts have ordered a "

" to be installed for monitoring certain users. This has raised significant privacy concerns for users, as it is now unclear whether the provider yields significant privacy benefits. Skiff has had no such concerns.

Both Skiff Mail and Tutanota offer a free email tier to their users, and both service providers also offer paid plans for their respective secure email services. Tutanota has a Personal private and teams plan as well as a several business email plans. Skiff on the other hand only offers 

Free tiers are particularly helpful for email services as new users can test different features, from email signatures and auto replies to folders and undo send, 

. So, you can always experiment by creating accounts on both platforms and seeing which workflows and products best suit your needs.

Skiff Mail is dedicated to being as transparent as possible to its users and thus have made the Skiff Mail client code open-source, encryption protocols open source, and most of the company’s user interface and design components open source as well.

. There email does not use any closed third party sources and are available on Android using F-Droid.

Both Skiff Mail and Tutanota are also Google Free meaning they use no external service belonging to Google, including Google’s Captcha products. This ensures your personal information is never shared with, sold to, or monetized by big tech.

Skiff Mail offers free users 10GB of storage and Pro users 100GB of storage. This additional storage is a great benefit for users who use their email messages as a way to store their personal data and use email for file sharing and archiving.

Tutanota offers its free and premium users 1GB of storage. Team users on Tutanota receive 10GB of storage. As a result, Skiff’s more generous free plan may help you leverage additional products and features, such as drive storage, real-time collaboration, personal notes, or other professional use cases.

Both Skiff Mail and Tutanota make use of cloud-based storage; however, Skiff Mail also lets users use the 

 (IPFS) to store their emails. IPFS is one of the best alternatives to centralized cloud-based server storage, as it makes use of a decentralized network of nodes and storage providers to store files across the internet.

Skiff Mail currently does not support IMAP or SMTP support but offers its own email clients for users across multiple devices (see section below). Tutanota also does not support IMAP or SMTP support, instead opting to use their own mobile apps for security and protection.

 as well as a macOS desktop app. Skiff Mail is also available on all web browsers.

 on Android and iOS as well as apps for Linux, Windows, and macOS. Tutanota is also available on all browsers.

Multiple device support is important for any new email account; in particular, mobile or desktop devices allow users to receive email notifications, which may be especially important for professional email users who are expected to respond in a certain time window.

. To read more about Skiff’s encryption check out Skiff’s 

 here. To read more about Tutanota’s email encryption see their website 

PGP has largely fallen out of mainstream use and adoption; furthermore, it has some larger 

 that have pushed most secure emails to employe methods that are simpler and more reliable.

Skiff provides 1 free custom domain, and Tutanota requires payment

A custom email domain is an email address that includes your company or organization's name, rather than a generic provider such as Gmail or Yahoo (such as @yourname.com). This can make you appear more professional and credible to customers and clients. It can also make it easier for people to remember your email address. Adding a custom domain generally involves modifying DNS records; once complete, you will be able to use your custom email domain for all of your email accounts.

Skiff Mail currently does not support custom domains but plans to release this feature in October 2022. Tutanota supports custom domains and even lets you use as many custom domains as you like under their business subscription plans.

For business users or professional email accounts, custom domains can be a valuable way to own your own email identity.

Skiff Mail supports email security features such as two factor authentication, end-to-end encryption, priority customer support, client-side search, and spam and phishing detection software. Skiff also proxies remote content, such as all images, which could be used to track users and invade privacy.

Tutanota supports two factor authentication and even comes with its very own encrypted calendar that can be used to plan your schedule and connect with your email.

Skiff Mail supports mail features such as schedule send, 

, and even auto-reply. Skiff Mail also has mobile and desktop notifications as well as folder, label, and archive support for all users. Skiff also has a robust array of keyboard shortcuts that will be quite familiar to Gmail and Microsoft Outlook users.

Tutanota supports custom signatures, auto-reply, mobile and desktop notifications, as well as folder and archive support. As a result, both email products maintain somewhat similar consumer functionality for organizing and managing your inbox, navigating through mail applications, and more.

Email aliases are email addresses that are associated with a single user's account, but are displayed to recipients as if they were coming from a different email address. This can be useful for a variety of reasons, such as creating a more professional-looking email address, or consolidating multiple email accounts into a single inbox. They can also be critical for preserving privacy or anonymity, as a recipient will not know which root email address was used to send email from an alias. For more on email aliases and privacy benefits, check out our blog on 

Skiff Mail currently lets users have 4 aliases per free account. Skiff Mail will soon introduce more aliases for Pro users in updated paid plans. Tutanota currently lets free users have 1 alias and 5 aliases for every Pro account.

If you’re looking for a great free email service that lets you maintain multiple aliases, you may want to try adding multiple to your Skiff account. Otherwise, if you’re set on a particular alias or custom domain, Tutanota’s alias limits should not impede your ability to use the service.

Both Skiff Mail and Tutanota work with VPNs (

), so whether you are using a desktop browser, using your inbox inside an Android app, or composing emails on an iPhone, you will be able to access all your emails with a private network connection. By routing your internet traffic through a VPN server, your IP address and other personal information is hidden from view. This can help to keep your online activity private, and can also help to avoid online censorship.

this blog on securely navigating web services

 and communicating online, we outline more good practices for using VPNs, particularly when accessing sensitive accounts (bank accounts, medical providers, insurance information, or any corporate work). Regardless of the email provider you choose, we recommend also setting up a VPN to keep your IP address and other personal information private.

We cannot recommend Tutanota as its privacy and encryption guarantees remain in a concerning legal state. 

On Skiff, all emails - including those arriving from other providers - are encrypted with a user's public key immediately upon receipt, ensuring that only a user has access to their emails. 

Skiff also provides far more value on the free plan, from more email aliases and custom domains to entire products for note-taking and file storage.

As a result, we recommend you try out Skiff.

Sign up for Skiff

To sign up for Skiff, you can visit the signup page at 

Skiff's paid plans, including their Pro and Business tiers, have many additional features across the Drive, Calendar, and Pages products than Tutanota offers today. Beyond 1 TB of storage and the ability to purchase domains in-app (Skiff Domains), Skiff is well suited to teams and business use, such as sharing a custom domain across multiple users, sharing docs/drive files, and creating public wikis. 

For the full feature set, check out the table below.

 user gets full access to the following products:

 (private domains integrated with Skiff Mail)

Skiff Mail also has accompanying encrypted cloud-based file storage (

) and encrypted document collaboration on its platform (

). This means you can use your Skiff Mail account not only as your email service provider, but also as a full workspace productivity suite. This includes everything from real time document collaboration, to end-to-end encrypted backup storage for all your important personal or professional information.

Tutanota offers an encrypted calendar and contacts app which pairs nicely with its main encrypted email application. These capabilities are 

, which provides useful resources and notifications to keep you up to date on your events and schedule. So, when selecting a provider, consider the additional accounts that are integrated into their offerings.

Other Skiff Mail and Tutanota alternatives include ProtonMail (based out of Switzerland), Mailfence (OpenPGP email service based out of Belgium), and Posteo (based out of Germany.) Others also include Apple Mail, Fastmail, Virtru, and Mailbox.org, which are discussed and compared in additional blog posts.

 for more information on privacy-first email, the benefits of encrypted email, and 

Comparing Tutanota and Skiff Mail

How to compute and use different hashes in JavaScript

Hashing is a key function in any programming language. Hash functions mathematically convert any data - a string, an array of bytes, or even an object - into a number. Hash functions must conform to three critical properties:

 - meaning that if you hash two different values 

 must be very low (to be more precise, it must be less than 1 divided by the number of possible outputs).

 - meaning that if you have a hash value 

 is less than 1 divided by the number of possible hash outputs.

Choosing a hash function must be done depending particular needs and constraints. For example, for simple message transfers or verifying data integrity, using a fast hash function - like MD5 - can be a good option. In other cases, like computing salted password hashes for user authentication, a fast hash function can lead to major security risks, like an increased risk of brute force attacks.

Vulnerable to collisions + brute force attacks.

Slower than MD5 but has demonstrated cryptographic attacks.

Not recommended for use due to known collisions.

Outputs 256-bit hash, which adds additional security compared to SHA-1.

Widely used in cryptographic contexts - certificates, protocols, verifying authenticity.

SHA-3 is a part of the broader cryptographic primitive family Keccak.

Similar performance to SHA-2, including SHA-256.

Generally quite widely recommended by cryptographers.

More than just hash functions: These are adaptive hash functions that can adjust the computational complexity depending on the context.

As a result, these functions are often used for password hashing because of this property, as it helps prevent brute-force and rainbow table attacks.

We won’t cover these two functions as they are 

. However, if you are looking to convert a password into a cryptographic key, these two functions are widely used, with 

Using skiff-crypto for simple, reliable hashes

 to simplify good cryptography practices. Skiff-crypto has powerful functionality for:

Asymmetric encryption - Creating keypairs for signing and encryption, then encrypting data using public keys.

Symmetric encryption - Encrypting objects, text, and more.

Datagrams - Managing object versions, fields, and metadata.

Hashing - Generating cryptographically secure hashes.

Skiff-crypto uses the SHA-512 hash function exported from 

 - for more information on how SHA-512 works, check out the comparison of hash functions above.

 in an example React project, check out the Code Sandbox linked inside the README file. The library is written in TypeScript with full type definitions available.

Using the built-in JavaScript crypto library

 library offers a more flexible and customizable hash function. For example, to generate a SHA-1 hash, you could run 

crypto.createHash('sha1').update(input).digest('hex');

 is a string or buffer object. This function will output a hex digest of the given hash. Similarly, to create a SHA-256 hash (as opposed to SHA-1), you could run 

crypto.createHash('sha256').update(input).digest('hex');

JavaScript’s built-in crypto library is also quite reliable, widely used, and extensible.

Hashing is frequently used to authenticate users without storing plaintext passwords (an incredibly insecure practice that is never recommended). Instead of storing passwords directly as plaintext, a secure hash of each password is stored. In this case, choosing a hash that is resistant to brute force attacks is quite important. When a user inputs their password, the password is hashed and compared to the stored hash, verifying the user without exposing the actual password. Note that secure authentication practices also recommend salting passwords, which is not covered in this guide.

Hashing is widely used in map-based data structures, like hash tables, to quickly retrieve stored data. Hashing can convert keys into array indexes, allowing for near-instantaneous lookup, insertion, and deletion operations. Hash functions can even convert objects to array indices, making them powerful options for storing data. Many programming languages include HashMap support for this reason.

We hope this guide was helpful. If you have any questions, reach out to support@skiff.org, open an issue on the 

Hashing in JavaScript and TypeScript

From any Skiff Page, click “Publish” to generate an end-to-end encrypted public link that can be shared with anyone on the web - including people without Skiff accounts.

Public Pages also publish all subpages, making it easy to share newsletters, wikis, job boards, or any other documentation for your team.

You can create a public Skiff page by clicking “Publish” from the top right corner on any web platform. Once published, the URL in your web browser will be changed to your Page’s public URL. This can be shared across the web and will make a Page (and all subpages) accessible to anyone, even those without Skiff accounts.

To learn more about how end-to-end encrypted public links work, check out our 

. All links contain unique encryption keys that keep your data private.

What paid features are available on Skiff Pages?

If you are onboarding your team onto Skiff Pages, Drive, Mail, and Calendar, paid plans offer a way to bring your entire team, company, or family to privacy. See below for more paid features, which include unlimited version history, extra storage space, and much more:

Are published pages end-to-end encrypted?

No. You can publish an unlimited number of pages, including on the Free plan.

Can you access published pages on mobile?

Yes. You can access published pages from the Skiff Pages or Drive mobile apps, or from any web browser.

Publish notes, wikis, articles, or job boards

Despite the meteoric rise of social media and messaging apps to the forefront of the internet, email’s importance hasn’t faded. The messages we exchange on Instagram, Facebook, or WhatsApp are less official and structured than the ones we send as private emails, which is especially important in more formal settings like the workplace.

Another reason is email's stability and reliability—the foundational internet protocols that most email platforms are based on have changed very little from their inception in the early 1980s.

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is chief among them because it governs how messages are transmitted between email servers. 