Promnesia

Productivity

browser history and bookmarks

SHOW HN2020

234points
55comments
#216of 3,028 in 2020
Top 8%of 2020 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

17 positive, 8 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 4 critical, out of 31 comments about the project. Thread score +0.50.

Idea: 10 for, 0 againstDesign: 1 for, 2 againstDocs: 2 for, 0 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 2 againstExecution: 1 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Well-written write-up and clear motivation

    From 3 comments
    • As a PhD student, your post reads like a beautiful research paper. Motivation, prior work, contributions, technical details, example use cases, self-references, future work, even…
      rosstex on HN
    • Justifications are very well-reasoned; a good read in and of itself.
      owenshen24 on HN
    • Great write up for a problem I'm thinking about myself a lot (https://marcus-obst.de/wiki/Notetaking) Thanks also for using the Yak Shaving - for one, I got curious what was…
      m-localhost on HN

Objections

  • Requires running a local Python server, which is a barrier

    From 2 comments
    • This might be more suitable as a Github issue but since you're here, I'm simply getting an error using Brave: "ERROR: Failed to fetch" (shown in the extension popup when clicking…
      spurgu on HN
    • You have to run the local Python server by following the next instructions.
      rosstex on HN
  • Local HTTP server approach is a security risk; needs authentication

    From 3 comments
    • Unfortunately, CORS isn't a magic bullet. Suppose a site named evil.example adds a script tag pointing to http://localhost:1234/promnesia.js and a victim loads evil.example. If…
      zingermc on HN
    • To follow up: the solution is that the localhost server needs to make sure each API call is authorized (if you aren't already). This means there must be a login/setup step. An…
      zingermc on HN
    • I think it's becoming clear that the whole 'local web server to do system things for a browser extension' approach is probably too fraught and should be abandoned for better IPC…
      pvg on HN

Requests

  • Mobile support

    From 1 comment
    • I've been frustrated by many of the same things, and have recently been playing with Memex. The solution outlined here leaves me with a couple of questions, though. 1. Since…
      CWuestefeld on HN
  • Annotation support in the extension

    From 1 comment
    • This might be more suitable as a Github issue but since you're here, I'm simply getting an error using Brave: "ERROR: Failed to fetch" (shown in the extension popup when clicking…
      spurgu on HN
  • Support for private or authenticated pages

    From 1 comment
    • Nice description of what you're trying to solve - it certainly resonates with me so I plan to try it out! I've recently started trying Shiori[1] to manage my "bookmarks" and…
      indentit on HN

Questions

  • How does it work on mobile devices?

    From 1 comment
    • I've been frustrated by many of the same things, and have recently been playing with Memex. The solution outlined here leaves me with a couple of questions, though. 1. Since…
      CWuestefeld on HN
  • How to aggregate data across multiple devices?

    From 1 comment
    • I've been frustrated by many of the same things, and have recently been playing with Memex. The solution outlined here leaves me with a couple of questions, though. 1. Since…
      CWuestefeld on HN

Alternatives named

  • Worldbrain Memex

    From 2 comments
    • Very unlikely I'll be adding support for annotations -- the idea is using the existing tools and integrating with their data. Otherwise I end up reimplementing yet another…
      karlicoss on HN
    • I am following this post too. I meant, from the first time you published this. I am using Worldbrain's Memex 2 and when I see this post reposted, I check the "Memex 2" section.…
      ybbond on HN
  • ArchiveBox

    From 1 comment
    • I'm curious -- Roam Research appears to have won over a lot of folks with this kind of need recently. You didn't list Roam among the prior art -- do you think it's not really…
      riverlong on HN
  • Roam Research

    From 1 comment
    • I'm curious -- Roam Research appears to have won over a lot of folks with this kind of need recently. You didn't list Roam among the prior art -- do you think it's not really…
      riverlong on HN
  • Perkeep

    From 2 comments
    • Hey karlicoss, I'm in love with your writeup. You should know about Timeliner; Matt Holt's attempt at solving some of the data sourcing / data silo problems.…
      scrollaway on HN
    • The motivations and analysis of current problems resonates with me deeply, thank you for the writeup! Perkeep is another project that might be interesting to analyze in this…
      infogulch on HN
  • Timeliner

    From 1 comment
    • Hey karlicoss, I'm in love with your writeup. You should know about Timeliner; Matt Holt's attempt at solving some of the data sourcing / data silo problems.…
      scrollaway on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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