My daughter has been using an IPad with an APP called Margin note for school for a while. I have recently become heavily invested in my families privacy based on many reasons that made me have an awakening.
I searched the forum and noticed most people recommend Obsidian and Logseq.
My daughter finds Margin Note to be useful for her because how versatile it is. She’s able to make and export her flashcards directly to Anki. The mind map feature and manipulation of the content of books seem wonderful.
My concern is about the privacy and I noticed their privacy page isn’t in favor of the user.
I was curious to know what the experts take is on this APP.
Thank you for any feed back and thoughts on the matter.
I’m not familiar with Margin Note, but I can’t even find a privacy policy on their website. Could you please provide a link to it?
It appears to sync via iCloud, which means while the notes are almost certainly not E2EE (end-to-end encrypted), they are at least not visible to the developer but could theoretically be read by Apple.
The export to Anki feature is certainly neat, as Anki is FOSS (free and open-source software).
I can’t really help you more with Margin note, it seems fine but I can only really recommend the options listed by PG here. Perhaps she’d be willing to try some of them out and may even prefer one to her current solution.
However, the link I provided will not take you specifically to Margin note.'s privacy policy. However, It does collect lots of information when using it.
There are choices to opt out from:
Flurry Analytics (Flurry, Inc.)( Flurry Analytics is an analytics service provided by Yahoo! Inc.
This service is designed for mobile apps analytics and can collect various information about your phone, highlighted in the Flurry Analytics privacy policy.
If the User chooses to opt-out, Flurry will stop tracking data for the device identified by the provided MAC address and/or device identifier going forward. The analytics service tracking will stop across all applications within the Flurry network.)
MixPanel (MixPanel)
MixPanel is an analytics service provided by Mixpanel Inc.
Personal Data processed: Cookies; Usage Data.
I did try opting out many times, but it would turn back on after exiting.
I realize it’s best to use another APP, but was just curious to know what others take on it was since I’m not an expert.
It is a marvelous app besides the intrusion. My daughter does find it the most useful for her studies. It would be great if a developer that is privacy focused created something similar in the future.
Obsidian seems the next best choice, but it’s no longer recommended
How come obsidian and logsec are no longer recommended?
I’m not certain they were ever recommended, but maybe they were. Regardless, Obsidian is not recommended because it is not open-source, and if I’m not mistaken, Logseq did not use E2EE at least when it was being considered. Obsidian isn’t perfect from a privacy perspective, but it is still a decent option and would probably be an improvement from Margin Note.
That is deeply concerning and should not be the case.
I see, my daughter finds it to be the most productive in terms of learning. Obsidian allows for the connection of ideas from an overall perspective, which is wonderful as well. It’s a shame there aren’t equivalents or better with privacy in mind.