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Show HN: Sava OS – A desktop interface for your web browser

(savaos.com)
103 points owenfar | 1 comments | 17 Oct 24 16:20 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

Hello, I'm Owen, co-founder of Sava OS.

I think you've heard this a thousand times by now; "We spend most of our time on the web browser, yet nothing has changed." And then a "revolutionary" product comes out that puts our links & tabs collapsed on the side, with some extra features. Magical, right :)?

Well, we tried a lot of these products, and we also tried building one ourselves about 8years ago. But we felt like no UI can handle the same kind of organization our desktop can, and that's when the idea first came to our mind ~5years ago. For the past year, we worked on the side to build the MVP you see today. But along these years, a lot of thoughts kept popping up, and that's why this product has an OS in it's name (it's still cooking :).

Unlike other desktop-like products that are accessible on the browser, Sava OS is not only built and made to run natively on the web browser, but it actually has some useful features to help with your browsing management - and that's only the beginning.

There's still a lot to consider when it comes to shaping a modern, desktop-like UI that meets today's needs.. We’ve got some exciting ideas and aim to go beyond the traditional approach.

We would really love to hear your take on this.

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mzajc ◴[17 Oct 24 20:18 UTC] No.41873337[source]▶
I have given your service a try, and while the UX was impressive, I was bothered by an apparent lack of encryption. The landing page, the privacy policy, and your mission statement all make many mentions of encryption and security, yet (besides TLS) there doesn't seem to be any encryption going on as far as my browser is concerned.

I created a new folder, created a text file in the folder, and added some text to the file. The name of the folder, the text file, and the content itself were sent to the server unencrypted (besides TLS).

I'm sure your server encrypts the data immediately, but this adds unnecessary trust when client-side encryption could be employed. It also enables an attacker or a potential future operator to sniff the data before it is encrypted. That's no good!

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owenfar ◴[17 Oct 24 20:38 UTC] No.41873518[source]▶
This is a really good point and I have thought about this multiple times along the way. Web Crypto API seemed ideal, but it brought its own complexities, especially if you want to have quick access on multiple browsers/devices.

It's true that as it is, it still requires trust. We do have our own custom servers, and we made sure that no logs related to personal data are ever stored, and encryption is done on the application level before it is sent on the DB server.

This is something I want to see implemented 100%

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mzajc ◴[17 Oct 24 20:44 UTC] No.41873568[source]▶
Personally, I feel like the bold statements about encryption should be removed until this is implemented to avoid misleading users.

Out of curiosity, is the data encrypted with a client-provided secret (eg. a password hash, or something that would otherwise be impossible to extract from the server), or is the secret stored on the server?

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owenfar ◴[17 Oct 24 21:21 UTC] No.41873933[source]▶
I'm not sure I agree about it being a bold statement. Our description is very clear, and our approach is still much safer.

I see hundreds of products slapping "Encryption at rest" to make people believe their data is safe :) Yet, it's accessible by anyone that controls the server...

We also go further into details in the privacy page too.

The data cannot be decrypted without a client-provided secret. We'll make sure to be more transparent regarding all this.

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1. botanical76 ◴[17 Oct 24 23:26 UTC] No.41874829{3}[source]▶
In my opinion it is misleading. Your "privacy by default" section has three headings which claim encryption, and while none of them are false, you can still just log everything your server receives. This is less private than What's App, and it's marketed as an Operating System -- for everything that you do. I think it's worth considering moving the encryption to be done client-side as long as there are no performance concerns.