The Quill

[Jackarandajam]

The Quill: A secure, online novel writing app

Try the new online novel writing app designed to help you write your manuscript without distraction. Write Fearlessly, without losing a single word.

thequill.app

Has anyone ever used this? It looks like a mix between Scrivener and Drive

 

[pmmg]

I do not use it. I would challenge him on the security, but I suppose its as good as any.

Given the write up on the Our Story page, I would consider using it, but...I am already set in my ways.

I'll say only, I might look at it in more depth and see what it has.

 

[pmmg]

Hmmm...First thing. I dont use Gmail, facebook or twitter, but I need those to create an account. I would prefer a straight login. Already, it would make me have to use tools I dont use to use it.

So...I am going to question his security Cause thats a very IT guy thing to do, think the security matters most.

With me, it doesn't. I dont care how encrypted it is. My fear of a hacker breaking in and stealing my work is small. My greater fear is other writers seeing my work on a review site doing so...but there, the security would not have mattered. The whole being encrypted does not matter, cause he has the server, and the server has the keys. If a hacker cracks the server, they will have the keys too. And if he decides to do something, like...train an AI, all that encryption wont keep our stuff out of it.

I dont really suspect he will, but he puts some focus on it, and that is not a strong concern of mine. I am more concerned with formatting, ease of use, customization of the screen, and it extra's. I'm pretty bare bones, so I dont really care about chapters, and notes tabs, but if you clutter my screen up with it, I move on. Just a plain old bare bones writing screen for me, thanks.

 

[Jackarandajam]

I do not use it. I would challenge him on the security, but I suppose its as good as any.

Given the write up on the Our Story page, I would consider using it, but...I am already set in my ways.

I'll say only, I might look at it in more depth and see what it has.

I actually stumbled across it looking for a more secure cloud than Google Drive. I keep getting requests to view the documents I have stored there and it's making me nervous.

It's not bringing alot to the table for me, personally. I haven't tried using the novel organization tools like scrivener much, but so far I find them mostly distracting and a lot of the tools unnecessary.

If it gets rave reviews from users I'd consider giving it a shot though.

 

[pmmg]

Well...it does have the bare bones look I would look for, and if i can customize the screen...that makes it more attractive.

I am one of those who emails docs back and forth. It could save me doing that. But the login already annoys me. I dont want to have to go look at my Gmail.

 

[Prince of Spires]

The fact that they have no pricing listed is a big red flag for me, for 2 reasons.

The first is that the fastest way to go out of business is to have no way of making money. It's nice that you immediately back up your work. But if they go bankrupt and their servers are shut down, then you still lose all your work.

The second is that you have no idea what they'll charge once they do start charging. Are you willing to pay $10 per month for a writing app? How about $20? Or $50? I doubt they'd go that high, but there's no way to know for sure. And if you don't even have any indication of what they might charge, there's no way of knowing if it's for you.

As for more secure than Google Drive, what exactly are you missing security wise? I do think that you're also overestimating their security and underestimating Google's. Google has more people working on security than the whole of The Quill employs. And as for 256-bit AES encryption, it sounds fancy, but it's probably an off-the-shelf security protocol layered on top of the server. Which are nice, but nothing special, and nothing Google can't do better. If they would be able to create their own security protocols, then they'd be selling those, not writing software.

 

[Jackarandajam]

As for more secure than Google Drive, what exactly are you missing security wise? I do think that you're also overestimating their security and underestimating Google's. Google has more people working on security than the whole of The Quill employs. And as for 256-bit AES encryption, it sounds fancy, but it's probably an off-the-shelf security protocol layered on top of the server. Which are nice, but nothing special, and nothing Google can't do better. If they would be able to create their own security protocols, then they'd be selling those, not writing software.

256-bit AES is industry standard and the same that Google uses. Probably plenty for writing unless you're Stephen King and subject to be specifically targeted, but not the best for personal data. Googles privacy policy is the problem; your data could be accessible by Google employees and algorithms.
I think Google offers double encryption, but they do not offer zero-knowledge encryption. A lot of other cloud storage providers do.
Some cloud storage providers are so good at protecting your personal information that they're banned in the USA. Riddle me that.

Like I said about Drive:

I keep getting requests to view the documents I have stored there and it's making me nervous.

I'm no James Bond and don't have any more sensitive information in storage than the next guy, but the reason I have stuff in storage isn't because posting it to a social media profile takes too much time, it's because it's private, and I don't want people poking through it any more than I want people fingering through my file cabinet at home.

Anyway, my point was their encryption standard is the same as Googles, so that isn't bringing anything new or shiny to the table.

 

[pmmg]

Just a followup. I thought i might try this, but at work, I dont want to start an account and attach to Facebook or Gmail and such.

So, at home, I setup an account, and looked at it for around 5 mins. Back at work...guess what, I still cant use that account unless I connect my work machine to it using facebook or gmail. So....I think the login system will keep me from it. I dont want to connect a bunch of strange computers to my stuff. And I see no reason to really give them access to it. If its not a straight login, I dont want it.