http://montaigne.io - made this one for myself. Just publishes website from Apple Notes. Every time time I update note on my laptop or iPhone the site is updated automatically.
Well, there is a fair amount of css wrapped in <style> tags. Not sure I understand the upside of not putting it in a separate file.
Though the look is reasonably pleasant.
Edit: The example blog also loads js, despite the "no javascript" claim. Like: <script src="https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js" data-site="WKWMFTPV" defer></script>. Perhaps that's not a default thing, but it seems odd to link to an example blog that doesn't match the sales pitch.
Creator here. So it may be a bit pedantic, but yes, there are styles (pure HTML isn't the most pleasant to read) but no external stylesheets.
I ran a bunch of tests when setting it up to see what loads faster and it turns out the <style> tag in the head, with such minimal styles outperformed external stylesheets (even though the browser can cache them). With styles so small once the html page is loaded (at 2-5kb gzipped) the styles are immediate, whereas even if retrieving from browser cache the html needs to load first before it can take effect.
The second bit with Fathom analytics is that users can optionally connect Fathom to their accounts (this is the only analytics tool you can connect since they have a track record of being trustworthy). But yes, it is technically included JS.
Inline CSS has the benefit of not making a second HTTP request, as well as (if I recall correctly) rendering the page styled from the get go, as opposed to once unstyled and once again when the CSS has finished downloading.
> Edit: The example blog also loads js, despite the "no javascript" claim. Like: <script src="https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js" data-site="WKWMFTPV" defer></script>. Perhaps that's not a default thing, but it seems odd to link to an example blog that doesn't match the sales pitch.
Probably safe to turn off, as uBlock Origins and other ad blocking solutions would, depending on your settings. So I guess in a way the site itself works just fine without JS enabled and doesn't require it, but the authors have chosen to add analytics to see who uses their site, then.
I use bearblog for my .dev website [1]. It's a one pager and works great for me.
I inject some CSS to make it work for me, i.e. fonts - and simple colors and I removed most of the "extra" pages because I wanted to keep it as a one pager.
It's a great platform and I wish there was a version where I could self host it like `hexo.js`
Thanks for your work herman!
[1] orlie.dev - Currently using it behind Cloudflare!
How is Google treating your website? I run a couple of pure/majority text only websites & I've noticed that Google favors websites with images/videos in them even if they copy your text content.
Not as snappy as I would have expected considering the 5KB pages. Not sure where it comes from but there is a very noticeable delay before the individual blog pages are rendered.
- "No trackers, no javascript, no stylesheets"
- inline js.
- inline stylesheets.
- uses favicon which can be used for tracking.
- not self hosted.
- requires an account to sign up
- "TOS" > "Bear may disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Terms of Service."
- can't be bothered to indent the html.
- payment system could require real identity.
I suspect what he means is "this is a safe space" in contrast to the open/hostile internet "out there", i.e. there is no nefarious intent. As you point out, this is really mostly virtue signalling (and probably well-meant). The fact that actually there is JS, there are trackable signals, your PII can and will be disclosed etc is sorta beside the point of sites like this.
Fyi, HN uses a limited version of markdown which doesn’t recognize standard markdown list syntax. If you want to make a bullet list, you have to put blank lines between each bullet point, like this:
——
- "No trackers, no javascript, no stylesheets"
- inline js.
- inline stylesheets.
- uses favicon which can be used for tracking.
- not self hosted.
- requires an account to sign up
- "TOS" > "Bear may disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Terms of Service."
It uses styling in a style tag and doesn't make a second call to an external stylesheet. So it has styling (although very little of it), not stylesheets.
I think this is being pedantic. There are styles in a <style> tag (cause it turns out pure HTML doesn't read so well). It doesn't have external stylesheets, however.
I like the idea, but to echo another comment, the hardest part of running a blog is not selecting the blogging engine or how to host it. The hardest part is keeping new posts flowing through the engine.
What blogging platforms focus on this side of things? Which ones help solve the "What do I write next?" problem?
If you have nothing to write about, you should not write; Not write about nothing.
You should write about nothing though, it's a good writing exercise. Just maybe don't publish it? Publish what you write after that, when you know what to write about.
The hard part of forever isn't picking the right technology, it's keeping the content available online.
You can't self-host this. So unless your bank account is designed to pay for the URL, hosting, and keeping the project up to date forever, you're just lying to lock people into your platform.
Besides being exceedingly, aggressively negative and paranoid, this also doesn’t make sense at all. Why would they build this niche thing, make it explicitly privacy-focused, and target it to an audience who surely will notice any abuse?
The simplicity of this is awesome. I've vaguely wanted to start blogging for many years, but suffered from analysis paralysis on where/how to get started. This was so simple -- took me less than 2 minutes to get set up and start writing. Thanks for making this!
Big fan of Bear Blog. I'm just starting my own, and decided to modify some of the default Bear styles/web components by using Cloudflare Workers: https://blog.willswire.com
This looks really cool. No reason to switch from my self-hosted Hugo setup, but if I was just starting out with blogging I'd be happy to have this available vs the bloated Wordpress site I started out with in the beginning.
Why not host it for free through Github Pages? They only host static sites so it's technically quite different to your blog... but if you are only going to be blogging it may as well be a static site IMO.
Edit: I do like how neat it sounds to just query a user's public Gists though.
I went down this rabbithole. Comment systems suck and you will get an amazing amount of spam.
I keep a Contact page with various ways to reach me if you really want to chat about something. It's rare when folks chat me up but it's always a good convo when it happens.
Creator of Bear here. It was actually a design decision to not add comments as commenting on blogs is generally useless (the comments happen on the places where you post your content like HN, or social media). It is also very easy to be exploited by spammers so requires constant attention.
[+] [-] podviaznikov|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hombre_fatal|3 years ago|reply
After getting burned out of blogging after maintaining my own platform (instead of just writing), something like this is appealing to me.
[+] [-] janandonly|3 years ago|reply
Is it possible for others to use this as well ?
[+] [-] kikkoi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dannyphantom|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tyingq|3 years ago|reply
Well, there is a fair amount of css wrapped in <style> tags. Not sure I understand the upside of not putting it in a separate file.
Though the look is reasonably pleasant.
Edit: The example blog also loads js, despite the "no javascript" claim. Like: <script src="https://cdn.usefathom.com/script.js" data-site="WKWMFTPV" defer></script>. Perhaps that's not a default thing, but it seems odd to link to an example blog that doesn't match the sales pitch.
[+] [-] HermanMartinus|3 years ago|reply
I ran a bunch of tests when setting it up to see what loads faster and it turns out the <style> tag in the head, with such minimal styles outperformed external stylesheets (even though the browser can cache them). With styles so small once the html page is loaded (at 2-5kb gzipped) the styles are immediate, whereas even if retrieving from browser cache the html needs to load first before it can take effect.
The second bit with Fathom analytics is that users can optionally connect Fathom to their accounts (this is the only analytics tool you can connect since they have a track record of being trustworthy). But yes, it is technically included JS.
[+] [-] Kaze404|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KronisLV|3 years ago|reply
Seems like this is loading Fathom analytics: https://usefathom.com/
Probably safe to turn off, as uBlock Origins and other ad blocking solutions would, depending on your settings. So I guess in a way the site itself works just fine without JS enabled and doesn't require it, but the authors have chosen to add analytics to see who uses their site, then.
[+] [-] twohaibei|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] orliesaurus|3 years ago|reply
I inject some CSS to make it work for me, i.e. fonts - and simple colors and I removed most of the "extra" pages because I wanted to keep it as a one pager. It's a great platform and I wish there was a version where I could self host it like `hexo.js`
Thanks for your work herman!
[1] orlie.dev - Currently using it behind Cloudflare!
[+] [-] Abishek_Muthian|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donio|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bearzdev|3 years ago|reply
- "No trackers, no javascript, no stylesheets" - inline js. - inline stylesheets. - uses favicon which can be used for tracking. - not self hosted. - requires an account to sign up - "TOS" > "Bear may disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Terms of Service." - can't be bothered to indent the html. - payment system could require real identity.
[+] [-] popcorncowboy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IshKebab|3 years ago|reply
As far as I understand bitcoin is mostly useless for actual payment these days.
[+] [-] SkyMarshal|3 years ago|reply
——
- "No trackers, no javascript, no stylesheets"
- inline js.
- inline stylesheets.
- uses favicon which can be used for tracking.
- not self hosted.
- requires an account to sign up
- "TOS" > "Bear may disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Terms of Service."
- can't be bothered to indent the html.
- payment system could require real identity
[+] [-] jer0me|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] janandonly|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] numlock86|3 years ago|reply
> uses stylesheets anyway
I don't get this part.
[+] [-] HermanMartinus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] indymike|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HermanMartinus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akmittal|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Barrera|3 years ago|reply
What blogging platforms focus on this side of things? Which ones help solve the "What do I write next?" problem?
[+] [-] hypertele-Xii|3 years ago|reply
You should write about nothing though, it's a good writing exercise. Just maybe don't publish it? Publish what you write after that, when you know what to write about.
[+] [-] muglug|3 years ago|reply
The hardest part of a blog is actually filling it with compelling content — research, writing and editing.
[+] [-] amelius|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sureglymop|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spicybright|3 years ago|reply
The hard part of forever isn't picking the right technology, it's keeping the content available online.
You can't self-host this. So unless your bank account is designed to pay for the URL, hosting, and keeping the project up to date forever, you're just lying to lock people into your platform.
[+] [-] eyelidlessness|3 years ago|reply
Besides being exceedingly, aggressively negative and paranoid, this also doesn’t make sense at all. Why would they build this niche thing, make it explicitly privacy-focused, and target it to an audience who surely will notice any abuse?
[+] [-] trykondev|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willswire|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johndhi|3 years ago|reply
Was annoyed I'd have to pay to have a custom domain but seeing it's a one time payment and not a subscription, I am probably on board.
Personally the minimalism is what drew me more than privacy stuff.
[+] [-] drakonka|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tarr11|3 years ago|reply
https://obsidian.md/publish
[+] [-] awestroke|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] julianlam|3 years ago|reply
https://devnull.land/github-gist-blog
I only feel sort of bad that I basically use Gist as my data store.
[+] [-] staindk|3 years ago|reply
Edit: I do like how neat it sounds to just query a user's public Gists though.
https://pages.github.com/
[+] [-] recroad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hsn915|3 years ago|reply
Comments on blogs is the whole point of posting things on the internet. That and forums and chat.
[+] [-] vorpalhex|3 years ago|reply
I keep a Contact page with various ways to reach me if you really want to chat about something. It's rare when folks chat me up but it's always a good convo when it happens.
[+] [-] HermanMartinus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]