Neglect Google Docs, Canadian-made cDox might be your new place to put in writing

With the dumpster fireplace south of the border getting worse each day, there’s been a whole lot of discuss in Canada about knowledge sovereignty. You might need heard the time period thrown round. Perhaps you haven’t. However in case you use any tech, knowledge sovereignty in all probability issues extra to you than you understand.

At a fundamental degree, the idea is about which nation’s legal guidelines apply to knowledge — legal guidelines that decide who can entry knowledge, the way it’s protected, and extra. That’s notably necessary in present instances, when many people depend on merchandise from U.S. tech giants. Merchandise that retailer our knowledge within the U.S., the place it’s topic to U.S. legislation, managed by corporations which might be more and more allying with U.S. President Trump.

Which may trigger you some alarm. Understandably so — it freaks me out! Serious about simply how a lot of my private {and professional} knowledge is already within the fingers of U.S. tech, and the doable repercussions of that, it’s a bit scary. I do know I’m not alone — I’ve seen increasingly individuals focus on shifting away from U.S. tech, and there are a rising variety of alternate options on the market for every kind of apps and providers, and loads of wonderful assets for individuals trying to get off U.S. tech.

One which caught my consideration was cDox, a Canadian-made, Canadian-hosted, web-based writing platform much like Google Docs. And for me, it has more and more changed Google Docs and Microsoft Phrase as my go-to place to put in writing.

A extra personal place to put in writing

I’ve been utilizing Google Docs just about because it launched in 2006. It’s an extremely handy and highly effective instrument that underpinned a lot of my schooling and later skilled work. Again after I was in class, Docs was the last word collaboration instrument for engaged on initiatives with classmates. Free, accessible to anybody with an online browser, with real-time modifying by many individuals.

Even after college, after I began working at MobileSyrup full-time, Docs was integral to my workflow. Nearly each longform story I’ve written — opinions, interviews, every part — in some unspecified time in the future existed as a Google Doc. A serious a part of why I preserve going again to Docs is the modifying options, permitting me to get near-instant suggestions from my editors or, now that I’m the editor, providing suggestions rapidly on the work my writers submit.

Enter cDox, which covers lots of the similar options as Google Docs whereas being completely Canadian. Created by Canadian designer and developer Barry Lachapelle and hosted in Montreal, cDox presents a lot of the comfort of Google Docs — web-based, accessible, free — with some further upsides like knowledge sovereignty and privateness. cDox guarantees to not practice AI fashions in your writing or promote your knowledge. It’s actually compelling.

cDox editor interface. | Picture credit score: cDox.

I’ve been utilizing cDox as my primary place to put in writing for a pair weeks now, and to date, it’s been incredible. Apart from one small hiccup with getting logged out whereas working (one thing Lachapelle was fast to repair), cDox has been dependable and flawless.

I really like the easy interface, which will get out of my method and lets me deal with writing with out sacrificing helpful instruments. cDox helps including photographs and hyperlinks, highlighting textual content, commenting, and extra. You’ll be able to even publicly publish cDox paperwork, making them straightforward to share with only a URL, and cDox supplies loads of export choices if you want to take your work elsewhere — PDFs, Markdown, even a Phrase doc in case you want it.

Getting higher each day

cDox dashboard. | Picture credit score: cDox.

There’s quite a bit to like about cDox, but it surely’s not good. It’s lacking some options, a few of which is likely to be dealbreakers for some individuals, others may simply be inconvenient. And in just a few circumstances, it’s only a matter of time till Lachapelle provides them in. For me, collaboration is without doubt one of the greatest issues that’s lacking in comparison with Google Docs, but it surely’s additionally one thing that’s on the checklist of upcoming options for cDox.

cDox additionally doesn’t have an app — it’s all web-based, for now. A FAQ part on the cDox web site notes the web-only interface is “by design” as a part of an effort to scale back reliance on large tech. That mentioned, downloadable desktop apps are within the cDox roadmap and, earlier this month, cDox gained a terminal command that enables Mac, Home windows, and Linux customers to construct cDox as a desktop app.

Different upcoming options embrace search, knowledge tables, dictionary and thesaurus, keyboard shortcuts, and extra. Lachapelle is shifting rapidly — even simply since I began utilizing cDox, a number of options and updates have come on-line.

Lastly, there’s the problem of value and storage. At the moment, cDox is free however caps customers at 50MB of storage. It doesn’t sound like a lot, although whenever you’re working with simply textual content, it goes a great distance. cDox will ultimately have paid subscriptions, which presumably will embrace further storage, however that’s not prepared but.

Regardless of all this, cDox continues to be extraordinarily promising. As a easy, web-based writing platform, it’s already wonderful and quickly getting higher. I write all day, each day, and cDox is without doubt one of the higher locations I’ve discovered to spend that point. And whereas it won’t have all of the options that Google Docs or Microsoft Phrase have, it will get impressively shut.

If you happen to spend a whole lot of time writing, and also you need someplace you possibly can write that isn’t tied into U.S. large tech, cDox is completely price a shot. You’ll be able to attempt it free of charge from any net browser.