Analytical web reading
One part of the web 3.0 is to be able to annotate and share comments on the web. This article is my best try to find a nice open source privacy friendly tool. Spoiler: there aren't any :P
Process at the same time as you read⚑
The alternative I'm using so far is to process the data at the same time as I underline it.
- At the mobile/tablet you can split your screen and have Orgzly on one tab and the browser in the other. So that underlining, copy and paste doesn't break too much the workflow.
- At the eBook I underline it and post process it after.
The idea of using an underlining tool makes sense in the case to post process the content in a more efficient environment such as a laptop.
The use of Orgzly is kind of a preprocessing. If the underlining software can easily export the highlighted content along with the link to the source then it would be much quicker
The advantage of using Orgzly is also that it works today both online and offline and it is more privacy friendly.
Nunux keeper⚑
Looks good but it's kind of dead.
Diigo⚑
Cons:
- Saving each page and its annotations to your account and syncing it across devices.
Diigo is one of the oldest and most popular online annotation tools. Of course, it has changed a lot over the years, but it is a simple and reliable app to add highlights and comments to any web page at its core
Available as a Chrome extension or a bookmarklet for other browsers, Diigo is intuitive to use. Select any text on any article, and you can highlight it in one of four colors. You can also add a small note to the highlight or a floating note anywhere on the page. You can also share notes with collaborators, and you can change their colors too. As Diigo says in its help section, you might want to mentally assign a specific purpose to each color, thus keeping your highlights organized for your eyes
All annotations on a page can be seen quickly through the extension shortcut. You can also view and organize annotations in the web dashboard for Diigo. You can create groups in Diigo and share annotations and highlights with them and as PDFs.
Diigo is also a bookmark app, saving each page and its annotations to your account and syncing it across devices. On phones, Diigo is available as a standalone browser with many of the same features.
Smort⚑
Pros:
- Enables you to change the article contents itself, remove entire paragraphs or images, add text
- Maybe account less
Cons:
- no self hosted?
Smort enables you to change the article contents itself, remove entire paragraphs or images, add text, etc. And you don't need to install anything to do this either.
When you want to share any article, add "smort.io" before the URL and press Enter to open it in the Smort editor. Here, you can edit the article as you see fit, with a simple Markdown editor to change text and text formatting. Smort also supports highlights of four different colors, so you can add a note at the top of the article about what each color means. There are handy Undo and Redo buttons at the top if you make any mistakes
Once you've finished editing, click the Share button to generate a unique link that lasts for seven days from creation. After that, if you make further edits, you'll need to regenerate a new link and reshare.
Spade⚑
Cons:
- no self hosted?
- account
Spade is an excellent free tool to aid your research for essays and papers while keeping it private. It's a Chrome browser extension with annotation and highlighting abilities and a few other neat tricks like citations and machine-learning analysis
Once you install the extension, Spade appears as a little button in one of the four corners of every web page (customizable by you). Click the button to expand a toolbar that has an annotation pen to draw or scribble anywhere and a highlight marker. You can control the point size for each and choose from seven different colors. Spade also lets you form a text box anywhere on the page to write notes and has a simple eraser to take it all away. All these highlights are shared and synced to your Spade web account so that you can access them anywhere.
Hypothes.is⚑
Cons: - no self hosted yet
If you're working with a study group or a team on a research project that needs to share links with annotations, Hypothesis is as good as it gets. This Chrome extension is much lighter than others and focuses on the ability to collaborate. Plus, it's ad-free and has no hidden costs or restrictions.
All users will need to sign up for a Hypothesis account before installing the extension. Then, create a private group if you wish to keep your shares confidential with your friends, or use the default Public tab let anyone see the annotations
On any web page, you can select text to turn it into a highlight or an annotation (i.e., highlight with a note). Each of these shows up in your Hypothesis sidebar in chronological order for that page. Collaborators can add comments and reply to each annotation individually. You can also add a note on any page which appears in the Notes section.
The Hypothesis web dashboard makes it easy to search through all your highlights and notes. Along with a full-text search, you can add advanced operators (like username, group name, URL, or tag) to find what you're looking for quickly.
Liner⚑
Cons: - no self hosted? - account - ver y límites cree account
Liner is one of the best online annotation apps and has been for years, especially with its recent updates. Its broad support for different platforms makes it the go-to choice if you're switching between phones, tablets, and computers but need one place to collect all your highlights.
Once you create an account and log in, you can select any text to highlight it. You can also add a comment to any highlight and share this with friends and collaborators. The free basic account only lets you work with one color for the highlighter and limits you to 15 highlights per page. For more colors and unlimited highlights, you need the Premium package.
Readwise⚑
You can quickly store, organize, and revisit your ebook and article highlights with the help of the Readwise app. You can use it to arrange and go through the highlights of your ebooks and articles.
The software resurfaces your greatest highlights back to you at the appropriate moment with a daily email, all thanks to the scientific method known as Spaced Repetition.
You’ll be able to review and retain essential concepts from the books you’ve read in this manner. You can use it on both Android and iOS devices.
Matter⚑
Matter is a read-later app and a browser extension for highlighting and saving web pages. And it's almost perfect.
Once the extension is installed and linked to your Matter account, you click the button and select the Reader button that pops up.
That’s not to say Matter is perfect. By default, it publishes your highlights for others to follow, and if you switch off public sharing, the highlights turn dull blue instead of yellow.
It’s also a VC-funded service and, as such, subject to the usual perils. Your data could be sold at some point t in the future, or the company could be purchased by Google and shut down. You know how it works
Glasp⚑
Glasp is a “social web highlighter” for the desktop. This means that your highlights and notes in a web article will be available for public viewing by everyone who comes across your profile page or if they stumble upon the article you highlighted in their feed
