• The main features of NoorNote
• Multi-platform capability
• “Everything App”
  • Marketplace
  • FollowPacks and zap.streams
  • Lists
• Easy onboarding
• Other gimmicks and goodies
  • Extended Follow Lists
  • Hashtag Subscriptions
  • Profile Recognition
  • Notification Priorities
• Conclusion

NoorNote is a Nostr client built for full sovereignty: desktop-first, no app stores, three platforms from one codebase.

I presented it last week at the @5vs9…wsy7 in Texas, but had to cut the talk short. This article wraps up what I didn’t get to.

§The main features of NoorNote

Just a quick reminder for those who were there.

The two main features I’ve focused on while developing NoorNote are:

• full sovereignty
• everything in one client, especially the other stuff area

§Multi-platform capability

Unlike most other Nostr clients, NoorNote was developed desktop-first. Desktop computers are the only platform that still guarantees full ownership and sovereignty. A pure web app makes the user dependent on the website operator and the domain. We’ve seen it happen plenty of times, like when an SSL certificate wasn’t renewed on time and a client was unreachable for days. And any domain can be shut down by authorities whenever they decide to.

Distributing your client through Apple’s and Google’s app stores makes you vulnerable and your users dependent on those tech giants for updates. That’s why NoorNote is only available in the @Zapstore or as a direct APK download at https://noornote.app/download/. I know that’s not optimal for spreading NoorNote, but you have to stick to your principles. Otherwise you lose credibility fast if you preach sovereignty on one hand and then sacrifice it for your own gain by routing your users through Google and Apple.

Only the desktop version guarantees full ownership of the client: download it, and no one can take it away from you. Apple could theoretically disable or uninstall it remotely, but as far as I know they’ve never done that. On Linux it’s not possible at all, which is why it’s the preferred platform.

The desktop version also installs a key signer, NoorSigner at https://github.com/77elements/noorsigner, directly on the system. It’s a standalone program written in Go that lives only on the local machine and has no outbound network access at all. It communicates with NoorNote over a local Unix Domain Socket and exposes an API that the client, or any other desktop Nostr client, can drive. NoorNote itself never sees your nsec; it’s passed once through the UI to NoorSigner during setup, and from then on, NoorSigner signs all outgoing events. If you don’t trust it, you can disable NoorNote’s control in the key signer settings and operate NoorSigner directly from the terminal.

NoorNote can be used in a fully sovereign way on Linux computers and under GrapheneOS, installed through @Zapstore or as a direct APK download.

That’s the direction the effort is heading. Technically, it would be much easier to just maintain a web and mobile version, but the desktop version matters too much to skip. NoorNote is also the only Nostr client right now that runs on desktop (Linux and Mac), on the web (at noornote.app), and on mobile phones (a Google services free app, tailored to GrapheneOS but also functional on regular Android). Three platforms, one codebase.

§“Everything App”

The other aspect, the everything app idea so to speak, treats the other stuff part of Nostr as a first-class citizen inside one client. It even tries to connect those parts to each other and solve UX problems along the way.

§Marketplace

The best known NIP-99 marketplaces are at shopstr.store and plebeian.market. Web servers and domains again, both of which can be taken down. Besides, how often do you actually visit them? And how easily can you tell which of the people you follow is selling what? NoorNote bridges this by bringing products from your follows directly into your timeline, right where you read your notes.

§FollowPacks and zap.streams

Same story for FollowPacks and zap.stream live streams. No need to visit the website, everything’s right inside NoorNote.

§Lists

The NIP-51 lists are a special feature with a lot of potential. They let you categorize items, which appear as folders in NoorNote. You can simply drag and drop existing bookmarks into a folder to categorize them. For Tribes, you can add specific users to an existing tribe folder directly from their profile page. But bookmark and tribe lists can do a whole lot more. You can mount bookmark folders on your own profile too. Those folders can hold any kind of bookmark item: your most popular posts, articles you’ve curated yourself, products you’re selling on the NIP-99 marketplace, or a plain list of links to your portfolio. Plenty of possibilities here. Other NoorNote users can see these lists on your profile page if you mount them there.

You can bookmark all sorts of things, not just regular Nostr posts. That includes simple web links, long-form articles, marketplace products, and more. Every supported event type can be bookmarked. This turns bookmarks into a real workhorse and expands how you can use them. You can also set your follows, bookmarks, and mutes to private if you want a little more discretion around that.

Tribes lists contain other Nostr users as their items. You can group people thematically, as ‘friends’ or ‘developers’ or whatever, put them into a Tribes folder, and then read their posts in a dedicated timeline without ever having to follow any of them. So Tribes essentially create alternative timelines. This makes follower counts and private follows steadily less relevant. They shouldn’t be relevant on Nostr anyway, because unlike legacy social media there’s no algorithm that boosts posts from accounts with many followers over those with few.

And the special thing about all these lists is that they also support local backups straight to your hard drive. If something ever goes wrong, you can restore from your backup file anytime. One click on “Backup List to File” and you’ve got the corresponding list saved as JSON on your hard drive. The hard drive in general is an important element for self-sovereignty. That way, you don’t have to rely solely on relays for things that matter, since relays can also sync damaged lists in an instant. The hard drive is the right, uncompromising, isolated solution for immutable backups.

§Easy onboarding

NoorNote leans toward advanced Nostr users it seems, but I’m trying to accommodate beginners too. For example with an onboarding wizard that sets the user up right away with everything they need for a full Nostr experience. From key pairs, to follow suggestions based on FollowPacks, all the way to a Lightning wallet for zapping. You reach this wizard from the welcome screen.

Of course I make some opinionated pre-selections there, like for the Lightning provider. But I stand by them and don’t rule out changing them when a situation calls for it. Naturally every Nostr beginner can still make their own choice. Always.

The point of the wizard is that it walks them through everything a beginner usually doesn’t realize they should configure: setting up a Lightning wallet and the matching browser addon, explicitly setting inbox relays for NIP-17 DMs, or following users from the Follow Packs so the timeline isn’t empty on day one. The wizard takes those tasks off their hands and ensures a Nostr beginner is fully equipped from the beginning, ready to get started.

§Other gimmicks and goodies

§Extended Follow Lists

Three of the lists, Bookmarks, Mutes, and Tribes, are NIP-51 lists. The Follows list is NIP-02 with kind 3 events for compatibility reasons. Even so, I wanted to experiment a bit with this NIP-02 list and make something more out of it. If you enable Extended Follows in the addons, this list gets expanded with some additional functions. For example, you see the mutual status, who follows you back and who doesn’t. There’s a search function for when you want to look for a specific user, a check that detects whether anything in mutual status has changed, and a sort function that orders the follows list descending by total zaps received.

§Hashtag Subscriptions

Hashtag subscriptions are great for keeping an eye on certain hashtags or words, whether they carry the hash sign or not. Interested in astronomy? Set up some keywords to see who’s talking about it. You may find your circle of interest more easily that way. Or maybe you just want to see who’s mentioning you without an explicit @-mention. If your name is somewhat unique, that works just as well.

§Profile Recognition

Sometimes Nostr users just radically change their usernames and profile pictures, since the only identifier is the npub. But who remembers that? With all the widespread anonymization, it can get hard to recognize someone you follow once they’ve changed their look. The Profile Recognition addon helps out by setting an anchor point: it saves the username and profile picture when you first follow someone, then alternates between the old and new profile info from every change onward. For as long as you need to get used to the new look, or forever.

§Notification Priorities

Notification Priorities determine how different notifications should appear. You set the types of notifications yourself using drag and drop across three possible indicators: pulsating for priority 1, normal for priority 2, and de-emphasized (an empty circle) for priority 3. For example, a reply to your post might matter more to you than a new mention picked up by the Hashtag Subscriptions addon.

§Conclusion

I could list more special NoorNote features here. This is just a small excerpt. Anyone who actively uses it will discover plenty of functions you won’t find in any other Nostr client. And there’s still room for more, because despite all of it, NoorNote on mobile is currently only about 13 MB in size.

I’ve been developing NoorNote in my free time for 7 to 8 months now, solo. No team, no seed funding, no outside support. It’s a full-time job that often stretches into the early morning hours.

Any kind of support is welcome, even if it’s just a public mention because you like NoorNote.

Personally, I’m looking forward to NoorNote’s future, because I see everything implemented so far as just the basics. After all, it’s still a 0.x version, generally considered beta. But I dream big, not necessarily in terms of success, but in terms of creating a Nostr client that I can work with comfortably and that genuinely delivers full sovereignty to every NoorNote user.