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Yes, that's something I'd love to do differently. The problem is I don't have the technical skills to build that website myself. As I said in the cookie banner,

by Clo_S 6y ago

Yes, that's something I'd love to do differently. The problem is I don't have the technical skills to build that website myself. As I said in the cookie banner, I disabled all the trackers I could. Unfortunately, Squarespace doesn't let its customers disable all of them, which is extremely annoying.

Karunamon 6y ago
You may wish to give Wordpress a look. It's infamously easy to install, and will happily run on a $5/month digitalocean VM. Installing a caching addon (one or two clicks from the store) will make a site that can survive being linked to directly on HN. Last I knew Squarespace had an export option, so you might be able to just bring all your content over without much hassle.
- leakr 6y ago
  Unfortunately WordPress is a pain in the butt to maintain, every plugin and even the core is a security liability if you don't auto update everything (which is likely to randomly wreck your blog someday) and Wordpress's default configuration (with its XMLRPC API) is far from perfect.
- Clo_S 6y ago
  Thanks! I had a WP site before, but it was getting too complicated for me. I have basic CSS skills, but they weren't enough so I was always asking my SO for help. I had plugins to update but I was never sure of how safe they were, if they were going to break the site, etc. With the skills I have, something like Squarespace is more manageable and easier to tailor
  - user5994461 6y ago
    Get a fully managed wordpress from wordpress.com. That will cost you a few dollars per month and you won't have to manage Linux/PHP/SQL or any plugin. There is a bunch of themes included that look pretty good overall. GitHub Pages are also a good suggestion but they don't come with comments, stats or themes. There's quite a bit of development and design to do to match squarespace/wordpress.
mrmonkeyman 6y ago
Then you don't. Like you don't build a car yourself.
mhh__ 6y ago
I would have a look at GitHub pages, for a static site it's really all you need (blog, right?) I haven't actually used it for anything yet but I have a script that turns LaTeX into nice looking HTML pages, saves messing around with the CSS for hours.
- Clo_S 6y ago
  Thanks! I've heard of GitHub pages, and yes I just need a static site. I'd have to look if I can allow newsletter subscription with GitHub pages.
  - jedimastert 6y ago
    You could try MailChimp. I've used it for a few gigs
StavrosK 6y ago
You may like Quick Site (https://quicksite.stavros.io/ https://quicksite.stavros.io/), which I made for exactly this purpose.
- Clo_S 6y ago
  Thank you! I've bookmarked it, I'll look at it with my SO, he's the more technical one :D
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Great, hopefully it won't be too hard to set up.
- zygy 6y ago
  Nice work, this looks cool!
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Thanks!
msc1 6y ago
I liked your article, why don't you check out Ghost? I can help you spin up a VPS and a Ghost blog if you like in an hour, pro bono of course. https://ghost.org/marketplace/ https://ghost.org/marketplace/
- addajones 6y ago
  I would love info on this, I only see their plans. Thank you!
- Clo_S 6y ago
  Thank you! I've heard of Ghost but it seemed to be only for blogs, so I didn't think it'd fit. I'll check it again.
- leakr 6y ago
  Ghost is pretty neat! It's self-hosted solution though, which means that you have to update your OS and the software (Ghost related or not) on it regularly if you don't want it to be vulnerable which isn't ideal if you're not technical and don't want to deal with this.
tremon 6y ago
I guess the cookie banner only shows up after enabling javascript; at least, I never noticed it (reader mode worked fine for rendering the text). As for the content, I think it's a bit all over the place. You start with references to abuses of vast data stores, and then immediately jump into a technical exposé of personal protective measures, but the introduced concepts have no relation to each other, nor do they appear to protect against the abuses that you started out with. What was/is your intended audience?
actiondoes 6y ago
If you value privacy and want to post your voice anonymously online, then don't use or even support tools that you cannot understand. Who cares if things dont look "professional". If they are professional then they probably were created by someone you don't know with intentions you don't know. A perfect blogging site in my mind is one that you own, hosted using a domain with privacy protection and is written in code that you can understand. Basic code knowledge is a must if you want privacy

by Clo_S 6y ago

Karunamon 6y ago

You may wish to give Wordpress a look. It's infamously easy to install, and will happily run on a $5/month digitalocean VM. Installing a caching addon (one or two clicks from the store) will make a site that can survive being linked to directly on HN. Last I knew Squarespace had an export option, so you might be able to just bring all your content over without much hassle.

leakr 6y ago
Unfortunately WordPress is a pain in the butt to maintain, every plugin and even the core is a security liability if you don't auto update everything (which is likely to randomly wreck your blog someday) and Wordpress's default configuration (with its XMLRPC API) is far from perfect.
Clo_S 6y ago
Thanks! I had a WP site before, but it was getting too complicated for me. I have basic CSS skills, but they weren't enough so I was always asking my SO for help. I had plugins to update but I was never sure of how safe they were, if they were going to break the site, etc. With the skills I have, something like Squarespace is more manageable and easier to tailor
- user5994461 6y ago
  Get a fully managed wordpress from wordpress.com. That will cost you a few dollars per month and you won't have to manage Linux/PHP/SQL or any plugin. There is a bunch of themes included that look pretty good overall. GitHub Pages are also a good suggestion but they don't come with comments, stats or themes. There's quite a bit of development and design to do to match squarespace/wordpress.

mrmonkeyman 6y ago

Then you don't. Like you don't build a car yourself.

mhh__ 6y ago

I would have a look at GitHub pages, for a static site it's really all you need (blog, right?) I haven't actually used it for anything yet but I have a script that turns LaTeX into nice looking HTML pages, saves messing around with the CSS for hours.

Clo_S 6y ago
Thanks! I've heard of GitHub pages, and yes I just need a static site. I'd have to look if I can allow newsletter subscription with GitHub pages.
- jedimastert 6y ago
  You could try MailChimp. I've used it for a few gigs

StavrosK 6y ago

You may like Quick Site (https://quicksite.stavros.io/ https://quicksite.stavros.io/), which I made for exactly this purpose.

Clo_S 6y ago
Thank you! I've bookmarked it, I'll look at it with my SO, he's the more technical one :D
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Great, hopefully it won't be too hard to set up.
zygy 6y ago
Nice work, this looks cool!
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Thanks!

msc1 6y ago

I liked your article, why don't you check out Ghost? I can help you spin up a VPS and a Ghost blog if you like in an hour, pro bono of course. https://ghost.org/marketplace/ https://ghost.org/marketplace/

addajones 6y ago
I would love info on this, I only see their plans. Thank you!
Clo_S 6y ago
Thank you! I've heard of Ghost but it seemed to be only for blogs, so I didn't think it'd fit. I'll check it again.
leakr 6y ago
Ghost is pretty neat! It's self-hosted solution though, which means that you have to update your OS and the software (Ghost related or not) on it regularly if you don't want it to be vulnerable which isn't ideal if you're not technical and don't want to deal with this.

tremon 6y ago

I guess the cookie banner only shows up after enabling javascript; at least, I never noticed it (reader mode worked fine for rendering the text). As for the content, I think it's a bit all over the place. You start with references to abuses of vast data stores, and then immediately jump into a technical exposé of personal protective measures, but the introduced concepts have no relation to each other, nor do they appear to protect against the abuses that you started out with. What was/is your intended audience?

actiondoes 6y ago

If you value privacy and want to post your voice anonymously online, then don't use or even support tools that you cannot understand. Who cares if things dont look "professional". If they are professional then they probably were created by someone you don't know with intentions you don't know. A perfect blogging site in my mind is one that you own, hosted using a domain with privacy protection and is written in code that you can understand. Basic code knowledge is a must if you want privacy