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Show HN: I built uFincs – a privacy-first, encrypted personal finance app

ufincs.com

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Re: Show HN: I built uFincs – a privacy-first, encrypted personal finance app

#21

Post by devinsit »

ahnick wrote: post #17
devinsit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely none at all! uFincs is all about manual entry (although CSV import + recurring transactions makes things a bit easier). I made a deliberate choice to not support any bank integrations for privacy reasons (although simplicity is also a big factor).

Not having integrations is a deal breaker for me. All of my financial information lives in other systems that I need to be able to import it into a single view that I can manage. There is no way I'm going back and manually entering all of that info. A privacy centric solution would store credentials for systems like plaid, bank accounts, etc. in the client on the OS keychain and open source that part of the code to b…

I totally understand that. And I knew, when making the decision to not do any integrations, that there's a ton of people just like you that value automating everything as much as possible.

But I also made the bet that there would be people just like me who value entering things manually. Certainly far fewer people, but hopefully still people.

In any case, I also hope that the app you described eventually gets built; certainly never hurts to have more privacy-friendly options available!

Re: Show HN: I built uFincs – a privacy-first, encrypted personal finance app

#22

Post by devinsit »

qshaman wrote: post #13
huhtenberg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy-first finance app should really have a self-hosted option front and center. That's not even negotiable. That's because otherwise the privacy property of the app hinges on a trust in vendor and the assumption that they won't serve some funny JS on the next page reload. The one and only way to address this is to provide a self-hosted, completely self-contained version. There's really no way around this. It's no…

https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#mon... . A bunch of self hosted alternatives, some of them with nice UI as well.

Firefly III (https://www.firefly-iii.org/) in particular is a pretty good self-hosted solution.

Re: Show HN: I built uFincs – a privacy-first, encrypted personal finance app

#23

Post by huhtenberg »

devinsit wrote: post #12
huhtenberg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy-first finance app should really have a self-hosted option front and center. That's not even negotiable. That's because otherwise the privacy property of the app hinges on a trust in vendor and the assumption that they won't serve some funny JS on the next page reload. The one and only way to address this is to provide a self-hosted, completely self-contained version. There's really no way around this. It's no…

Yep, I agree. If you want perfect security and a 100% trust-less solution, then uFincs certainly isn't it. But I like to think that, at least when put in contrast with other products on the market, choosing to do these privacy/security related things is better than not. I elaborate on this further in our security doc ( https://ufincs.com/policies/security#the-catch ) and the FAQ ( https://ufincs.com/faq#is-a-ufincs-a…

Well, the thing is that if you say "privacy-first", you are pitching to people who care about this sort of thing. For these people the fact that uFincs is not self-hosted is an instant no-go. And for people who don't see it as a problem, the privacy angle doesn't matter much either. See the disconnect? You have a good product, for sure, but the pitch needs a revision.

Re: Show HN: I built uFincs – a privacy-first, encrypted personal finance app

#24

Post by devinsit »

huhtenberg wrote: post #23
devinsit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I agree. If you want perfect security and a 100% trust-less solution, then uFincs certainly isn't it. But I like to think that, at least when put in contrast with other products on the market, choosing to do these privacy/security related things is better than not. I elaborate on this further in our security doc ( https://ufincs.com/policies/security#the-catch ) and the FAQ ( https://ufincs.com/faq#is-a-ufincs-a…

Well, the thing is that if you say "privacy-first", you are pitching to people who care about this sort of thing. For these people the fact that uFincs is not self-hosted is an instant no-go. And for people who don't see it as a problem, the privacy angle doesn't matter much either. See the disconnect? You have a good product, for sure, but the pitch needs a revision.

Oh I'm well aware of the disconnect. I just disagree that there are only people who care about privacy to the degree that they have to self-host everything. I believe there's room to ride the line between being 'privacy-first' (in that we care about privacy, first and foremost) and offering convenience (i.e. providing a web app).

I'm sure my customers who signed up with ProtonMail and Fastmail addresses can attest to that fact.

And for those who do fall all the way to the self-hosting side, well, there's plenty of other options on the market! Of course, there's nothing stopping us from being one of those options, it's just not our priority at this very moment.

Re: Show HN: I built uFincs – a privacy-first, encrypted personal finance app

#29

Post by qshaman »

devinsit wrote: post #15
qshaman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

privacy in what sense? the bank owns your data already, if you don't store any user data in the cloud, then is private by design, right? I was looking for something like this, but I do need auto import my transaction data, across all banks and brokers, etc. Offline first and only, ala Personal Capital, but secure and safe. Paying 20 bucks a month for the privilege of manual data entry is a bit much. There is a bunch…

Privacy in the sense that, while the bank may own your data already, third-parties like Plaid do not. And at least up in here Canada, we're a bit weaker on the whole 'bank API' system, so it generally turns into a wonderful game of "hand over your bank account credentials". Anyways, I definitely understand where you're coming from. Plenty of other products that do have bank integrations though, so at least of there's…

Plaid is own by Visa, but I get your point. As I said, wish you the best!

Re: Show HN: I built uFincs – a privacy-first, encrypted personal finance app

#30

Post by mathrando »

devinsit wrote: post #24
huhtenberg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the thing is that if you say "privacy-first", you are pitching to people who care about this sort of thing. For these people the fact that uFincs is not self-hosted is an instant no-go. And for people who don't see it as a problem, the privacy angle doesn't matter much either. See the disconnect? You have a good product, for sure, but the pitch needs a revision.

Oh I'm well aware of the disconnect. I just disagree that there are only people who care about privacy to the degree that they have to self-host everything. I believe there's room to ride the line between being 'privacy-first' (in that we care about privacy, first and foremost) and offering convenience (i.e. providing a web app). I'm sure my customers who signed up with ProtonMail and Fastmail addresses can attest to…

Why not team up with the ProtonMail people to build a browser extension that verifies and logs javascript sigs/hashes? Corporate clients may like it. Gives them an IOC for the next big supply chain issue.

I don't know enough about browsers or js to know if its difficult or not.

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