Well, to give them the benefit of doubt, this monitoring could be done in a (more or less) privacy sensitive way, e.g. by analyzing the frequency spectrum of the audio input without actually recording or transmitting it, or as others have suggested, maybe they're just checking if the microphone is in use. And for the network they're apparently only monitoring the ports, not the actual data. But still, it sounds like a feature for which they should provide an option to turn it off - or, even better, make it opt-in.
Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network
11–20 of 175 posts
Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network
#12They only check if your mic is on, not what you're saying (they can't hear you unless you've granted mic permission). They also look at your network traffic to see if audio is being sent (otherwise you can get a lot of false positives). Using mic + network data is a common way to spot meetings -- my app LookAway[0] does something similar to pause reminders during calls. [0]: https://lookaway.app
I thought you had to give explicit permission for an app to monitor network traffic in macOS? I'm assuming your app asks for this, but it sounds like Notion does not if the GP was surprised by the monitoring.
My Notion install (macOS) asked to discover devices on my network. I'm assuming this permission is related to "monitoring network traffic".
Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network
#13If anyone is looking for an alternative to Notion without the bloat,
I’m building https://docmost.com.
It has a nice UI, real-time collaboration, diagrams support and more.
You can self-host it too.
Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network
#14I’ve come to hate Notion with passion because of its abysmal performance, but I still pay for it for my small business. My non-technical employees use it as a database for clients, tasks, payments etc. I tried to research replacements several times, and still haven’t found anything good. Sometimes I wonder if I should build my own.
NocoDB perhaps? It's not a document-focused system, but you said they use it more as a database.
Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network
#15I’ve come to hate Notion with passion because of its abysmal performance, but I still pay for it for my small business. My non-technical employees use it as a database for clients, tasks, payments etc. I tried to research replacements several times, and still haven’t found anything good. Sometimes I wonder if I should build my own.
I really like Notion’s information architecture (in particular the top index pages) and its multi-user capability.
I tried some other tools like Confluence and Obsidian but like you say, there seems to be no match from a UX perspective.
Do I love Notion? Definitely not. Would I change to another tool with the same feature set? Instantly.
Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network
#16This is an unintended benefit of being on a Linux workstation - the only client available is the browser.
This kind of thing is one of many reasons I refuse to install Zoom/Discord/etc apps. Stay in your sandboxed browser tab.
Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network
#17I’ve come to hate Notion with passion because of its abysmal performance, but I still pay for it for my small business. My non-technical employees use it as a database for clients, tasks, payments etc. I tried to research replacements several times, and still haven’t found anything good. Sometimes I wonder if I should build my own.
I really like Notion’s information architecture (in particular the top index pages) and its multi-user capability. I tried some other tools like Confluence and Obsidian but like you say, there seems to be no match from a UX perspective. Do I love Notion? Definitely not. Would I change to another tool with the same feature set? Instantly.
If you like Obsidian and want it to be multiplayer you might be interested in Relay [0] (shameless plug).
There are also plugins like make.md [1] that are focused more on making the UX feel more like notion.
[0] https://relay.md
Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network
#18They only check if your mic is on, not what you're saying (they can't hear you unless you've granted mic permission). They also look at your network traffic to see if audio is being sent (otherwise you can get a lot of false positives). Using mic + network data is a common way to spot meetings -- my app LookAway[0] does something similar to pause reminders during calls. [0]: https://lookaway.app
I thought you had to give explicit permission for an app to monitor network traffic in macOS? I'm assuming your app asks for this, but it sounds like Notion does not if the GP was surprised by the monitoring.
You don't need to give any explicit permissions for the snapshot of current sockets.
Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network
#19Are you saying that Notion desktop has access to microphone audio or it is only able to determine if the microphone is in use? The former is actually concerning to me. I can't imagine caring if it only knows my microphone is in use.
It's the latter. An app can't access the audio without explicit microphone monitoring permissions.
Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network
#20I’ve come to hate Notion with passion because of its abysmal performance, but I still pay for it for my small business. My non-technical employees use it as a database for clients, tasks, payments etc. I tried to research replacements several times, and still haven’t found anything good. Sometimes I wonder if I should build my own.
Most intriguing thing in that vein I've seen: https://thymer.com (haven't used it, am not affiliated, just looked promising in a demo video esp. on performance grounds)