#NoorNote is a desktop client, and there's a good reason for that. We all love how Nostr can't be censored, right? But there's still a weak spot. A web client gets hosted on a regular web server, and that can get taken down or blocked with just some everyday bureaucracy. It hasn't happened yet, but "they" haven't really noticed Nostr either. It's similar with mobile apps; app stores can take them down or block those too.

With desktop clients that you can download from all sorts of mirrors around, and that only use the internet to shuttle stuff to and from relays, it's way harder to mess with. And if you're on Linux, even more so. To me, that's real peer-to-peer.

So a Nostr client as a desktop app has its upsides, along with a few downsides. The ecosystem right now isn't all that exciting. But I think it's the future for every kind of Nostr client, not just the social media part, especially the "other stuff" part of Nostr. Nostr clients that run on a web server will soon be considered a leftover from the transition days.

One direct result of the still weak ecosystem for Nostr desktop clients is that there's no decent desktop key signer out there. You can enter your nsec directly, and the security risk isn't as bad as doing it in a web client (since you'd have to trust the web client operator), but it's still there. Malicious software on your system could still snag that nsec. A hardware remote signer is better, but not many people have one. So what's left?

A software key signer, like Alby, nosx, Flamingo and so on, except those are for browsers. I couldn't find one for the desktop, or maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

Anyway, I wrote my own desktop key signer: NoorSigner.

It'll come bundled with NoorNote, but it's a standalone project and other desktop Nostr clients can use it too. It even has an API to control it right from the desktop client!

You can run it automatically before starting the Nostr client; it's a terminal app written in Golang.

First setup: On the first launch, you paste your nsec into the terminal, set a password, and pick a "trust mode." That means whether you want to enter your password into NoorSigner every time before starting the Nostr client (like on shared computers), or you trust your machine and let the NoorSigner session stick around for 24 hours. But even then, you'd still need to enter your password at least once a day into NoorSigner.

Like I said, I still need to write up some proper API docs (who actually likes writing docs?), and then other desktop clients can use it too.