What is Git?
Git can be thought of as a virtual pen drive. Just like with a normal pendrive you can store files in it. However, it comes with a few awesome capabilities. Since it is a virtual pen drive, it can be easily duplicated.
At this point you might be wondering - How is this different than Dropbox or Google Drive? It’s quite similar - both Dropbox and Git can be used to store files. The main difference is -
- Git isn’t controlled by one organization
- Git is an open protocol supported by many companies
- Git has a inbuilt concept of time which results in unlimited file versions
- Git is decentralized
- Git is tamper proof (elaborate?)
- Git stores files in a normal folder
The beauty of Git is that since it is a standard, you don’t need to trust Dropbox or Google with your data. You can pick who you want to trust with your files. Here are some of the popular providers of Git -
- GitHub
- GitLab
- AWS
Why is one company more reputable than another?
Git gives you ‘Data Portability’, this means you can take your files (and the history) and move it from one provider to another. In fact you can even store it in multiple places.
Decentralized
We are used to having this concept of a cloud where our data is saved - We need to trust the cloud provider with our data. More privacy conscious companies like Standard Notes encrypt all the data in such a way that they cannot ever read it. However, this still requires the “encrypted data” to be on their servers.
This begs the question - Why must our data be stored (encrypted or not) in someone elses computer? The usual reason is because setting up our own server is complex and blah blah. But it doesn’t need to be this way. The aim of GitJournal is to simplify all of this and give you back control of your data.
You get to choose where your data is stored. You’re not bound by one company.
You get to pick if you want to store your data in the cloud - If it is stored in an encrypted manner, or if you rather just keep the data local. Maybe just having it on your laptop and mobile is fine. It doesn’t need to ever leave the devices you physically control.
History of Git
Git is mature technology that has existed since 2005, it’s used by thousands of companies. Traditionally to store programming code. However, it can be used to store anything. With GitJournal, your data is being stored in simple Markdown files.
What is Markdown?
Why choose Markdown?
What about encryption?
Disadvantages of Git?
Since ‘Git’ was designed to store programming code, the world around Git has a lot of jargon for programmers and as a non-technical user many of the steps seem more cumbersome.