Does it actually show up if you log out and view the annotations for the page? I see the same Public bit in the annotations list but as soon as I log out and look at the page my annotations vanish until I log back in. I think they may be doing the private annotation function correctly but not showing the visibility status the way it should.
If you’d like to test this from a different account see if my annotation shows up on their Privacy Policy.
I created my own private group and I am now able to save to this group instead of the public one.
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I need to spend more time testing it but it’s kept me from dropping a lot of money on Liner for now, it would be nice if it was a bit more fluid, had more than one highlight color, etc. but it may be good enough for me.
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So I’ve continued testing Hypothes.is and Liner and hit a few snags with both. I thought I’d outline some of the main points that are important to me and what I’m ultimately going with.
- Compatibility: Neither solutions are compatible with every web page, Twitter for instance loads all its content via JavaScript and neither Liner nor Hypothes.is work which is unfortunate because archiving Tweets in DEVONthink is already a pain point. I have noticed Liner supports more pages than Hypothes.is, notably, Liner works with Discourse communities while Hypothes.is does not.
- RSS: Liner doesn’t support any kind of RSS as far as I can tell, Hypothes.is does but it may not do what you want it to do. Hypothes.is generates feeds for all highlights, highlights by pages, highlights by tags and highlights by users, unfortunately, it’s public feeds so you can’t use it to get private annotations into DEVONthink or anywhere else you might use a feed.
- Export: Neither of these really export, both will allow you to open the highlights ‘in context’ via their own URL and injecting their UI & highlights into the original page source that you could clip to another application. Liner will also export your highlights for a page on their own which can also be clipped. Either way, there’s no markdown, txt, csv, xml or json output.
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API:
- Hypothes.is has an API (actually two versions of it) and the development build especially could give you a lot of options for getting at annotations programmatically and exporting them in whatever form or system you’d like. I only did a brief review of it but it looks like you could use it to parse annotations in Shortcuts if you’re willing to build a tool yourself. This really interests me but I don’t have the bandwidth for something custom right this moment myself.
- Someone associated with the project has already built a python script that will give you access to things posted in a private group and output it to Slack, RSS and email, however, it suggests having it run on an always-on server and I’m not sure how well it would work on-demand.
- Someone has also written an csv, json and html exporter using the API.
- Readwise supports importing you highlights via the API, it brings in private highlights and retains your tags, I haven’t yet tested if it will work with added notes but I’ll bet it will.
- Liner has a request from two years ago from a user asking for an API and they replied they’ll “consider adding an API for LINER in the future”.
- Usability: Liner wins, it’s more attractive, it feels faster, as an extension/app it doesn’t require logging back in every time without turning down Safari’s privacy settings, it also offers more colors. It’s more delightful. That said, it is an extra extension and app to use so there is overhead and some may prefer a bookmarklet-based tool.
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Extensions:
- Hypothes.is does have a Chrome extension as well as an unofficial Firefox one, I don’t see anything for Safari, here’s hoping they eventually port it.
- Liner: Safari, Firefox, Chrome and iOS app
- Price: Hypothes.is is free, open source and supported by donations and academic sponsors. Liner has a very limited free version and costs $119.99 / year (currently on sale for $33.60, access it by using the extension). One thing that bothers me about Liner is when I first started using it said the sale would end tomorrow but three days later it’s still on sale. I don’t know if this is the semi-perpetual price or someone forgot to set an expiration date but it feels like a shady tactic.
Conclusions
I think if I wanted to use one tool by itself Liner would be a clear winner unless it’s too expensive, it’s designed better, there’s less hassle with logging in every time you want to highlight something, it has stable income so you know it’s likely to continue being actively developed and it’s more compatible. It sparks more joy and it causes less friction.
That said, I don’t want it to live in isolation and having an API gives it so much more potential, I have no doubt I can automate getting things into DEVONthink and Bear if I want to. Better yet, Readwise provides an interface every bit as good as Liner, it includes markdown export and it’s already a really useful tool I was considering subscribing to for my Zettelkasten hybrid workflow. Hypothes.is support pushes it over the top for me and I think it’s what I’ll be using.
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readwise is also great for tweets. There’s also shortcuts (I adapted that from someone but I don’t remember who)
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Interesting, thanks!
If you’re willing to use a Chromium browser like Brave, Vivaldi or Chrome you can use their official extension that gets around sites like Twitter and Discourse that block injecting an external Javascript file via a bookmarklet using a CSP. You can also whitelist the extension’s domain for cross-site cookies so you don’t have to login every time you load the extension. I think Brave will be my backup browser for whenever I can’t highlight something in Safari until they’ve ported the extension to Safari. Supporting “other browsers” is on the long-term roadmap.
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Thanks. I have actually given up on Safari, yeah, as it is an unbelievable resource hog on Big Sur. Switched to Brave everywhere and very happy. It will make my life easier! 
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