Canary
About Canary

About Canary

Canary is a completely private and accountless way to follow artists and keep track of new releases. All data is fetched on demand from public external data sources (see below), and stored locally on your device in localStorage. None of your library information is transmitted to or stored in a database anywhere — the application doesn't even know you exist.

Canary is designed, developed, and maintained by 0ff.dev

Yeah, But Why?

  1. I still listen to music the old fashioned way. I don't stream. I buy records.
  2. I don't have any social media accounts in order follow artists I enjoy.
  3. I'm getting old. The shear volume of artists I enjoy and want to follow is getting very large which makes it hard to keep tabs on each of them.

Essentially, I needed a way to quickly see when any of the artists I follow release new music. I don't want to sign up for some weird service that will sell my data just to accomplish this simple task. Bandcamp is actually a fantastic way to do this and buy music directly. Unfortunately, not all artists use it, especially "bigger" major label artists.

How It Works

You simply add artists you like to follow. This list of artists is stored entirely on your computer in your browser. This is not accessible by this application. From there a database (MusicBrainz) is queried to retrieve all releases by your artists. This release data is then also stored on your computer in your browser. Until you add a new artist or refetch your releases, you do not need to communicate with the Internet other than to fetch album artwork (from Cover Art Archive and Bandcamp).

Extra Features

  • Track listings are shown on each release detail page, sourced from MusicBrainz.
  • If the release is listed on Bandcamp, a direct purchase link is provided.
  • Search links are provided for Bandcamp and popular streaming services.

External Data Sources

Canary pulls data from 3 primary sources:

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