Criticly
Critical thinking toolkit to help think clearer everywhere.
It’s been almost a year since my last update, but Criticly 1.1.0 is finally here.
This release includes:
A completely redesigned landing page—goodbye, generic purple-gradient AI look
Custom tool support
A new floating bar that appears beside selected text
Much better model performance and more useful feedback
I built the entire update in one week. I started by using Claude design to explore a fresh design direction, then implemented it directly with Fable. It was surprisingly effective to move from rough ideas to a finished experience so quickly.
After nearly a year away, it feels great to be shipping Criticly again. I’d love to hear what you think—especially about the new design and selection workflow.
Criticly 1.1.0 is out now. 🚀
Published my app on the Microsoft Store by the end of October.
Took ~3 days to crack the Electron .appx build (mostly setting up a fresh Windows VM + fixing asset issues).
Another 3 days went into setting up the MS Developer account and onboard the app.
Pro tip: go solo developer account — it’s free and way faster than org setup.
After releasing the Windows version, I noticed frequent scans on my download API from various IP addresses in the two days — some even repeating from the same IP. Vercel’s firewall has already detected and blocked several DDoS attempts. What the hell do the hackers want? If you want to analyze my exe, request once or twice is ok, why do u keep downloading the app?
rate limit for the api has narrowed
add a Vercel firewall challenge rule to protect it
blocked one user-agent and some ips
and more..
My website has no real users only scans.
Go hiking for 4+ hours after long time pause. I become energetic again.
It took me only one day to build a windows version. This is the benefit of electron.
1. started a windows vm in AWS for build and test (free tier).
2. fixed the bugs, especially the native dependences I locked in package lock file.
Added windows support in github ci.
Remove windows waitlist in landing page.
Update /download api to support windows exe, detecting both platform(os) and arch in frontend.
Next:
Add a digital cert to fix Windows Defender Warning for no digital sigend exe file.
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Love seeing the speed and clarity here — shipping a Windows version in a day shows great iteration discipline. A few thoughts from similar Electron builds:
1️⃣ AWS VM for testing – smart move for free-tier testing. If you layer in a snapshot system before each major fix, you can rollback faster when dependency issues pop.
2️⃣ Package lock dependency fixes – locking native deps is crucial. Might also consider automated dependency diff checks in CI so platform-specific regressions catch early.
3️⃣ Digital certificate next step – huge for trust. Optional tip: code-signing can also reduce false positives on anti-virus heuristics, especially for early adopters who might be wary of unsigned executables.
Curious — did you benchmark exe startup speed vs mac/linux builds? Small perf differences can massively affect first impressions.
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I haven’t benchmarked startup time yet, but from quick tests the EXE feels a little slower to boot than macOS (probably due to Electron’s initial DLL load). But since Criticly is an app staying on system tray, the main loop's speed: select text -> trigger commands -> showing result is more important :)
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Launched Criticly on ProductHunt, got 8 upvotes, not too much compared to what's in the leaderboard, but better than last product.
https://www.producthunt.com/products/criticly?launch=criticly
It's my first time receiving message from a live user on website. Unfortunately, I'm not online at the time.
Replied the message in slack, let me see the user's reaction.
Get my first payment from one of my clients, give me confidence to continue building.
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