Free and Open Source Software

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Is there anything unsavory about ProtonMail? (beehaw.org)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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For some reason I have it in the back of my mind that they were at one point accused of being a honeypot for US intelligence because of their association with MIT. Probably complete BS, but maybe not. Are they as open source as they claim to be? Looks like they're on github. F-Droid seems to think they have some Google libraries or whatever that they use.

ProtonMail users, how do you like/dislike it?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

On the open/closed source issue: how do they stack up against things like Tuta and Signal? The latter I heard was not actually completely open source.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

If you want open source encrypted messaging, try delta chat. It's an email client that's styled like a messaging app, and it works with most email providers.

Edit: a word

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Nice!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

AFAIK Signal are pretty much FLOSS, they're just keeping their cards extremely close, to the point of turning into a data silo.

Moxie Marlinspike famously nixed the LibreSignal app and demanded they stop using Signal servers.
And last I heard Signal can but refuses to federate with other servers, so their available server code might as well be closed source. That is, you can setup your own Signal server but you can't connect to the network that others use...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Federation no longer works, no. They did have it at first but Moxie hated it because it was harder to push new features.

But you can use other clients. It's not expressly allowed and LibreSignal stopped their development, but they've never actually banned anyone for doing it. I use the Matrix bridge to Signal and I've never seen issues with it.

Also, Moxie doesn't work there anymore so their attitude might be changing. I hope so, as having an official option to use third-party clients and bots (for the latter see Telegram where they add a LOT of value to group chats like live transcription or translation) would really make the platform a lot more viable for me. As it is now I hardly use it and I never recommend it because I don't see the point of replacing one walled garden with a slightly nicer looking one that is still nonetheless a walled garden.

I realy like Matrix but normies tend not to grok it because they need a username and password. Weird, because Discord and other services do too and they manage to use them fine. But whatever. I'll just bridge all their shit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

It's been a while since I looked at Signal but I was aware that Marlinspike stepped down. that can only be an improvement after he effectively shut down LibreSignal. I guess projects like the Matrix bridge have somehow been more acceptable?