3mo ago

Recommend some open-source tools for privacy!

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/47032660

Discover Hidden Gems: Open-Source Software You Should Know About
We all love open-source software, but there are so many amazing projects out there that often go unnoticed. Let's change that! Share your favorite open-source software that you think more people should know about. Here’s how you can contribute:
Single Option Per Comment: Mention one open-source software per comment to be able to easily find the most popular software.
No Duplicates: Avoid duplicating software that has already been mentioned to ensure a wide variety of options.
Upvote What You Love: If you see a software that you also appreciate, upvote it to help others discover it more easily.
Check out last year's post for more inspiration: Last Year's Post
Let's create a comprehensive list of open-source software that everyone should know about!

I advise you to post any recommendations to the original post, I was just sharing it here so others can find it! I also wanna see those recs myself so that's the motive for posting this 😅

57 comments

LibreWolf is what FireFox was supposed to be: no VPN ads, no telemetry, no AI, uBlockOrigin built in. It's literally the latest FF release, but with the crap ripped out and decent privacy installed.
https://librewolf.net/
- I'm still looking for a Librewolf or similar Android fork, has that ever made it close? I know the original project devs dont seem interested.
  
  Have you checked IronFox?
- They went too far in pursuing their foolish dogma and castrated a decent browser to the point where you don't want to work with it at all. For example, they removed the interface element that allows you to save passwords, even though the password manager is still there.
  
  What are you even talking about? I use LibreWolf with the Mozilla password manager. It's a one click enable
  https://librewolf.net/docs/faq/
- But it's based on a browser that's not made to be secure, but instead to have the most features and comply to all these standards. So removing them will make it a bit more secure, but it will never be good. The best browsers are the ones that aren't made to support javascript and all these other standards. A private browser would be something like w3m or links. Ideally, it wouldn't be HTML but gemini's gemtext or just markdown.
- Honestly, soft forks of either Firefox or Chrome by a small team are a stop-gap hack and not anything truly effective at fixing the issues because they are entirely dependent on the large teams developing the upstream browsers. As hard as they work, they simply don't have the in-house expertise to develop the browser, and can even make mistakes when ripping things out. It's certainly a trade-off for better privacy now, but with other risks.
  Some of the more clean-slate browsers out there seem more interesting, even if they lack features, because the developers can actually make design decisions and develop codebase expertise.
XMPP. It replaced WhatsApp in my family that signal failed to do.
- I'm curious, I've never had the chance to really use Signal much, and I've never used an XMPP client before. What made you dislike Signal and use XMPP instead? I wish I could convince my iMessage loving mom to jump to anything else.
  
  I had no issue with signal (except phone number verification) but according to my family members signal uses a lot of ram and battery. Non of them have Google play services. XMPP doesn't use that much resources and it's simple, no unnecessary bloat.
  
  I prefer it because of resilience. A centralized service can be weakened, geoblocked or shut down by proposals like Chat Control. Decentralized protocols are much safer in such an environment, especially if there is variety in clients and servers.
- Conversations is a good client for mobile. Pretty much on par with Whatsapp in ease of use.
  
  Yep pretty lightweight and simple with no extra bloat
- I'm a bit confused. It says it connects to Signal's servers. Does this mean if I use Molly, I can still talk to people who are only using Signal?
- It's not letting me register. When I have my VPN turned off it can't conbect to servers, and when I have it turned on I get swamped with recaptchas and the veriification code doesn't send
- Similarly, there's Signal-Cli. Normally, Signal only allows signups from smartphones, which is weird, because not all smartphones can run privacy-preserving OSes while pretty much anything can run Linux. This one is the only client I've seen that allows desktop signup. IDK if they broke it now, but worked a while ago.
Immich!
Keeping personal photos off someone else's server and stopping google and apple from training their AI on your nudes.
CoMaps, formerly known as Organic Maps.
- Not formerly known. CoMaps is different from Organic Maps. This is the same as saying “Librewolf, formerly known as Firefox”.
VeraCrypt, Clonezilla, Joplin, Futo voice and Futo keyboard, Sentry, Wasted, Untracker, WTMP app, Fossify app suite.
- Futo Voice and Futo Keyboard are rad and getting better (Swipe needs more time in the oven). Ive used VeraCrypt for a while and dig it
  
  I haven't ever found a better open source keyboard or voice type than futo. It really is that good. With so many languages. I'm unsure why some of them got downvoted but oh well. I'm sure there's a ton more to add that are privacy focused open source apps but those were off my head.
GNU Jami, when I can get it to work and not jank up the sound too much. https://jami.net/
I advise you to post any recommendations to the original post, I was just sharing it here so others can find it! I also wanna see those recs myself so that's the motive for posting this 😅
Matrix is good for communication.
OnionShare
I recommend my python script, Tonto2.
https://pypi.org/project/tonto2/
What does Tonto2 do?
It keeps lists.
You can use lists to keep in touch with family, friends, and cow-orkers.
Tonto2 keeps four kinds of lists:
You can use an address list to keep track of contacts' phone numbers, mailing addresses, and eMail addresses.
You can use a calendar to remind you about events and appointments including date, time, and duration. You can add notes about finding the location and other prerequisites to attendance.
You can keep separate passwords in a password list for every website you visit and every piece of gear you own.
You can keep links to favorite websites in a bookmark list.
Additionally you can make a list of bibliographic entries for writing research papers and for saving well-formatted footnotes for Web sites, but this is an arcane topic that will probably not be of general interest.
The information in these lists is at your fingertips.
You own it, and you can keep it. You can share it piecemeal with other people and computers without having to trust anyone or any thing with the whole enchilada. This is the idea of Tonto2.
- Tell me more about these cow orks.
  
  Tell me more about these cow orks.
  The correct term is cow-orker (n. sing. masc.). See also, http://www.fact-index.com/c/co/cow_orker.html
Florisboard. Android keyboard, doesn't have spell checking yet but I've been using it for years, you might not need autocorrect as much as you think! (Note for Samsung users: Samsung Keyboard keeps adding items to its clipboard history whether it's default or not. Clipboard history is also accessible through Edge Panels. Your passwords might end up and sit there for a long time... you can use adb to disable com.samsung.android.app.clipboardedge and com.samsung.clipboardsaveservice.)
- Just to post an alternative (correct me if there is something wrong with the app) but I have been using Futo keyboard for a week now and I've been pleayed. Clipboard disabled by default, drag typing, local autocorrect that you can load any dictionary (as a file), can use local text or voice ML model that you have to download yourself (their site has a browser), customizable quick actions, smart key hitbox enlarging (increases key hitbox according to how likely it is to come next). It is free, but asks for a support of about 9€.
  
  correct me if there is something wrong with the app
  It's proprietary (source available non-commercial license)
Surrey for the tangent, that might be my favourite comic of all time. I think it's an incredibly valuable lesson menu pepper still and always will need to learn at some point in their lives
- What??
  
  Wow I did not proof read that at all
  Sorry for the tangent, that might be my favourite comic of all time. I think it's an incredibly valuable lesson many people still and always will need to learn at some point in their lives
open keychain - foss to to track pgp keys and generate them
- Okay, just curious, does anyone else have a bug preventing them from using Openkeychain? Whenever I try to confirm a key, it simply gets stuck at the "My Key:" selection drop-down. There's a 8 year old GitHub issue that was started and it never got solved...
  And like, there's no alternatives for this app are there? It seems Thunderbird defaults to them.
  EDIT: I've been trying to create a keypair from Open keychain and simply export the pair to my laptop to use it there but any key it generates is unable to be imported by both gpg and Thunderbird. It seems I'm not the only one having this issue, meanwhile the project seems to be no longer maintained. What do I do? Give up on using Thunderbird on mobile?
  
  I used deltachat and sent an auto crypt setup message, and k-9 handed it off to open keychain just fine. k9 is being merged with Thunderbird Mobile so this should work fine... for mobile. but man was it a hassle getting the keys to my desktop
Oh shit, I'm doing this with my granddaughter! She's not 2 yet so I need to wait a bit but I'm doing it!
The best Portmaster (Windows, Linux) and InVizible Pro for Android and forks (LinageOS, /e/OS....), apart common sense (PEBCAK license)
- Do you find Portmaster to be viable? I've seen it around and read a couple brief articles about it. I've just never found anyone who uses it. I use MalwareBytes Firewall Control from Binsoft (Alexandru Dicu - https://www.binisoft.org/). It's fairly bare bones but it does the trick. I'm always looking for something better. I do have the whole network behind a standalone pFsense box. I just needed something local on the machine to silence chatty programs and services.
  
  Malwarebyte may be also valid, better than nothing, but Malwarebyte is proprietary soft, not OpenSource like Portmaster, which also include DNS crypt and custimizable dynamic filters, Optional also an SPN service (paid), something like an VPN on steroids, which permits multilevel tunneling, individual for every app.
(Simple) DNSCrypt: https://www.dnscrypt.org/
Delta Chat, for messaging. Sign-up is extremely easy using the default server, and I've convinced some of my contacts to join.

57 comments