Trusted tools

Trusted Tools.

Which applications out there can you trust? Unfortunately, you commonly have to trust any application you are installing not to do anything nasty. How do you know it won't steal your data, tell on your whereabouts or simply do things you didn't intend (paranoid)? The following list of applications provides alternatives to widely deployed proprietary software that is developed as OpenSource and supported through a community of people not driven by profits.

This is not to say that the following applications are without issues and bugs. Please use your own best judgement.

Trusted Privacy related OpenSource applications

• freelan http://www.freelan.org

  Create your own VPN network.

• Syncthing http://syncthing.net

  Awesome direct file syncing between computers.

• Seafile http://seafile.com

  Run your own data server to store files.

• OwnCloud http://owncloud.org

  Run your own cloud server to store anything from files to address books.

• Baikal http://baikal-server.com

  Sync your own personal address book and calendars.

• GPGtools https://gpgtools.org

  Encrypt anything.

• TextSecure / Signal iOS app https://github.com/WhisperSystems

  Secure and end-to-end encrypted text messaging on Android & iOS.

General purpose OpenSource applications

• Linux https://github.com/torvalds/linux

  Linux operating system kernel. Practically runs on any commercially available hardware.

• LaTeX http://www.latex-project.org

  Common toolkit for scientific writing.

• Atom (Text Editor) https://atom.io

  Advanced and editable text editor.

• TextMate (Text Editor) https://github.com/textmate/textmate

  Another common text editor.

• LimeText (Text Editor) http://limetext.org

  Sublime text editor clone.

• OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org

• Mozilla Firefox / Thunderbird https://developer.mozilla.org/
• Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net
• Handbrake https://handbrake.fr
• Pidgin http://www.pidgin.im
• Adium https://adium.im
• VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
• Miro/VideoConverter http://www.getmiro.com

Programming OpenSource applications

• CodeBOX (Programming IDE) https://www.codebox.io

  Coding IDE with remote coding functionality.

• Homebrew (package manager) http://brew.sh

  Missing package manager for Mac OS X that provides great amount of (OpenSource) software.

• Vagrant (Development environment) https://www.vagrantup.com

  Quickly setup a development environment for your projects.

Scientific OpenSource applications

• Simbody / OpenSim https://github.com/simbody/simbody

  Simulation toolkit build on an open framework http://opensim.stanford.edu.

Recommended applications

These are not trusted or simply not fully available or transparent to the user, but recommended as good alternatives.

• Heartbeat https://ind.ie
• Taiga project management https://github.com/taigaio
• ProjectLibre http://www.projectlibre.org
• XMBC/Kodi (OpenELEC,OSMC) http://kodi.tv

Security applications

These are also recommended, but do things not everybody wants to do.

• OSXAuditor https://github.com/jipegit/OSXAuditor

  Collects a lot of data under OS X for review.

Common applications to STAY AWAY from

We've crafted a small limited list of common applications that many people use, but that you probably want to stay away from. These untrusted tools are common proprietary software and probably don't want to do you any harm. However, it is difficult to verify their internals. STAY AWAY from:

• Dropbox ** If you have to have it: consider using it with sookasa
• Box ** Same goes here: consider using boxcryptor
• Skype ** Microsoft has a track record of analysing Skype communication
• Bittorrent Sync ** Generally alright, but can't compete with OpenSource syncthing
• TeamViewer ** I am still looking for good alternatives :(
• WhatsApp ** It's owned by FaceBook
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Windows

Recommended hardware

Unfortunately, OpenSource hardware is still difficult to obtain (or build yourself). It is very obviously very difficult (or virtually impossible) to make your own hard-drive for example. Therefore, we have no choice, but to trust large hardware manufacturers. This is not ideal and is probably not going to be changed any time soon. It also provides ability for very hard to detect breaches of trust:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/16/8048243/nsa-hard-drive-firmware-virus-stuxnet https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3415904/Equation_group_questions_and_answers.0.pdf

There is no other practical solution, but to trust commercially available hardware for most of the components of your computer. However, there are some components which have been developed as an OpenSource platform (such as Adruino). You generally still have to bring your own hard drive (BYOHD), but it is surprising what you can do with these machines already.

• RaspberryPi 2 B http://raspberrypi.org

  An affordable very basic mini computer for people interested in technology.

Authors and Contributors

Chris

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