Purism has just launched an online service it has dubbed “Librem One”, which is, as Purism calls it, a “suite of apps and services designed to provide users with convenient alternatives to Big Tech products”.
Librem One currently consists of an end-to-end encrypted chat app, end-to-end encrypted email client, end-to-end encrypted VPN solution, as well as a social network platform for everyone. In the near future, the Librem One suite will also include end-to-end encrypted cloud storage, payments, and phone service for the upcoming Librem 5 Linux phone by Purism.
“Librem Chat” is built on the open source Matrix chat and includes end-to-end encrypted text chat plus audio and video chats. Since it’s built on Matrix, it has access to all the other users on Matrix out there. Matrix isn’t the biggest cat service available today but the user base is growing.
Librum’s Social Media component is built on Activity Pub and Mastodon (a federated, free software social network system). Mastodon is already a very popular public social media platform with millions of active users.
According to the Purism folks, the following additional services to Librem One are in development:
- Librem Mail offering an end-to-end encrypted email solution
- Librem Tunnel offering an end-to-end encrypted VPN tunnel solution
- Encrypted cloud storage.
- Encrypted long-term backup.
- Encrypted contact management.
- A cryptographic payment system.
- A pay-as-you-go phone service.
As to Purism’s privacy policy, it is perhaps the simplest I have ever seen:
- No Ads
- No Tracking
- We respect you
- Just private secure messaging, end-to-end encrypted communications, and public social; as it should be.
Android users can already install the Librem Chat, Librem Mail, Librem Tunnel, and Librem Social apps on all their devices from the Google Play store, iOS users can install the Librem Chat and Librem Tunnel apps on both iPhone and iPad devices, and the Librem Social app only on iPhone devices from the App Store. Librem One is also coming soon to PureOS, Purism’s own Linux OS based on Debian GNU/Linux.
Librem One is a subscription-based service that users can enjoy for $7.99 USD per month or $71.91 USD per year no matter the platform used. A basic tier consisting only of the Librem Chat encrypted chat and Librem Social social media platform is available as well for a “pay-what-you-want” subscription that varies from free to $5.99 USD per month.
More details about Librem One and bundles are available on the official website at https://librem.one/.
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Categories: Online Privacy & Security
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Privacy Blog 
This is exciting but where’s the server located? If it’s in the US, then I’ll pass.
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—> … where’s the server located?
Servers can be located in anyplace in the world. Servers do not need to be located i.n the same country as the producers of the service. Also, one project may have its servers located in multiple locations in multiple countries, which is easy to do in today’s cloud-based servers.
Like many modern virtual corporations, there is no physical office. The employees and volunteers working on Librem One are located in various countries round the world. Almost all employees and volunteers that work together on open source products all work from home or from other convenient locations.
I don’t know where Librem One’s servers are located but can say that many such projects have multiple servers located in different countries, all working together simultaneously. In some cases, especially on larger projects, users in Europe might automatically be connected to various servers in Europe while users in South America might be connected to various servers in South America, and so on. Distributing the load insures faster response times. Of course, the servers are all interconnected so that that all of them have exactly the same information within seconds of each other.
In short, with open source projects often there is no simple answer to “Where are the servers or the company offices located?”
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