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irungentoo
toxcore
C2013–2021
irungentoo / toxcore

toxcore

The future of online communications.

37Distinct people
43Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
8.7KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

The future of online communications.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 10:56:20 AM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year43 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2013-07-08 16:51:17 UTC to 2021-10-05 16:39:09 UTC.

0510152013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 11 mentions; 3 submissions, 8 comments20132014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 13 mentions; 2 submissions, 11 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 10 mentions; 1 submissions, 9 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20172018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2021

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1138
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC13211
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1019
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
With the rise of government surveillance programs, Tox, a FOSS initiative, aims to be an easy to use, all-in-one communication platform that ensures full privacy and secure message delivery. Website | Wiki | Blog | FAQ | Binaries/Downloads | Clients | Compiling IRC Channels: #tox@freenode, #tox-dev@freenode The Complex Stuff: UDP vs. TCP Tox must use UDP simply because hole punching with TCP is not as reliable. However, Tox does use TCP relays as a fallback if it encounters a firewall that prevents UDP hole punching. Connecting & Communicating Every peer is represented as a byte string (the public key [Tox ID] of the peer). By using torrent-style DHT, peers can find the IP of other peers by using their Tox ID. Once the IP is obtained, peers can initiate a secure connection with each other. Once the connection is made, peers can exchange messages, send files, start video chats, etc. using encrypted communications. Current build status: Q&A: What are your goals with Tox? We want Tox to be as simple as possible while remaining as secure as possible. Why are you doing this? There are already a bunch of free Skype alternatives. The goal of this project is to create a configuration-free P2P Skype replacement. “Configuration-free” means that the user will simply have to open the program and will be capable of adding people and communicating with them without having to set up an account. There are many so-called Skype replacements, but all of them are either hard to configure for the normal user or suffer from being way too centralized. TODO: TODO Documentation: Compiling DHT Protocol Crypto
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

10 sources
If you use a secure crypto primitive, is it correct to say your program is secure? I mean, can you be sure something is secure just because of the crypto lib? I thought there had something to do with the implementation too? I ask this because of Tox. The main developer claims Tox is secure because of the crypto library. It sounds weird to me, so I decided to ask... After all, if it was this easy all programs would be secure, right? Just import a secure crypto lib and it's done? Sounds weird. https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/121#issuecommen...
In Toxic – A distributed, secure, command-line based instant messenging client
Also see #1229 (not much, but related): https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/1229 Edit: I have no affiliation here, just an outside observer. I think it's relevant because, unlike the screenshot of #1228, the still alive 1229 issue (at least) shows that this happened nearly a month ago. Whether or not the fact that it happened nearly a month ago matters I don't know, but at least it's a bit of extra context/info.
In Toxic – A distributed, secure, command-line based instant messenging client
DISCLAIMER: I am one of the many Tox ex-contributors, who used to work on it in the past. I don't want to be identified due to harassment other ex-contributors suffered in the past. The following message is my point of view on the project as a whole. Proplex, a long-time member of the Tox-Foundation and in charge of both infrastructure and marketing, called out tox devs because the 2 people in charge (irungentoo and stqism) were dealing with money in a shady way and he got suspicious. This lead him to leaving the Tox Foundation Proof: https://gist.github.com/irungentoo/5af26f5edefcdb7eac72 After he went away and stopped to pay for the website and other servers (he hosted everything), Tox devs got angry and tracked his online activity by his browser UA, read his private email sent to his @tox.im address and considered breaking into his VPS
Read the rest
account Proof: https://gist.github.com/urras/ba792274f5aaf662a082/5d91d2a78... and https://archive.today/KkSWp Members of the Tox Foundation such as stqism try constantly to sneak in copyright changes in unrelated fixes: Proof: https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/pull/1219 and https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/pull/1224 irungentoo enforced censorship on his github repo to try to cover everything up Proof: https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/1227 After it got out of hand and too many people called out the Tox Foundation, this happened: Proof: http://a.pomf.se/kqwgsg.png irungentoo claims Tox is secure just because he uses a secure primitive, which is really arrogant and something only a pretentious deceiver would say. This is a crypto 101 mistake. Proof: https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/121#issuecommen... After the points exposed above, the conclusion is obvious, at least for me. The Tox Foundation claims Tox is completely secure and nobody can break in, not even the NSA. Still, there's been no security audit and it is highly likely Tox isn't completely secure, given it's alpha software. But their website gives the idea people face no risk by using Tox right now. They are deceiving people to believe it is secure so they gain more users at the expense of putting users privacy at risk. Proof: https://tox.im itself. See all security claims even though it hasn't been audited. Saying it's "alpha" doesn't mean to anything to non-tech-savvy, they will think it's missing a feature or two, not that their privacy and security is possibly compromised. I believe it's my moral obligation, and of everyone's else reading this, not to use Tox. You are contributing to a shady foundation composed of menchildren that don't care about other's privacy, deals with money in a shady way and dox people who go against them. Do not trust the Tox Foundation - this is my personal message.
In Toxic – A distributed, secure, command-line based instant messenging client

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