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keybase
client
Go2016–2023
keybase / client

client

Keybase Go Library, Client, Service, OS X, iOS, Android, Electron

62Distinct people
76Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
9.3KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Keybase Go Library, Client, Service, OS X, iOS, Android, Electron

GitHub

Where it is used

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

What people are saying

Sad to say but I am still using Keybase. The only part that keeps me on using Keybase is because I love the KBFS (File Storage), Chat, and the Keybase.pub (Static Hosting HTML…

coffeekitkat used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

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 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM 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 year76 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2016-02-05 10:21:23 UTC to 2023-05-30 14:09:47 UTC.

051015202016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20162017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 14 mentions; 0 submissions, 14 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 1 submissions, 6 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 20 mentions; 2 submissions, 18 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 13 mentions; 3 submissions, 10 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 8 mentions; 3 submissions, 5 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 0 submissions, 7 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 0 submissions, 6 comments2023

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
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC14014
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC716
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC20218
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC13310
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC835
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC707
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC606

From the project README

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

Read the project’s introduction
Keybase Hi, and welcome to the Keybase client repo. All our client apps (macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android) are being actively developed in this repository. Please, dig around. Warnings We'd love you to read our source code. But - some of the things in this repo are explorations, and the app you build from source just might not do what it says it's doing. So, if you just want to install Keybase on your computer, you should monitor our releases for macOS, Linux, or Windows. If you're interested in our Docker image releases, please check out the Docker README. Code Layout go: Core crypto libraries; the Keybase service; the command line client. Learn More shared/{android,ios}: Android and iOS apps developed with React Native. shared/desktop: Desktop application for macOS, Linux, and Windows, made with the Electron framework, sharing React code with react-native. packaging: Scripts for releasing packages across the various platforms. protocol: Defines the protocol for communication for clients to the Keybase services. Uses Avro. Learn More media: Icons, graphics, media for Keybase apps. osx: The macOS Keybase.app, development parallel to an Electron-based application above. Learn More Problems? Report any issues with client software on this GitHub issue tracker. Internally, we track our progress using Jira, but all PRs come through GitHub for your review! If you're having problems with the command line keybase client, take a look at the troubleshooting doc. If you're having problems with our Website, try the keybase-issues issue tracker. We check and update both frequently. License Most code is released under the New BSD (3 Clause) License. If subdirectories include a different license, that license applies instead. Development Guidelines We check all git commits with pre-commit hooks generated via pre-commit.com pre-commit hooks. To enable use of these pre-commit hooks: Install the pre-commit utility. For some common cases: pip install pre-commit brew install pre-commit Remove any existing pre-commit hooks via rm .git/hooks/pre-commit Configure via pre-commit install Then proceed as normal. External Contributors If you forked this repository on GitHub and made a PR, then it'll show up as having failed Jenkins CI. We do not build external PRs because it's a security risk to do so without a review first. If your PR is successfully reviewed by a member of the Keybase team, then we will merge your commits to a branch on our primary fork and build from there. Cryptography Notice This distribution includes cryptographic software. The country in which you currently reside may have restrictions on the import, possession, use, and/or re-export to another country, of encryption software. BEFORE using any encryption software, please check your country's laws, regulations and policies concerning the import, possession, or use, and re-export of encryption software, to see if this is permitted. See http://www.wassenaar.org/ for more information. The U.S. Government Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), has classified this software as Export Commodity Control Number (ECCN) 5D002.C.1, which includes information security software using or performing cryptographic functions with asymmetric algorithms. The form and manner of this distribution makes it eligible for export under the License Exception ENC Technology Software Unrestricted (TSU) exception (see the BIS Export Administration Regulations, Section 740.13) for both object code and source code.
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

76 sources
To be clear, Bedrock Linux does not hang during sleep. Rather, it cannot enter sleep consistently; if it fails to, it simply continues on as it was operating before the request to suspend. The underlying issue is a long standing The Linux kernel bug [0] in which it cannot reliably suspend if FUSE is in use. When the kernel detects this scenario, it simply doesn't suspend, but rather logs its difficulty to dmesg. This is not specific to Bedrock, but hits all projects on Linux which leverage Linux's FUSE functionality [1]. It probably hits Netflix's ndrive as well. In the few months since my comment you've linked, I've put some work into a possible FUSE-less Bedrock implementation. It will likely have some downsides compared to a FUSE-based solution, but the trade-off may be worthwhile for some users. While it's too early to commit t
Read the rest
In Debugging a FUSE deadlock in the Linux kernel
It seems like it was actually the acquisition by Zoom that seems to have sent Keybase down this slow death march. It was obvious that the acquisition was in order to acquire the team to improve Zoom's own security posture, and they had no interest in the Keybase product itself. Since then, activity on the open source keybase repos has been minimal and they have not made any major product changes.^1,2 Basically just keeping the lights on. I give big props to the few folks at Zoom that are still pushing commits. Keybase is/was awesome. [^1]: https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/contributors [^2]: https://github.com/orgs/keybase/repositories
In Keybase.pub Shutting Down on March 1 2023
- Sorry about the outage yesterday. It lasted about 1 hour but service was promptly restored. - As Zoom employees, our primary objective is now to bring the technology at play in Keybase to Zoom products. - We are still making regular updates to Keybase. These updates consist primarily of bugfixes, security fixes, performance improvements and patches and updates to third party libraries. For instance, the app is currently undergoing a major rewrite to be compatible with recent versions of React and React Native. We are not currently pursuing any major new features. The paper trail for these updates is visible for all to see here: https://github.com/keybase/client/tags - The current plan -- which can be inferred from our ongoing maintenance to the product -- is to keep Keybase running in a performant, usable, free, E2EE, high-security form
Read the rest
for the foreseeable future. Should this plan change, we promise to give as much advance notice as possible.
In API-0.core.keybaseapi.com has expired certificate
> The source code for Keybase is, right now, fully open source on their Github Really? My understanding was that the client and some libraries they use are open source, but the actual server code is closed source. Although if Zoom isn't going to continue maintaining keybase, then open sourcing the server code seems like "the right thing to do" (at least morally, and probably from a PR standpoint as well). Even if they did want to continue maintaining it, it would be a good thing in my opinion, but moreso if the project will die otherwise. See https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/24105
In The case for open infrastructure
MrWiffles·Nov 9, 2021Submission

Ask HN: Any way to use Keybase without installing their app? (macOS)

I have a need every few months to receive a short message or config file from somebody via Keybase for work purposes. Thing is, I'd rather not install their app for a lot of reasons, biggest of those being I simply have no trust in Zoom or Keybase whatsoever. It's bloated, it's unmaintained since the Zoom acquisition, and I have no guarantees that the published source code is actually what they release to the public. There's also mention in the readme's on github[1] of "privileged tasks" being run; I see no reason they need any privileged access at all, which further erodes any credibility they might have had in my mind. I can't get others to switch (I've tried) and I have no choice but to use it somehow, so I'm trying to find a way to use the keybase CLI, some alternative client should it exist, or some other (preferably not VM based) in
Read the rest
stall method for these infrequent one-offs, but I'm not having much luck with my search results. I'd rather void using a VM for this (seems like it shouldn't be necessary and it's a huge system resource drain for something so small) but will resort to that if there's just no other option. So can anyone recommend an alternative installation method or client that lets me use actual real keybase.io without having to run their bloated, untrustworthy abandonware? Thanks for your help. EDIT: I don't see any way to use the website to get messages sent to me or files for some reason. Don't know if that's an org setting or something, or an app-only feature for some reason. 1: https://github.com/keybase/client/tree/master/osx
1 points · Open discussion

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