I support free and open source software (FOSS) like VLC, Qbittorrent, LibreOffice, Gimp…

But why do people say that it’s as secure or more secure than closed source software?

From what I understand, closed source software don’t disclose their code.

If you want to see the source code of Photoshop, you actually need to work for Adobe. Otherwise, you need to be some kind of freaking retro-engineering expert.

But open source has their code available to the entire world on websites like Github or Gitlab.

Isn’t that actually also helping hackers?

  • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    security by obscurity doesn’t work on its own, but is a single pillar in a multi-faceted security strategy. in the case of FOSS vs closed source, the down sides (not having eyes on it, etc) outweigh the up sides… but writing off security by obscurity (plus other security) in all cases is the wrong approach to take