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WXLCKNO
oefrha
For commenters who can’t be bothered to RTFA, and is somewhat confused because the Keybase name is used for a couple of not terribly related (on the surface) products: keybase.io the popular identity hosting service isn’t going anywhere, what is being shut down is an unpopular file hosting service:
> Although the service was a great showcase for the kinds of cool things that could be built with Keybase, the usage of this product never took off.
capableweb
> what is being shut down is an unpopular file hosting service
Maybe unclear wording here, but to clarify: KBFS (Keybase FileSystem) is not being shut down, only Keybase.pub is, which is a service which exposes selected files from KBFS on the web.
The file hosting (KBFSF) will still be a part of Keybase and remain working as-is.
sleepybrett
I'm just worried that it just gets chipped away to nothing.
It's already in a state where a new platform, major os change, architecture change could kill the apps usability for me. It's just coasting now.
chias
> development slowed down to a crawl
It's pretty wild that you can see exactly the moment when Zoom bought them on their github activity graph: https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/code-frequency
vel0city
From what I understand, Keybase will continue to exist and KBFS will even still keep the files. They just won't be publicly hosting those files as websites anymore.
soulofmischief
To further clarify, Keybase Sites based hosting should still work as far as I understand. I don't use keybase.pub and I'm a hardcore Keybase user, so I imagine most don't. You can still get hosting through Keybase Sites.
EDIT: No, I'm probably wrong.
bluehatbrit
Are you sure about that? It's under the keybase.pub domain name according to the docs you linked. I would have thought that means it's going as well.
anigbrowl
I like it too, but I stopped using it because of the user interface. I should check it again, but the text was so tiny and the dark mode so dark that more than one group I was in gave up and moved back to doing everything in Signal groups despite Keybase's technical superiority for many purposes. It's a great tool that was just tiring to use, an issue which has been PGP's Achilles heel since the outset.
soulofmischief
All of these complaints in the comments... Not realizing the diplomacy probably involved in keybase.pub being the only real hit Keybase takes in this round of layoffs. I would take this as a glimmer of hope that the folk at Zoom still appreciate Keybase for the same reason they bought it.
Rebelgecko
Isn't Keybase pretty much a dead man walking now? Their android app hasn't been updated in 8 months (shortly after the acquisition) even though it had some showstopping bugs like crashes/hangs when typing indicators are enabled
soulofmischief
A friend of mine called in a pretty serious bug[0] post-Zoom acquisition and they jumped right on it, so they at least have clearance to handle security issues.
Aachen
Last week I installed an app that had its last update 6 years ago. Does exactly what it should, no complaints.
8 months is not a problem, at least if the software isn't super complex and has a ton of bugs (both recently introduced and there since forever) and missing critical features (such as end to end encryption verification, the whole reason they exist). I'm sure it's a coincidence that no updates came out anymore after Zoom took over the team.
Anyway, without sarcasm, I don't use Keybase anymore but age isn't really the metric by which I define a dead app walking...
Rebelgecko
My concern with Keybase isn't solely that updates have slowed down, it's that the app has been broken on Android 13 since it came out.
Based on their github issues and PRs, it looks like all they have to do to fix it is upgrade their version of react. The fact that they haven't done that yet is what tells me the app is dead.
blitzar
> Zoom still appreciate Keybase for the same reason they bought it
Didnt they buy it to ick it up with some dirty form of surveillance capitalism?
morley
No. Zoom bought the company during the pandemic -- after a period of being criticized for their security practices -- to beef up their security engineering team. (I worked with several Keybase members when they worked at OkCupid, and later worked on projects with Keybase.)
soulofmischief
It's inspiring to hear about teams who follow each other from project to project. That is what software development is about: collaborating with others to build cool stuff.
lprd
I'm honestly surprised that keybase is still around. It's really cool what they've built, but how exactly are they keeping the lights on?
mynameisvlad
Simple, they were bought by Zoom in 2020.
dcchambers
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
coldpie
Keybase's life cycle basically turned me completely cynical for how tech startups work. It was a really cool idea, but they had zero plans from the start for sustainability. They were clearly just shooting for an acquisition to pay off the VC and founders, leaving the tech to die in the curb. Makes me sad. I recognize it's a common pattern since forever, but this was the first one I felt personally let down by.
mynameisvlad
I mean, they basically said as much when they bought it. They didn't buy it for the product, they bought it for all the folks who bring a wealth of cryptography knowledge. This was also around the time that Zoom had a LOT of bad PR around privacy and spying on users, IIRC.
That said, Zoom is the reason the lights are still on, even if not a lot of work is being done on the product. Keybase never really had a solid marketable product to begin with, so I honestly don't see it going down another way. They seemed to be entirely set up to get acquired at some point, regardless who or what their plans were.
avree
well they had raised $10 million and burned through almost all of it so I'm not sure you can describe the acquisition that effectively saved their company as "sending them down a death march"
however, it's clear you're right - Zoom doesn't prioritize the product.
client4
I still use Keybase and KBFS daily. It sounds like those services are around to stay -- but I hope if Zoom ever decides they don't want to keep running them anymore they spin it off to a non-profit to keep it running.
drexlspivey
The coolest use of KBFS I found is a zero code real time chat app. One person types
echo Hello >> /keybase/private/Alice,Bob/chat.txt
while the recipient types
tail -f /keybase/private/Alice,Bob/chat.txt
and it just works!
edit: end-to-end encrypted too!
kseistrup
Before keybase chat proper, I used tmux + bash to emulate a chat app that used kbfs as storage and transport medium: https://codeberg.org/kas/kbmsgr
It only ever was a proof-of-concept and I haven't touched it for years. It may not be working anymore.
qbasic_forever
I would make plans to migrate to an alternative service sooner rather than later. Zoom is shedding employees and clearly in a cost cutting mode. It's only a matter of time before someone does the math and realizes shutting down a few of these services will save some more money.
drcongo
What alternative would you suggest? I really like Keybase and can't seem to find anything that covers the same functionality - been keeping an eye out since Zoom bought them.
qbasic_forever
Yeah it sucks there isn't anything 100% like it. For just simple file syncing with end to end encryption I like syncthing. For encrypted data in a git repo there are more DIY options like using sops or similar tools.
mperham
I use the free Resilio Sync tier to keep a shared fold in sync between several servers. It's worked incredibly well for the last decade, no issues at all.
You configure a secret token and all servers which know the token automatically sync via BitTorrent. You don't need to manage lists of server IDs like with syncthing, it's completely peer-to-peer.
notpushkin
Keybase Chat → Matrix
I'll miss coin flipping [0] dearly, though.
mwest
The only one I've seen that comes close is https://keys.pub/ but it still misses a lot of what keybase gives (sigchains, etc.)
Previous HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995792
Are there any others to consider? It's been quite sad to see Keybase so stifled after being acquired. :-(
onlyrealcuzzo
Keybase is too good to be true.
They probably need to charge close to $10/m just to break even for what you get for free.
kej
I'd happily pay twice that if they would let me.
rodolphoarruda
Me too. File synchronization is a key feature for my work.
chrisweekly
FTA:
It's just the keybase.pub web hosting service per se that's shutting down.
> "No Keybase Filesystem (KBFS) data will be removed from any user public folders. All data will remain safe and viewable by others running Keybase. Other features of Keybase including Chat, KBFS, Teams, Git, Wallet and others will continue to run normally as well."
sleepybrett
for now. With zoom cutting 15% ...
crepererum
https://keyoxide.org/ might grow into an alternative. It's still missing some convenience features, but the foundation looks sane.
ocdtrekkie
Keyoxide's developer has gotten some grants to really beef it up. One of the things Keybase really shines at is documentation, it makes a lot of GPG things pretty stress-free to deal with, and Keyoxide has room to improve on the user experience, polish, and documentation side.
But since Keyoxide doesn't depend on a central authority to manage proofs, it is definitively going to be the future in this space. Nobody can really kill it.
VadimPR
This is a shame, Keybase's future is looking increasingly rocky. Has anyone got alternatives for team-based secrets sharing in an open-source project?
Github secrets is one place but that's a one-way, write-only street.
robertlagrant
I like SOPS [0], but it might be a bit heavyweight. You can also use team versions of password managers for simpler tasks.
capableweb
Keybase been on life-support since 2020, when Zoom acquired them and moved the entire team over to work on Zoom instead. If you haven't already, put a reminder for the near future to migrate away from Keybase, at one point it will disappear.
coffeekitkat
I agree with that. Since the Zoom acquisition, developments on Keybase started to fall down, no quality and major updates. Zoom acquired Keybase not for the Keybase as product but only to get the talents of the E2EE and Security Engineers behind Keybase to work with Zoom.
I'll mark this 'keybase.pub being shutdown' as the second downfall of Keybase. Yes, others will say that "its only keybase.pub" but it's the start. Keybase will slowly disappear.
Are there any open source alternatives with quality UX and documentation?
kodah
I think I'd be happier if Keybase and Zoom would publicly commit to a direction for Keybase. I don't know what the acquisition details were for the OKCupid alumni but this dance of slow and no updates makes Keybase a risk when it comes to it's prospective usefulness in the future.
I am glad it's just keybase.pub that's affected atm.
voidfunc
KBFS was awesome for a small startup I worked at where we just needed some quick and dirty shared filesystems for development document sharing, quick scripts etc. Our onboarding for new folks used to be as simple as install your favorite distro, install keybase, run the onboarding script at $kbfsMountPoint and go get some coffee.
xn
I'm a daily keybase user, and I didn't even know keybase.pub existed.
kreetx
It is (was) great! Even for as trivial as quick web dev demos.
bchase
I didn't know this exists. If I know this earlier, I have used it. Anyways, there's Github or IPFS.
capableweb
Clearly, you don't understand what Keybase is if you're suggesting that GitHub or IPFS is good alternatives :)
As far as I know, there isn't anything that covers the same amount of features with the same security as Keybase, particularly the whole webring/authenticated accounts/chain that it's based on.
rvz
Exactly as suspected. [0]
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I really like Keybase. I don't even use it much but if I had the choice of paying a few dollars per month or having it be shut down, I'd pay for sure.
Maybe it's because development slowed down to a crawl but it has such an "old internet" feel to it. Like I'm using Kazaa or something.
Edit: To clarify, I understand that Keybase is not shutting down. I'm just saying hypothetically if it shuts down, which isn't unlikely in the next few years.