No doubt about it, 2018 has been the year of privacy concerns. That’s why it’s no surprise that there’s an ultra-private smartphone in the making, the Librem 5, and its launch draws nearer by day.
The Librem 5 developers, Purism, just sent out the dev kits for the first generation of the truly private smartphone, inviting other coders and creators to contribute to the open-source project.
With privacy and security as the core philosophies, Purism stepped away from Android and chose to build a mobile OS from the ground up based on Linux.
Their promise of a fully open-source smartphone with back-to-back encryption brought them more than $2 million on Kickstarter. Those backers are now getting the Librem 5 dev kit and are invited to contribute to the project ahead of the scheduled April 2019 launch.
The Librem 5 smartphone goes beyond privacy controls embedded in software only, featuring hardware kill switches for most security-critical components: the camera, microphone, baseband, WiFi and Bluetooth.
Oh yes, and it also promises a user-replaceable battery that’s not soldered on the motherboard, so you can “keep your phone as long as you want, save money and help the planet.”
The Librem 5 is scheduled for an April 2019 launch and can already be preordered on the Purism website for $599.
Also read: ✍You Can Keep Your Bitcoin In This Encrypted SIKURPhone✍
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