Brief: Purism, the privacy focused company behind Librem laptops and smartphone, has unveiled a new suite of services to further serve the privacy aware people.
You probably have heard about Purism. It’s a ‘Social Purpose Corporation’ that has created the PureOS Linux distribution, Librem series of laptops and Librem5 Linux-based smartphone. All of their products are focused on protecting your privacy and giving you entire control over your data.
Purism has increased its offering for privacy and security concerned people with a new bundle of service, called Librem One.
Librem One: A collection of encrypted services for privacy aware people

Librem One is a suite of encrypted services that protects your privacy by allowing you to securely communicate with other people.
Today, Librem One consists of the following services:
- Librem Chat – end-to-end encrypted chat, VOIP, and video calling based on Matrix (like Riot)
- Librem Mail – end-to-end encrypted email service like Tutanota and ProtonMail
- Librem Tunnel – end-to-end encrypted VPN tunnel
- Librem Social – decentralized social media (sort of Mastodon)
That’s not it. There are some other services in the pipeline that will be added to Librem One suite of services later and will be available to all Librem One users.
- Librem Files – pay-as-you-go end-to-end encrypted cloud storage
- Librem Backup – pay-as-you-go end-to-end encrypted long-term full cloud backups
- Librem Contacts – end-to-end encrypted contact sync and storage
- Librem Pay – cryptographic payments
- Librem Dial – pay-as-you-go phone service
Librem One pricing: Part free, part paid

If you just want to use the Librem Chat and Librem Social, you don’t have to pay anything. You can download these apps on Google Play store and Apple Store. No love for F-Droid?
Rest of the Librem One services come at a cost but that cost is not your data like other free services in the same domain. You won’t see ads, there won’t be trackers and your privacy will be respected.
At launch, complete Librem One has the following pricing:
- Librem Chat
- Librem Social
- Librem Mail
- Librem Tunnel (VPN)
- All other future service
- Librem Chat
- Librem Social
- Librem Mail
- Librem Tunnel (VPN)
- All other future service
What do you think of Purism and Librem?
Purism was founded in 2014 with a purpose and that purpose was to enable privacy aware people protect their data. Their products are top-notch, both in terms of quality and pricing ($1300 for a laptop). Their targeted market is people who must secure their data. Journalists, whistle-blowers, social activists are a few of such examples.
But this doesn’t mean that general public cannot and should not use their products. If you are concerned about your privacy, you’ll have to take an extra step to secure it.
What do you think of Purism and Librem? What you think of the entire privacy debate? Is it worth paying extra for services that promise to protect your data? Do share your views.
Great start, but a long way to go. Paying customer, and have phone on order with them. To compare the email to ProtonMail or Tutanota is incorrect, long way off from either. It’s early days, and hoping for progress over coming months.
I like this quite a lot. While they are using otc FOSS, they are helping to create demand for these technologies and awareness of privacy issues. It’s not unlike framasoft in this regard.
One of the biggest issues for any tech is to get users on board. If most people are using WhatsApp, it’s hard to convert them to PrivacyChat.
Purism is not only helping to bring in new users, they are creating a complete stack of solutions: Hardware, Desktop OS, Mobile OS, privacy-related apps that are integrated into their OS offerings, privacy app-store and even Android/iOS one-click app solutions.
It’s the reverse of what non-accountable BigTech spyware is doing – whose entire stack shows an utter disdain for end-users.
There’s a good rant on the Linux Unplugged podcast, just for a … different view.
I was a little disappointed in it honestly because I love the show. People will vote with their wallets regardless and they can make whatever decisions they want with their money.
Purism is making the attempt and that should be applauded. If they fail their work is open and can be forked.
Be good if they can pull it off, not alot of groupware options come close to the simplicity and usefulness of Google’s.
That’s true.
Very good