Typical computers use hardware chips coupled with software that can betray you (including tracking you without your consent). News stories have shown how these chips can surreptitiously transmit voice, networking, picture or video signals. Other chips are used to install spyware, malware or viruses. These built-in vulnerabilities can turn “your” computer into “their” computer.1"HP’s stupid audio-driver logs every keystroke you make (and it has an API!)" — BoingBoing, May 2017 2"Google admits its new smart speaker was eavesdropping on users" — CNN, October 2017 3"Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning" — The Washington Post, December 2013 4"Chrome Flaw Allows Sites to Secretly Record Audio/Video Without Indication" — The Hacker News, May 2017 5"Spying through strangers’ webcams just got easier" — CNBC, January 2016 6"How the NSA plans to infect millions of computers with malware" — The Intercept, March 2014 (see "GUMFISH", "CAPTIVATEDAUDIENCE", "GROK", etc.) 7"Wikileaks: CIA has tools to snoop via TVs" — BBC, March 2017 8"Alexa, what other devices are listening to me?" — CNN, January 2017 9"Lenovo’s Superfish security snafu blows up in its face" — CNET, February 2015 (see also the Wikipedia article) 10"The Webcam Hacking Epidemic" — The Atlantic, December 2014

Only by selecting each and every chip in our Librem laptops can we guarantee your privacy, security and freedom are protected.

If we compare our laptops to Apple’s Macbook, Google’s Chromebook, or pretty much any mainstream OEM computer, our devices have many strong points making them a better long-term investment:

• Fully Free/libre and open source with PureOS preloaded, and can run any recent GNU+Linux operating system of your choosing.
• Physical hardware kill switches
• Support for coreboot and a user-controlled verified boot process with TPM
• A neutralized and disabled Intel Management Engine, and avoidance of Intel’s Active Management Technology
• No user registration required (try using a Google device without a Google account, or an Apple device without an Apple account!)
• Solid aluminum with regular screws—not screws designed to screw you and prevent user servicing, repairs or experimentation
• Privacy protection software preloaded by default with PureOS, and lifetime software feature and security updates
• No bloatware (unwanted preinstalled software), spyware, trialware—or any proprietary software, for that matter—bundled with the computer
• No corporate backdoors, with a guarantee against that possibility
• User upgradeable, no planned obsolescence
• User owned, not rented (see Apple v FBI: It’s About Control)
• Not dependent on an Internet connection—thousands of Free Software applications designed to work offline, with data stored locally on your system instead of “in the cloud”
• No endemic bloat—just a lean, efficient operating system and set of well-engineered native applications that keep running at top performance, year after year.
• No forced software updates

Trusting the hardware requires trusting the software that controls it.

With proprietary systems, you do not know what is being sent to whom. There is a real and tangible threat of your own devices being used to spy on you (as per the articles cited in the introduction above).

Let’s look at just one example: wireless cards. All data that goes from your laptop to the outside world passes through your wireless card. Can you look into a proprietary wireless card to make sure it’s not sending all that data to its manufacturer? Nope—how it works is a trade secret. The wireless card—and every other component—of your Librem device is designed in accordance with the Librem open philosophy of keeping you in absolute control of your data.

And you don’t have to take our word for it: because we use free software drivers in the kernel, where the source code can be verified, our claims are open to inspection by the global “open-source” community. You are welcome to look in the kitchen and see how your food is made.

Your Librem laptop comes pre-loaded with software that is designed to protect your local data, online usage, and everything in between. The moment you turn on your Librem, you will be as protected as cryptographically possible.

The Librem line of devices represents a concrete step toward fundamentally changing the computer industry. We believe in protecting your rights, and will continue to fight on behalf of those rights. You are in control of your data and your device. Nobody else.

Like what you read here? You might also like:

• About our competitors
• Eliminating Corporate Control and Data Capitalism
• The many other articles in our “Why Purism?” section.