Open Source is an interesting alternative, which adds the possibility of collaboration and customization in the development of the software, it allows developers to use the code or part of it for their own projects, this naturally offers many advantages. Now, many times I read several clearly wrong opinions about it. OpenSource is more secure and more private than closed source, which is completely false, it is not, it is not the first time that I have discovered Trojans and other malware in OpenSource. It is true that a developer can review the code, although this is not always easy in very complex software with up to millions of lines of code, many also pointing to external scripts, which also require revision. For this reason, many developers do not do it, limiting themselves to changing certain codes to adapt it to their needs or to create their own product. For this reason, security and privacy always depends on the activity of the creator / creators and the corresponding community, if any, to detect possible infiltrations by hackers, who also have access to the code of this software. The normal user, without great knowledge, has no possibility of verification, far from passing the product through VirusTotal or the AV that he uses. You must trust the product’s TOS and PP, in many cases not much better for privacy than other proprietary products. Of course, the free argument is also false, not all OSS is free, it can even have high costs. For this reason, I think that, to maintain the freedom and the great advantages that the OpenSource movement has, to put an end to these mistaken opinions and to make users aware of the real value that this movement has, so as not to lead them to a field of disappointment.
Preferably use OpenSource, but like any other software, avoid blind trust and check the application before using it and above all, importantly, always read the TOS and PP of the product, this avoids many annoyances. Avoid products whithout updates for a long time, which shows a lack of attention on the part of the developer.
How open source is safer than closed source?
It is in the distribution model mostly. Open-source allows 3rd parties to verify and build the binary packages. With closed source you can only trust a single party that the binary does what they claim (and only that).
While of course malware can also be hidden in open-source software, it is much easier to hide it in 1st party distributed binaries that get directly installed by the end-user.
It isn’t really, protecting security and privacy isn’t the main reason of OpenSource. Looking in GitHub, there a FLOSS APIs from Google, Facebook, Amazon and others, which are include in many other FOSS. Privacy is other thing.
Github is a repository for open source code, not the concept of open source itself. As I have said many times before, please do not confuse “open source” with “open source software”.
I agree with you.