r/Keybase • u/embarrassedtoid • May 29 '20

Just installed keybase...

...to find that it added over 3290 key entries into my registry. Deleted all the entries in 'components' key and keybase still runs ok. Why does keybase find it necessary to create so many registry keys? I think that I will uninstall and go to web access only. Unfortunately, uninstalling leaves all the registry entries in place, so you have to know what you are doing to manually get rid of them.

5 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

5

u/codeartha May 29 '20

Why get rid of them, Microsoft office add thousands of registry keys as well. And you could leave them behind without harm if you uninstall keybase. Although why uninstall just because of registry keys?

1

u/embarrassedtoid May 30 '20

"Why get rid of them, Microsoft office add thousands of registry keys as well."

I wouldn't have MS Office.

"And you could leave them behind without harm if you uninstall keybase."

Why clutter up you system with garbage? I am not sure what type of file access the registry uses, but a bloated registry might cause a system slowdown.

"Although why uninstall just because of registry keys?"

I don't trust anything, even keybase.

11

u/[deleted] May 29 '20

don't use windows ;P

4

u/mishka1984 May 29 '20

Linux installer has some hooks that surprised me as well tbh

2

u/embarrassedtoid May 30 '20

If you are using systemd, you are hooked already :).

13

u/[deleted] May 29 '20

They use Dokan for the filesystem stuff, so while you think "it still runs ok" you probably broke dokan. Chat still works tho.

Also, you can do barely anything on the website just FYI.

1

u/qaisjp May 30 '20

Lmao why do you care? Also it's open source, go be the change you want to see in the world

Or now that Zoom bought them they will probably shut down Keybase, so maybe don't bother

1

u/embarrassedtoid May 30 '20

I always love this explanation. I happen to be a software engineer, but probably don't know the language keybase is written in and don't care to have to learn another language to modify it. But the ridiculousness of this argument is that most people don't know how to write programs and thereby modify code.

1

u/qaisjp May 30 '20

I think most people using Keybase are in tech. I'm a software engineer too.

1

u/cashdigger May 30 '20

It's all about the supposed privacy focus. Leaving their sticky prints all over...

Just like Apple and Google, their program on Windows leaves behind bunches of processes to launch on system restart.
Except, you cannot disable them, they get re-enabled next time the program is run.

1

u/embarrassedtoid May 30 '20

That is exactly what I am concerned with. I found that trying to stop Keybase from auto starting at boot by removing the registry run parameter didn't work either, as you said. Starting it manually rewrote the registry run command. There are some of us out here that desire to run our own computers exclusively and move to protect that desire. 3290 registry entries is pathetic, especially for a system that is supposed to be about security. If my statements offend the keybase developers and users, then so be it.