Purism
More info
- Creator
- Todd Weaver
- Released
- 2014–
- Type
- Hardware maker (laptops, phones)
An American company selling laptops and phones with physical switches for the camera, microphone and radios.
Todd Weaver founded Purism in 2014 and registered it as a social purpose corporation, a legal form that lets privacy outrank profit. Librem laptops run coreboot, neutralise Intel's Management Engine as far as possible, and have hardware kill switches that cut power to the webcam, microphone and Wi-Fi. The operating system, PureOS, is Debian-based and endorsed by the Free Software Foundation.
The Librem 5 phone was crowdfunded in 2017 on Linux with a GNOME-based interface instead of Android. Shipping slipped for years and arrived in batches, which made Purism a cautionary tale about as often as a role model. The phone works, but whoever buys one is also buying a position.