Techlore Talks

End-to-end encrypted file sharing may sound simple, but for Cryptee, it took five years to ship. In this interview, Henry sits down with John Ozbay, founder and CEO of Cryptee, to talk through why: preventing CSAM, why client-side scanning doesn't work, how Cryptee's solution was designed to raise the barrier to mass spread without compromising encryption, and the broader philosophical question of...

Firefox now has a free built-in VPN with 50GB of bandwidth per month. In this interview, Henry sits down with Ajit Varma, Head of Firefox at Mozilla, to break down exactly how it works, what Mozilla can and can't see, the difference between Firefox VPN and Mozilla VPN, and why no other major browser is likely to follow Mozilla's lead on this. 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS • Firefox VPN: https://www.mozil...

Most people know DuckDuckGo as a search engine, but they're also creating a full privacy ecosystem covering a browser, VPN, data broker removal, and app tracking protection. In this Techlore Talks interview, Henry sits down with Peter Dolanjski, Director of Product at DuckDuckGo, to cover what Google is actually collecting, why incognito mode doesn't do what most people think, how DuckDuckGo's con...

The federal government doesn't need a warrant to buy your location data, your financial records, or your private information from data brokers. The Surveillance Accountability Act wants to change that. In this Techlore Talks interview, Henry sits down with Naomi Brockwell, host of NBTV and president/founder of The Ludlow Institute. They discuss the bill, Naomi's three-pillar approach to fighting t...

AI is everywhere - including Firefox. But, unlike most services, Mozilla allows you to turn it off completely. In this interview, Henry sits down with Adam Fishman, Mozilla's VP of Product, to cover the philosophy behind Firefox's AI features, how Smart Window works, the controls that let you turn everything off, the importance of "having a seat at the table", and the surprising story of how Anthr...

Most people think their passwords are safe. Most people are wrong. Henry sits down with Ryan Luibrand, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Bitwarden, to cover why open source changes the trust equation, the LastPass data breach, how KDF algorithms work, whether storing your TOTP codes in your password manager is a good idea, and more. 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS Written breakdown: https://techlore.tech...

Age verification laws are spreading fast, but most coverage is either panic or dismissal, with very little clarity on what these laws actually say, who they apply to, or what they mean for free software. In this episode of Techlore Talks, Henry sits down with Jithendra Palepu, who has a legal background and Free Software Foundation Europe volunteer, to actually make sense of it. Age verification,...

Every time you open Google Maps, it knows where you are, what you searched, how long you stayed, and where you went next. Organic Maps collects none of that. In this interview, Henry sits down with Alexander Borsuk, co-founder of Organic Maps, to talk about what mainstream maps apps are collecting, how an entirely offline-first approach changes the privacy picture, and where Organic Maps is headed...

Most people think turning off location services protects them from being tracked. It doesn't. In this interview, David Dunn from privacy-focused cellular provider Cape breaks down what carriers actually collect, how threats like IMSI catchers and SIM swaps work, and how Cape is building a mobile network specifically designed to minimize that exposure. 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS • Cape: https://www.cap...

Artyom Zorin, co-founder and lead developer of Zorin OS, explains why this Linux distribution is seeing explosive growth, its user-friendly approach, business models & incentives, privacy, open source, and more. 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS • Zorin OS: https://zorin.com • Zorin OS Pro: https://zorin.com/os/pro/ • Zorin OS Education: https://zorin.com/os/education/ ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS 00:00:00 INTRO 00:02:...

Most ad blockers start by blocking everything—then you become tech support for friends & family when pages break. Henry interviewed JP Schmetz, founder of Brave Search and CEO of Ghostery, about making trackers visible, why there are only 3 search indexes in the world, reinventing the open web with AI, and how to avoid becoming "the family CTO." 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS • Ghostery: https://www.g...

Most password managers use your master password as the encryption key—which means it can be phished and brute-forced. Passbolt uses a random private key instead. Henry interviewed co-founder Remy about why they optimized Passbolt for teams, how granular permissions prevent credential leaks, and why self-hosting matters for businesses. 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS • Passbolt: https://www.passbolt.com ⏱️...

Ad blockers have broad permissions to intercept all your web traffic—which means you need to know which ones to trust. Henry interviewed the CTO and co-founded of AdGuard about why they pivoted from data collection to privacy protection, how DNS filtering differs from local ad blocking, and Apple's revolutionary new API that lets ad blockers work system-wide on iOS without ever seeing your traffic...

Peer-to-peer networks have no servers—just devices talking directly to each other. Henry interviewed Mathias Buus Madsen, CEO of Holepunch, about how BitTorrent handled 40 million users without servers, why their messenger Keet can't go down even when usage spikes, their new P2P password manager, and how P2P apps are more energy efficient than data centers. 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS • Holepunch: http...

SimpleX Chat is the only messaging network where users have no identifiers—no phone numbers, no usernames, no user IDs at all. Henry interviewed founder Evgeny Poberezkin about how unidirectional message pipes create a network where servers don't even know users exist, why this isn't federation, how it compares to Signal and Session, and why the company is based in the UK despite encryption battle...

You don't have to trust Obscura—you just have to trust that not both Obscura and Mullvad are compromised. Henry sat down with Carl, former Bitcoin Core developer and founder of Obscura VPN, to discuss how it's the first VPN that mathematically can't log your activity, what makes it censorship-resistant against networks like the Great Firewall, and what it really means to build privacy that's more...

The Digital Markets Act is a can opener for Big Tech's walled gardens, forcing Apple, Google, and Microsoft to open their platforms whether they like it or not. Henry sat down with Lucas Lasota from the FSFE (Free Software Foundation of Europe) to understand what the DMA actually does, why Big Tech is fighting it in court, and what it means for open source software and your digital freedom. 📱 RES...

This special compilation episode brings together exclusive interviews from the Ad Filtering Dev Summit (AFDS) in October 2024. Henry sat down with developers and leaders from AdGuard, Brave, and the creator of the legendary Peter Lowe block list to discuss the state of ad blocking, new privacy features, and the future of tracking protection. Featured Interviews: Andrey Meshkov (AdGuard CTO) - Appl...

This is a different kind of Techlore Talks. Henry sits down with Marloes de Koning, a Dutch tech reporter from NRC. This wide-ranging conversation explores tech policy from a journalist's perspective, and asks hard questions about age verification, digital sovereignty, news consumption, the rules & role of journalism, and more. 🔗 TAKE ACTION • NRC: https://www.nrc.nl • Twitter/X: https://x.co...

Google just announced a policy that could kill F-Droid and open source app distribution on Android. Marc Prud'hommeaux from F-Droid's Board of Directors calls it an "extinction event"—here's why that matters even if you've never used F-Droid. 🔗 TAKE ACTION Keep Android Open (sign the petition): https://keepandroidopen.org F-Droid Website: https://f-droid.org 🧡 SUPPORT TECHLORE • Become a Techlor...

Even with encryption and 2FA, if someone steals your logged-in laptop, you're compromised. Michael Altfield created Buskill - an open source USB "dead man switch" - to solve this analog attack vector. In this interview, you’ll hear about the real incidents that inspired it, the advocacy work that fueled it, and the collaborative engineering efforts that turned it into a practical tool for protecti...

Ricardo Signes, Chief Engineer at Fastmail, explains why Gmail's email experience has become increasingly fragmented, and what it would take to actually fix the decades-old IMAP protocol that powers most of the internet. We dive deep into JMAP (the modern replacement Gmail won't adopt), privacy-by-design vs. encryption theater, and the hidden trade-offs between convenience and security that no one...

When you sign into Chrome, Google collects your entire browsing history to build behavioral profiles for targeted ads. In this interview, Firefox CTO Bobby Holley breaks down why Mozilla maintains Gecko as an independent engine, how Firefox approaches privacy differently from Google and Apple, and why the stakes for browser independence are higher than ever. ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 INTRO 01:24 CTO DAY...

In this Techlore Talks episode, we sit down with Jose Briones to explore whether dumb phones really offer better privacy and how digital minimalism can transform your relationship with technology. Jose breaks down practical strategies for reducing screen time, the importance of device segmentation, and why mindset, not just hardware, matters most. Whether you're considering a dumb phone or looking...

Wessel Klein Snakenborg, founder of NovaCustom, joins me to discuss building privacy-focused laptops with CoreBoot firmware, Intel Management Engine disabling, and full Linux compatibility. We dive deep into their custom hardware approach, Qubes OS certification, supply chain security, and why they chose to compete directly with Big Tech on hardware quality while maintaining complete user control....