Briar GTK

A GTK app for Briar, bringing secure messaging to your desktop and mobile devices. It uses briar_wrapper and the Briar REST API and therefore requires Java and Python. Currently, it only supports private chats and requires a x86 Linux.

For regular updates, check out the Briar tag on Nico Alt's blog (RSS feed) and watch the milestones of this repo.

Installation

We plan to distribute Briar via Debian (and related distributions) as .deb and via Flathub.org as flatpak, but until now, there are only semi-official installation methods available. You might want to use them now for not having to wait, but please note that those installation methods will be deprecated once Briar is available in Debian and Flathub.org.

Flatpak

Briar GTK can be installed using Flatpak. After installing Flatpak, you can install Briar GTK like this:

flatpak install --user https://flatpak.dorfbrunnen.eu/repo/appstream/app.briar.gtk.flatpakref

In case the above command doesn't work for you, you can try to install it manually:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists dorfbrunnen https://flatpak.dorfbrunnen.eu/repo/dorfbrunnen.flatpakrepo
flatpak install --user app.briar.gtk

Running

After installing Briar GTK, you can run it like this:

flatpak run app.briar.gtk

Debian Bullseye

At media.dorfbrunnen.eu/briar/debs .deb files are available to install Briar GTK on Debian Bullseye (currently testing). From its readme:

Similar to the jars/ folder, I will upload .deb packages of Briar GTK here until Briar is included in Debian main.

To verify the signatures, first download my PGP key:

https://keys.openpgp.org/vks/v1/by-fingerprint/558BE9071CA6CA44DBF5576B95A0DAF7DBC7B548

Then, import my key into your key ring:

gpg --import 558BE9071CA6CA44DBF5576B95A0DAF7DBC7B548

Finally, verify that the files match the signatures:

gpg --verify briar-gtk-latest.deb.sig briar-gtk-latest.deb

Before installing the .debs, please make sure to uninstall any other versions of Briar related software on your device, e.g. briar_wrapper from pip.

You can then proceed to installing the .deb's:

sudo apt install ./*.deb

Developers

GNOME Builder

The easiest and most convenient way to build briar-gtk is by using Builder. Because Flatpak support is quite new in Builder, it's recommend to install Builder via Flatpak:

flatpak install flathub org.gnome.Builder

To setup Flatpak on your system, check out the documentation at flatpak.org. In Builder, click "Clone Repository" at the bottom and enter the URL to this Git project.

flatpak-builder

To build it on the command-line without Builder, call this:

flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak-builder --install-deps-from=flathub --user --install --force-clean --ccache flatpak-builddir app.briar.gtk.json
flatpak run app.briar.gtk

Directly from source

Warning: This hasn't been tested yet.

After cloning this Git repository, don't forget to initialize the briar-wrapper submodule:

git submodule update --init

First, install some Debian dependencies:

sudo apt install meson libhandy-1-dev gettext appstream-util python3-pip

On Fedora, you can call:

sudo dnf install meson gtk3-devel libhandy-devel gettext libappstream-glib python3-pip

Then, install the Python dependencies:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

You also need to build Briar Headless. Check its readme to learn how to do it. You can also use builds provided by The Briar Project, e.g. briarproject.org/jar/briar-headless-1.2.14.jar, and put the .jar file at ~/.local/share/java/briar-headless.jar. Make sure to have java (e.g. openjdk-11-jdk) installed.

Once you've done this, change the path to the Briar headless jar in briar_gtk.define and build Briar GTK with meson and ninja:

meson --prefix $PWD/_install _build
ninja -C _build all install

You should then be able to run Briar GTK like this:

XDG_DATA_DIRS=_install/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS ./_install/bin/briar-gtk

Debian

First, install some Debian dependencies:

sudo apt install build-essential devscripts debhelper gnome-pkg-tools python3-all meson libhandy-1-dev gettext appstream-util

You can then build the .deb like this:

debuild -us -uc

And install the .deb like this:

sudo dpkg -i ../briar-gtk_0.1.0-beta1-1_all.deb

Translations

See TRANSLATION.md for more information.

Maintenance

From time to time, translations and Flatpak's Python dependencies should be updated. The former can be done with tools/update-translations.sh, the latter using flatpak-builder-tools.

Design Goals

• Intuitive UI, similar to Briar Android client
• Main platform is GNU/Linux, but should also support (at least) Windows and macOS
• Analogously, main platform is x86, but should also support (at least) arm
• Follows GNOME Human Interface Guidelines
• Adaptive to different screen sizes (desktop and mobile devices)
• Has phone constraints in mind
• Strictly separates API wrapper from GTK stuff, making former a solid base for other (commandline) clients

FAQ

How can I let Briar start automatically at system boot?

Until #66 is resolved, you can manually tell your desktop environment to start Briar by creating the following file:

.config/autostart/briar-gtk.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=briar-gtk
Exec=/usr/bin/briar-gtk

If you're using Flatpak, you need to change Exec to /usr/bin/flatpak run app.briar.gtk.

How can I run this on the Librem 5?

Briar GTK doesn't yet run on the Librem 5, because ARM support is still pending in briar-headless (#1854).

Later on, whether you own a Librem 5 or set up an emulator, you can install Briar GTK easily using Flatpak.

If you want to hack support yourself, take a look at briar-ship-no-tor-binary.patch and more in this article.

For more questions, take a look at the FAQ of python-briar-wrapper.

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Affero General Public License for more details.