Stop keybase from starting on system start?

[bwarren2]

I am on Ubuntu 14.04, have nothing in /etc/xdg/autostart/ or Startup Applications for keybase, and yet on every system start I am prompted for my keybase password as keybase starts. There appear to be no useful settings for startup management in keybase itself. How can I stop this?

[obijan42]

Same here on OSX El Capitain. Expected behavior: Being able to control startup in User preferences.

[cjb]

@bwarren2 Hi, try commenting out the final line of:

~/.config/autostart/keybase_autostart.desktop

[bwarren2]

Works perfectly. Thanks!

On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 1:47 PM, Chris Ball notifications@github.com wrote:

@bwarren2 https://github.com/bwarren2 Hi, try commenting out the final line of:

~/.config/autostart/keybase_autostart.desktop

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues/2380#issuecomment-235698791, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABnXZQNUPwf5ACyHWV9qCYj0vd6QYhARks5qZ7XugaJpZM4JNn2g .

[jakerobers]

I don't have a ~/.config/autostart folder, but it may be because I am on Yosemite. Also checked /Library/StartupItems and /System/Library/StartupItems, but couldn't find anything.

[7MinSec]

Yeah I've got the same issue as @jakerobers. I'm on a Mac (10.11.6) and can't seem to disable Keybase from firing up on login. I've got nothing in Login Items in System Preferences and nothing in /Library/StartupItems or System/Library/StartupItems either. Am I missing the obvious here?

[mifix]

As far as I know, there isn't any userfriendly configuration yet.

On OS X, in your terminal run:

cd ~/Library/LaunchAgents; launchctl unload keybase.*; mv ./keybase.* ~/Desktop; launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/keybase.Helper.plist; sudo mv /Library/LaunchDaemons/keybase.Helper.plist ~/Desktop

(As a backup, the plists are moved to your Desktop)

[phlebotinum]

Just realized there is no option. INSTANT UNINSTALL. Let me know when your marketing strategies grow up.

[zQueal]

Let me know when your marketing strategies grow up.

Keybase is FOSS. Not exactly sure how ensuring software which may be used during a session is properly started equates to shady "business" practices and marketing ploys... But if you have that much of an issue with it, you could always submit a pull request implementing this feature.

But is it honestly that difficult to simply disable via the system without a built-in mechanism for it in the installer? What if a user disables it at startup and wants to re enable it? Or the inverse of that? Selectively users already need to know how to enable or disable startup options to ensure Keybase works for them. Not sure why it's ridiculous to you that a disable feature isn't included in the installer in beta community driven software.

(I don't speak for Keybase)

[phlebotinum]

Maybe i missed something and my rage-reflex is a mistake here.

But, what about this:

Keybase raises $10.8M

We're working on something new and ambitious here, and we're expanding our team. Thanks to a big investment from impressive people, Keybase is aiming to bring public key crypto to everyone.

[zQueal]

Keybase as a company received $10.8M in series A funding (venture capital) from which they hope to eventually develop a product which can be used for team based collaboration and hosted solutions--possibly for a corporate environment;

some people may turn to us for more advanced, hosted solutions. That could be anything from team management (in the enterprise) to hosting of public, signed files.

Keybase as a consumer product is likely to never change--by which I mean FOSS. So yes, it absolutely is a product, but "marketing" when used the way you did is nothing more than a knee-jerk term (IMO) used to imply distasteful or surreptitious advertising on the same level of Symantec (once you install you physically can't uninstall without a special tool) or something.

I'm not trying to call you out here or anything, but I'm trying to understand why you would think that the lack of startup options immediately mean something malicious or underhanded--especially so when dealing with beta software--even more so when you can manually disable launch at startup with ease.

[phlebotinum]

I overreacted initially. VC needs no explaining. It might not be on purpose on their side. These days i have zero tolerance for anything with the slightest appearance of not being ultra user service oriented and basically "old school" decent behavior / new school "ethical software". Anybody putting decent behavior first will get me as a paying customer easily. Everyone else gets the backlash after years of RealPlayer, Facebook privacy settings, etc...

[lvh]

keybase uninstall --components service appears to uninstall the LaunchAgent.

[dmiddlecamp]

hitting this as well, I tend to uninstall apps that don't let me control their startup behavior...

[nicjansma]

I'm frustrated I can't control this from the UI.

On Windows, I have to remove the two start menu links (AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup) via AutoRuns, and somehow, Keybase just popped up again (long after a Windows reboot) and readded its links.

This kind of option needs to be controllable via the UI, or you will likely get users like myself and others in the thread who will simply remove it.

[rodimius]

Honestly you don't get a chance on this one, programs re-enabling themselves get uninstalled.

[zanderz]

@nicjansma The app does not re-write those startup shortcuts, they are only made at install time. What most likely happened is a silent update. Note that the first time the update option is shown, there is a checkbox, on by default, which says to update silently next time.

You could edit updater.json and turn auto updates back off to avoid silently re-installing those links, but there is no friendly gui to prevent running at startup.

[jackcasey]

Seems like this could do with re-opening. I've had to uninstall on windows. Not due to some moral high ground or anything, but just the fact that my keybase filesystem (including /private/) is mounted and accessible automatically when my windows PC starts up. No password or anything. I really can't have that :(

[zanderz]

@jackcasey If you log out of Keybase, the filesystem will not be accessible.

[jackcasey]

@zanderz I have the same issue on my macosx machine. There is no 'logout' option. It seems I can either have my /keybase/private accessible on system start (with no password prompt even), or I can uninstall the app?

[zanderz]

At the command line (Keybase Shell on Windows), issue keybase logout. Then the filesystem will be inaccessible at reboot until you log in again.

[josephg]

@zanderz That makes the files inaccessible but doesn't solve the problem. The keybase app is based on electron, so it has a huge (chrome sized) memory footprint and idle CPU use. I only open chrome & friends when I'm plugged in because battery life is important to me. Leaving keybase running but logged out just makes that memory & cpu wasted.

[banool]

Any progress on this? None of the solutions posted here worked for me on MacOS High Sierra, nor those from https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/3904. This and the lack of 2FA are big deterrents from me properly using keybase.

[sean9999]

i'd like to write a GUI client in something less heavy than electron. Any interest?

[maxtaco]

on Linux? you can. cc: @oconnor663

[patrickxb]

macOS:

System Preferences -> User Preferences -> Login Items, remove keybase

after that, keybase won't start when you boot your computer.

There have been 1 or 2 rare reports that that doesn't work for some people, we have been unable to reproduce it. The above works for me on several devices.

[quanticle]

Why is this issue closed? I'm on Windows, and Keybase still starts up on system login, even though I have the "Open Keybase on startup" option unchecked, under the "Advanced" preferences.

[thenaturalist]

macOS:

Any time I launch keybase again, it automatically adds itself to the Login Items. This is infuriating.

[maxtaco]

Hmm, thought we fixed this, but there's a race condition we never got to the bottom of.

Cc: @patrickxb

[oconnor663]

It seems like something regressed recently. I got a report about this from another friend of mine who uses Windows.

[patrickxb]

I didn't make any changes for Windows.

@chrisnojima made most recent fixes in this area, including adding the checkbox to preferences. I'm not sure if his work affected windows or just macOS.

[chrisnojima]

The fix for windows and osx should be in the next release. We merged a fix 20 hours ago : https://github.com/keybase/client/pull/10338

[josephg]

@abdulhannanali because every electron app uses heaps of RAM. At least amongst firefox users, 55% of users have <=4gb of ram (source). So using 500mb - 1gb of ram for an app that the user isn't even using at the time is a huge cost. If you like, you can think about it as an accessibility problem. By having high RAM costs, you're making your app inaccessible to poor people.

Also, many electron apps also sit at 1-5% CPU all the time, even when the user isn't interacting with the app. Because of the way modern power saving features work, this dramatically decreases battery life.

I'm happy for people to selectively pay this cost, and I applaud the effort put into keybase. But electron + autostart-at-login is a dealbreaker for me as a user.

[obijan42]

Can we stick to the technical facts please, and not debate politics of free software?

This is a security app. Anybody worth their salt in infosec wants a tight control over what processes are running on their system.

On Thu, Apr 5, 2018, 01:38 Hannan Ali notifications@github.com wrote:

why are people so bummed about an application that is just trying to load first so it can be available on time. One upside to it is, that Electron based apps have a bit of startup time, so this ensure that Keybase is already there. If anyone took all the time and trouble to install an app and then sign up it means the user wants the app.

We know people majority doesn't stay on websites longer than 3 seconds. Keybase's goal is to make secure communication easier and I think it's okay if it starts up earlier. Although I am here to disable but it's not the only application that starts up on boot.

Nobody would have put the blame on marketing strategies and stuff if it was a not for profit thing, but that doesn't take us anywhere in making open source sustainable. People love keybase and if they want to pay for their food while they make a FOSS product, please let them do it it's their right.

Companies like Keybase provide us a space to speak out, share concerns and feedback, so let's use that power positively instead of putting all the blame on their Marketing strategy, save it for Apple please.

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues/2380#issuecomment-378861711, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFeY4dVCzhPulzj9lLTuFRzY4PU8zPjfks5tldfogaJpZM4JNn2g .

[joaovarelas]

Keybase was supposed to assure user privacy & security but in the end it is doing the opposite.

• Cant block or remove users
• Software automatically runs on startup (without asking)
• The account "reset" is not an actual reset.

[clayt0nk]

Wow, 2019 and this is still an issue. I just spent over an hour, and I STILL cannot stop keybase from starting. I am not a Linux newbie, by a long shot.

[ghost]

This is seriously bad design. Seriously bad.

[Asday]

Wait why is this issue closed? This is ridiculous.

[TACIXAT]

I uninstalled today. Why is there no simple option of "don't start at startup" in the app? I don't need to dick around with disabling services and stopping the desktop app. Encrypted git is cool, but not worth an app that doesn't offer user control.

[patrickxb]

There is on Settings -> Advanced:

[clayt0nk]

That "Open Keybase on startup" tick box does not appear on my Linux version of keybase, straight out of the keybase debian repo: Version 3.1.2-20190312133549.4c383e6a53 (which I had to dig out of the packaging system, software version seems nowhere to be found in the Keybase UI). I do not recall every having seen such an option, and I have looked more than once.

[heronhaye]

On Linux, the standard way is to disable it from your DE's startup manager (Gnome: https://askubuntu.com/questions/37957/how-do-i-manage-applications-on-startup-in-gnome-3, KDE: https://docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/kde-workspace/kcontrol/autostart/index.html).

Alternatively, we provide a convenience function to do this in the CLI:

keybase ctl autostart --disable

These solutions are documented in our Linux User Guide.

If this doesn't work, let us know, thanks!

[ghost]

keybase ctl stop would be a lovely option to have in the GUI, as would disabling autostart...

[tobypinder]

why are people so bummed about an application that is just trying to load first so it can be available on time. One upside to it is, that Electron based apps have a bit of startup time, so this ensure that Keybase is already there. If anyone took all the time and trouble to install an app and then sign up it means the user wants the app.

We know people majority doesn't stay on websites longer than 3 seconds. Keybase's goal is to make secure communication easier and I think it's okay if it starts up earlier. Although I am here to disable but it's not the only application that starts up on boot without asking me for it. I am finding a way to disable each of those to speed up my boot times.

Nobody would have put the blame on marketing strategies and stuff if it was a not for profit thing, but that doesn't take us anywhere in making open source sustainable. People love keybase and if they want to pay for their food while they make a FOSS product, please let them do it it's their right.

Companies like Keybase provide us a space to speak out, share concerns and feedback, so let's use that power positively instead of putting all the blame on their Marketing strategy, save it for Apple please.

The UX argument goes both ways. There's a discussion to be had about the sensible defaults, but the fact that the consumer product does not have a "Open Keybase on Startup" on linux (or even a link to the cmd line docs within the product) is disappointing and contributes significantly to the frustration here, especially when many users are in RAM constrained environments etc.

I would suggest that the appropriate links to the Linux User Guide (keybase ctl autostart --disable) command is documented directly within the advanced options panel in the short term, and that potentially the client is updated to support direct manipulation of this value in future - this would completely alleviate people's concerns in my opinion, and mirror the behaviour of other electron-style apps (Slack, Discord etc)

[navin09]

Thank you, @toxik-io and @heronhaye for the stop and disable autostart commands. This is indeed a frustrating "feature".

[heronhaye]

ctl stop is now available in the GUI by clicking your username at the top left -> Quit Keybase.

[ghost]

keybase fs still running in the background when you killed keybase was always a fun thing to keep me up at night....

[heronhaye]

@toxik-io Does this still happen? It was fixed recently. Could you reproduce and make another issue?

[oliverbienert]

This does not work: keybase ctl autostart --disable Ubuntu 18.04, Plasma Desktop keybase --version keybase version 4.2.1-20190718132443+117e8ce562

After issuing the above command, there are now 2 desktop files in the autostart folder: keybase and keybase_autostart Is that correct?

I also tried to put an -a to the command in the desktop file: Exec=XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity /home/oliver/bin/start_keybase.sh -a but to no avail. Should I open a new issue?

UPDATE After removing keybase.desktop, everything works correctly, app starts minimized. So sorry for the noise. Perhaps this file remained from an earlier version, I remember adding the XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity to have a correctly sized icon in kde system tray.

[heronhaye]

@oliverbienert That's odd, keybase.desktop should not be in that folder. Please make a new issue if it reappears or if you have other issues with autostart.

[oliverbienert]

As I mentioned, in the past I had this issue with an oversized keybase tray icon in KDE/Plasma. The solution someone posted was to set XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity, so I don't know if by chance I put the desktop file in this folder deliberately. I'll let you know when something unusual happens. As of today, everything runs fine.