https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproducible_builds
e.g. https://f-droid.org/docs/Reproducible_Builds/ for F-droid's efforts on it. Debian, Arch Linux, and other popular linux distros also have their own efforts ongoing
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
7 points (81.8% liked)
privacy
10665 readers
235 users here now
Big tech and governments are monitoring and recording your eating activities. c/Privacy provides tips and tricks to protect your privacy against global surveillance.
Partners:
- community.nicfab.it/c/privacy
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
You could always examine the code and compile from source as seen.
You could also use a hash to verify the content of the code does not differ from the source.
Using precompiled binaries should be able to use a hash to verify as well.
You can also run a scan on the app/code.
It's good to take the principle of "question everything" seriously and to have the tools to do it right
Yes they could. That's what reproducible builds are for. And Linux distribution maintainers. You better install software from places like the Debian package repository (or your distribution's repo) or from F-Droid (if you're using Android).
"the one they use" Who is they? What is the one they use? Most Linux distributions and F-Droid build every package from the source code and make available the source code that was built.
"They" as in the developers and the app itself.