Do beginners know what closed & open source wallets are?

[Yogee]

Towerbreeze, thank you for pointing that out. I went over their site https://apps.apple.com/app/trust-ethereum-wallet/id1288339409 and checked the app version history. I found out that the latest version was released April 2020. Comparing that to the last commit on github which was December 2018, I think that strongly supports the idea that the IOS Trust wallet app is not longer open source anymore.

I'm not going to comment on your feedback about IOS having backdoors

Thanks o_e_l_e_o for the github link.

[KiloFoxtrot]

As a newbie or beginner before, I am basically aware of the difference between closed & open-source wallets.

Although I'm not a programmer, we are talking about technology differences between closed systems wherein they are quite limited with regard to their flexibility and support, compared to their open-source counterparts which are the opposite situation instead by default.

[_act_]

Open source: Huge advantage over closed source is there are more people who can check the codes for any bugs or malwares. The more eyes to inspect, the faster it is to find and fix any vulnerabilities. The wallet becomes more secure to store funds. There is also no need to put trust to a few developers and this idea truly supports decentralization too.

Example of non-custodial and open source mobile wallets:
- Electrum
- MyCelium
- Bread Wallet
- Trust Wallet (IOS) **

Can you edit the OP.  Trustwallet iOS is no more open source. It is a close source wallet.

[Plaguedeath]

Can you edit the OP.  Trustwallet iOS is no more open source. It is a close source wallet.

It's already clear, why you ignore this sentence?

**some evidence suggest that it is not open source anymore.

[Coyster]

The importance of open source wallets cannot be overemphasized, quite a lot of people think all that is necessary is for the wallet to be non-custodial, so they can have their keys, but when you have keys/seed phrase to your funds that you are not sure how it was generated or what the developers are actually doing, then you cannot say your funds are safe.

Having said that, take a look at the situation with Atomic wallet, it is a good reason to use only open source (non-custodial) wallets, thus as newbies and others get to know the difference between open and closed source wallets, it is imperative that they choose the one that's safest, and that is open source wallets.

[dkbit98]

I read some guide posts about custodial vs. non-custodial wallets but only a few about open vs. closed source. I often read them brought up by other users in the comments. I think many beginners don't have the slightest idea about the difference between closed and open source yet. I don't claim to be an expert on this but I will try to highlight that in this post based on what I understand so far.

I was advocating open source wallets for years and people told me several times that I am to extreme with this approach, but look what is happening with closed source wallets.
They get hacked, infected by malware all the time and who knows what else is happening below the hood, since nobody can check the code.
There is a high chance closed source hardware wallets have some hidden code or backdoor that can remain dormant for years and just waits to be activated.

Few more good examples of less known non-custodial open source wallets are Sparrow wallet, Airgap wallet, Unstoppable wallet, etc.