electrum servers

[Walley303]

I've heard something about electrum having their own servers the electrum wallet talks to instead of directly to nodes or whatever that other wallets talk to and that this has some theoretical privacy implications. Is this true? Is there a way to configure electrum to use other servers or gateways? Is this better or worse than any other wallet? Sorry for the noob language when describing this.

[1713557423]

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[1713557423]

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[1713557423]

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[Herbert2020]

what electrum wallet connects to is also a bitcoin full node. the difference is that these nodes have done additional job (indexed the blockchain so it takes more space on their hard disk) to make it easier for users connecting to their node to look up transactions and get their balances quickly.

the privacy issue is not specific to Electrum but to SPV wallets since you don't run a full node to download everything yourself and look up your transactions (balance) you have to rely on these nodes and when you request your balance they can see all your addresses and link them together or store your IP address and know these addresses belong to that IP address.

it is obviously bad if you want a very high level of privacy in which case your only option is to run a full node yourself. but it is good because people usually don't want that kind of privacy and also it is easier and more convenient for them to use an SPV wallet.

[CryptoReggae]

I've heard something about electrum having their own servers the electrum wallet talks to instead of directly to nodes or whatever that other wallets talk to and that this has some theoretical privacy implications. Is this true? Is there a way to configure electrum to use other servers or gateways? Is this better or worse than any other wallet? Sorry for the noob language when describing this.

It is known that BTC is not an anonymous currency, there are coins that do a better job on this point.
There are wallet that are created with the aim of improving anonymity: for example Samourai and Wasabi.

The same electrum can be used through the Tails distribution to improve the privacy.

[BitMaxz]

I've heard something about electrum having their own servers the electrum wallet talks to instead of directly to nodes or whatever that other wallets talk to and that this has some theoretical privacy implications. Is this true?

You can make your own servers for electrum if you don't want to connect to other Electrum server.

Check this https://electrumx.readthedocs.io/

Guides
- https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server/blob/master/INSTALL
- https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server/blob/master/HOWTO.md

Is there a way to configure electrum to use other servers or gateways?

Yes you can configure the Electrum wallet by clicking this icon below.



or by clicking the tools then network then click the server tab uncheck the "select server automatically" now you can choose any server you want just make sure to use it as server(Right click then use as server)

Is this better or worse than any other wallet?

Electrum wallet for me is much better than the web wallets or any wallet that you don't have full control of your private keys and seeds.

[bob123]

I've heard something about electrum having their own servers the electrum wallet talks to instead of directly to nodes or whatever that other wallets talk to and that this has some theoretical privacy implications. Is this true?

If you connect to a random (i.e. not your own) electrum server, yes.

The electrum server you are connecting to has access to the following information:

• All addresses which you query the balance for (every used + every address in your 'receiving address' tab)
• All transactions you send
• All transactions you receive
• Your overall amount of BTC
• The time of the day when you send / receive a transaction
• Your IP

Note that every wallet (which is not a full node client) can gather these information.
The only way to circumvent this is to either (1) run your own electrum server or (2) use a different (full node) wallet, e.g. bitcoin core.

Is this better or worse than any other wallet?

It is definitely not worse than other (desktop- / lightweight-) wallets.
It even can be regarded as better because you can choose to which server you want to connect. You don't have that option with the majority of other lightweight wallets.

[ABCbits]

Note that every wallet (which is not a full node client) can gather these information.
The only way to circumvent this is to either (1) run your own electrum server or (2) use a different (full node) wallet, e.g. bitcoin core.

On a side note, if you don't change your wallet/address & only run electrum server, another electrum server you're connected could use logged information to track you.

It also apply if you simply send all your Bitcoin to different address/wallet.

[darkpaymarket]

 Electrum has became a bitcoin phishing wallet, just wonder why still people using it!

[bob123]

Electrum has became a bitcoin phishing wallet, just wonder why still people using it!

 

There was a vulnerability (whose security implications were very low, by the way) which allowed the electrum server you were connected to to show a message. That's all.
Malicious server abused this to show a fake 'update plz from unknown source without source code, trust me' warning.

Calling electrum a phishing wallet is simply wrong.


Would you send me all your coins if in windows a warning would appear which says 'your windows is insecure, send all your coins to your new wallet: 13zAttackerAddress' ?
Wouldn't be too hard to achieve...
Would you call windows a phishing OS then ?


Oh.. and btw.. people still use electrum because
1) the vuln has been fixed
2) it is open source
3) it is AT LEAST as secure as other lightweight clients
4) it has almost all necessary features, which are missing in a lot of other wallets

[Pmalek]

Electrum has became a bitcoin phishing wallet, just wonder why still people using it!

People use it because it is not a phishing wallet!

It is unfortunate that malicious servers were able to display fake warnings and messages but in order for a person to lose his bitcoins he would have to do several things wrong.
- Click on unknown links leading to fake sites.
- Download and install fake software.
- Not verify the digital signatures of the software.

All these are mistakes made by the users, not Electrum. Electrum's mistake was allowing the messages to be displayed and that has now been rectified but people are still downloading and using fake Electrum wallets.   

[ABCbits]

Electrum has became a bitcoin phishing wallet, just wonder why still people using it!

Various wallet brand has been used for phishing attempt, just wonder why people still use Bitcoin

Oh.. and btw.. people still use electrum because
1) the vuln has been fixed
2) it is open source
3) it is AT LEAST as secure as other lightweight clients
4) it has almost all necessary features, which are missing in a lot of other wallets

5) Full control over your Bitcoin
6) Widely used with big community
7) Basic privacy is possible (with using secure/trusted proxy & good UTXO management)