How safe is open source software? What are the general benefits? - eviltoast

So with open source software more on my mind lately I was wondering - while I get the benefits of transparency and such, how safe is it? If the source code is available to all, isn’t it easier to breach for people (like the recent cookies hack)? If I’d have an open source password manager, would it be easier for people to get my passwords somehow than if I use something not open source? Do I just not understand how software works in general?

And what are other benefits that may be not so obvious to someone not so knowledgable about this?

Edit: thank you all for really insightful answers! Among other things I also learned just how much I don’t know :)

  • CAPSLOCKFTW@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    If someone wants to find a vulnerability they will find a vulnerability.

    only if there is a vulnerability. Which is possible but not necessary.

    The only advantage open source maybe has that it’s harder to hide vulnerabilities for years

    Vulnerabilitues should never be hidden but in stead eradicated. The true advantage of oss (regarding security) is that your implementations have to be secure. Security by obscurity is simply not an option

    and it’s more obvious if they don’t fix it.

    Security also means knowing about issues. When “they don’t fix it” in OSS, you at least (can) know about that, in closed source it is harder to be sure that the code is secure.