SailWarden - Bitwarden Client for Sailfish OS

[Kanthal]

@FixFlare

People on openrepos have been great.

Are they?
I checked open repos and you published 3 apps at the same time less than 2 weeks ago.
The first comment on Sail something for plex(?) was a question about the source code and where would you release it and you completely ignored him.

The rest of your comments across all apps are 5 people that most we know and they are here and in telegram as well.

But the whole topic is actually good from my perspective. This is a great opportunity for all of us as community to make all new users aware that they should use Jolla store and chum, because blindly downloading from openrepos can get them in troubling situations.

[Steve_Everett]

@MoralCoral

So it is AI assisted then? Please just stop talking around it and just tell us.

Actually, I think that is pretty obvious. There are quite a few AI ‘develop assisted’ apps now coming to Openrepos, and in my opinion, that is a good thing (subject to certain provisos).

What Sailfish lacks, as we all know, is an app ecosystem that will appeal to a wider audience than just SFOS fans and tinkerers.

For example, an up to date browser. Just posted on this forum is first impressions of the new J2 browser based on Gecko ESR 115 (due, for non J2 owners, in SFOS 5.2 at some point in the future).

Even in Jolla’s new, most up to date, browser you get a mesage saying that its too old and will soon no longer work with Jolla’s own SFOS forum.

It took flypig over a year of work to move the browser from, I think, ESR 78 to ESR 91.

But in a fraction of that time we now have the Atlantic browser (early version at the moment) whose UI is identical to the stock browser, but which uses an up to date Webkit engine. To paraphrase a famous beer ad, it can reach sites that no other native browser can.

We have the AI developed RooTelegram client, developed in weeks which is way more advanced than any other native Telegram client. It can do video calls (a first, I think, for a native app), groups, channels, stories, audio calls, media library, etc, etc. Its as close to Telegram’s own client in terms of functionality such that a normal user probably wouldn’t really notice the difference.

There’s an intersting debate on AI coding for SFOS in another thread here, including a poll. Worth a read if you have not already done so.

[jojomen]

@FixFlare

People on openrepos have been great. That honestly surprised me, you’d think the community would be the same people both places but seemingly not?

I would also assume that the people engaging on Openrepos are generally members of this forum. Despite using Sailfish OS for a number of years, I have only seen short, transactional comments in per-app threads on Openrepos. I wasn’t even aware that there is a Openrepos community.

To my mind, the obvious go-to places for someone developing for Sailfish OS would be this forum and the developer hangout on IRC/Matrix. People here are generally helpful, especially when questions are reasonably clear and with some background provided - the kind of questions developers often have.

I’m sure developers coming to Sailfish OS would get help, regardless of the open source/closed source nature of their project.

In addition, I think such interaction would also be a good way to gain trust and recognition, because the community would get to know the developer as work progresses. Far more efficient than, say, providing one’s CV in a comment.

[iolala]

Hey man, you should probably just ignore most people on this forum on most topics, especially on UX and AI.
I think the water is bad around these parts of the internet or something.

I have two mentions regarding the app:

1. You should bring the app to the official Jolla app store.

2. I’m not crazy about the UI. It doesn’t really feel sailfishy to me.
   The other Bitwarden client mentioned in this discussion does look like a proper native sailfish app.
   That bottom navigation bar you use just ruins it for me completely.

Just so you know, I like Sailfish OS primarily for the looks of the thing because the smarts are nowhere to be found anyway. So, for me, the way an app looks matters A LOT.

I recommend you analyze the UI paradigms that Jolla uses in their own apps (except the browser, tbh), in the settings app, in the notifications page, etc.
I also recommend you take a look at the SFOS Forum Viewer app from the official Jolla app store.

Currently, your app looks like an Android app with a pretty, Sailfish OS skin on top.
It’s definitely not bad or ugly, but it doesn’t really feel native to Sailfish OS.

[Steve_Everett]

@FixFlare

@Steve_Everett

Was that version 0.2? I’ve released 2 more versions to fix issues that people have reported.

No, v0.4 from today, 9th July.

I’ve set login by Pin, but it seems to ignore that. ‘Remember Me’ at login also doesn’t seem to work. Both things mean you have to do the lengthy login with the master password and verification code each time you start the app. The system ‘Secrets’ and ‘Confirm authorisation’ pop ups have to be acknowledged 6 times during the login process, so something is still not quite right.

Once you’ve (eventually) logged in it works great. I’m also reasonably sure that any changes you make in settings are not persistent and/or do not make any difference.

[FixFlare]

Fair points - I appreciate it.

Funny you mention that because on OpenRepos someone recommended I add tabs to my Plex app and I argued against it. Now over here, I add tabs and you don’t like it - lol.

I use the bitwarden app on android multiple times each day, the app is nearly identical on iphone. It made a ton of sense to me to keep that same design on sailfish so the app works the same way across all 3 platforms. I still think that makes sense personally.

If you have some specific ideas on improvements let me know. I generally tend to go with the consensus of what most users will like but when I have one user saying add tabs, another saying to remove them, who wins?

This is also why I’m hoping people will use the feedback site within the app because it allows people to vote on requests and I can see what that consensus actually is.

If you have issues accessing the feedback site let me know since I had it locked down to USA only until very recently.

[FixFlare]

Hey Steve, sorry for the late reply I haven’t been checking here I’ve been checking OpenRepos. If you comment there, I’ll see it much more quickly.

I spent about 3-4 hours debugging this problem today and I’m almost certain I got to the bottom of it.

Give version 0.5 a try and let me know if you still are hitting those SQL Cipher prompts.

[iolala]

Tabs on Sailfish OS look like this in the Settings app:

And they look like this in the phone app:

I agree that the tabs you used are overall superior from a usability point of view (they also show an icon for easier identification, they allow you to use left-right swipes within the tab if you need to, instead of these gestures being reserved by the OS for changing between tabs).

There is a reason why both Android and iOS both settled on this type of tabs.

It’s just that they don’t look sailfishy enough for me, given that the look of Sailfish OS is the most interesting to me, so that inconsistency stands out to me like a sore thumb.

But if I were you, I would approach this the same way you did: I would make the app UI best for how I use it.
It’s not like every other app out there has a UI that matches the standard Sailfish UI paradigms and yours is the weird one standing out.

[iolala]

I just realized there is an example of tabs with icons in the browser.

One tab has an icon with the number of tabs, while the other tab has the icon of that batmanfox thing or whatever that is.

Looks like in this example you cannot switch between tabs using the left-right swipe gestures.

[attah]

Probably the worst example of design in any stock app.
Also note the explicit back button, lack of pulley menu and - yeah, it is just a mess.
I think it was made by OMP if memory serves.

[Steve_Everett]

No more prompts now! A great update.

[mjtorn]

Not sure I see the LLM in the replies.

My two cents agree that publishing the code would be great. I dislike gen-ai in coding as much as many others, but ai-shaming is nowhere as useful as a code review. That goes in the red immediately if the gen-ai slop is too big.

This is a world where even DuckDuckGo wastes time on ai when you search, so the toothpaste’s out of the tube.

My other two cents say that if the code’s not out soon, it’ll be like crying for the Epstein files, but instead someone will look at the qml files and hope there’s nothing else to it. Anyone wanna decompile?

Might give the app a shot regardless; the nodejs approach has failed horribly for me and I have no trust it won’t happen again. Also, ick npm.

At least the Android app works great.

[Kanthal]

I don’t care much to be honest.
Starting an app by bashing developers that worked on something for years, then making something with AI and blatantly ignoring everyone that ask for source code since day 1 is a joke to me.

I wish anyone going down that path good luck, but you just can’t pay me enough to install these apps even in unused older devices.
Cheers!

[mjtorn]

It’s good to compete against an error-prone nodejs app, even though I agree the public comms about the vulnerability have been negative. I have hoped for a replacement for a long time and might have started one if I had time.

But where is the evidence this is vibecoded?

[tuplasuhveli]

@mjtorn

But where is the evidence this is vibecoded?

They were asked about that several times and each time they dodged the question. If it hadn’t been done using AI, they wouldn’t have any trouble answering those questions, I assume.

[mjtorn]

It’s sus but not evidence. And vibecode is not always bad code.

For review purposes, if no one analyzes a decompile, release the Epst^Wsource code.

[CLMA31]

I think in Plex thread the author said something between the lines that he/she uses heavily AI in reviewing the code, but that for he/she it is just a tool in toolbox. So probably AI used quite a lot if we believe the authors word. I think he also said to be writing himself at least some part of the code, so probably not fully vibe coded. But without source, hard to confirm or deny. I can’t remember why the author don’t want to release the source code, but he/she has the right for that.

Everyone need to decide for themself who they trust and which apps to use. Don’t mean to say that Sailwarden is bad or anything

[FixFlare]

@iolala I see what you mean now. Thanks for the examples.

I guess I tend to view most things from a pros and cons perspective

Pros Current Tabs:

1. They look better
2. They match the design of other bitwarden apps people are already familiar with
3. They’re accessible with your right-hand thumb while holding the phone.

Cons Current Tabs:

1. They look less “sailfishy”

Gestures could go either way I guess depending on the user. I’m not a big gesture fan personally, I still use the home button on all my android phones. The gestures only seem to work as I expect them to about 90 percent of the time and having the phone not do what I want 10 percent of the time gets frustrating quick vs a button that always works. I also think it might be a bit weird if the pull-down menu also moves the tabs down with it?

Maybe a good compromise would be an option in Settings > Appearance to toggle between the tabs being top or bottom. Let me know if that is something you or others would like.

@Steve_Everett Awesome, thanks for reporting back. Just let me know if you run into any more bugs or are missing a feature you think would be a good addition. The only feature I left out to my knowledge is the ability to delete your account (for obvious reasons, heh)

@CLMA31

No offense taken. Thank you for actually reading my comments and not making me repeat myself. Spot on.

I give you an A+ on reading comprehension - lol.

To others demanding I respond to them:

Guys, it’s a free app. If you don’t want to use it, don’t use it.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only full featured unofficial mobile Bitwarden client on the market and for that to be on a niche OS like sailfish I think is pretty darn cool.

The only other one I know of that comes close is KeyGuard for Android and that started life as closed source too but eventually became open source much later. It isn’t a one-to-one client though and some features are premium and cost money.

Like it or not, AI is the way of the future. If a developer tells you in 2026 that he doesn’t use AI at all and writes all his boilerplate code by hand or that he manually searches through pages and pages of stackoverflow posts to try and find a solution to his problem, he is either lying to you or is going to be left in the dust by people that do.

Here is the creator and head of Claude Code talking about how they don’t have humans doing any manual development at Anthropic. More and more companies are going to be like this.

I also worry that one day my development job will be replaced by AI but I choose to adapt in the best way I know how and not put my head in the sand.

I’d also take the AI outrage more seriously if it wasn’t being selectively applied.

BitSailor’s dev came into my plex thread to say some disrespectful and false things and criticized the use of AI.

If you look down further in the thread I all but proved he is using AI and doubly so if you check the latest commits to fix the vulnerability I reported. (Still not totally fixed btw, so beware)

Now, that doesn’t mean the majority isn’t human coded, in fact, I think it is, because AI would never have made the mistake of passing your master password in plaintext on the command line. That was especially ironic considering he suggested AI would be bad for security.

Maybe the people making those kinds of comments can answer a question for me first…Why are you not in the BitSailor thread bugging him about not disclosing his use of AI while at the same time protesting the use of it?

Open source is great, I’m a big fan, but don’t let it lull you into a false sense of security. That app was open source for 4+ years, and nobody noticed it was leaking your master password.

People just think “Oh, it’s open source so it must be safe” when in reality, github is one of the largest vectors for viruses and malware on the planet.

How do you know the prerequisite node rpm packaged by him is safe, is the source or build pipeline for that available? How do you know a backdoor wasn’t snuck into that?

[pentti]

Just to be clear: My problem is not you using AI by itself. Every developer is free to use the tools they wish to use. I use it myself for certain tasks, while I have a more stronger opinion about a full vibe-code stack due to bad experiences with such developers.

My problem I have is your lack of clear communication around it. If you would have written “This app is developed entirely with Claude Code”, “This app is developed with heavy help from generative AI.” or similar, then everything would have been clear. People disliking AI apps can avoid it, people that don’t care can proceed using it.

But you don’t do that. You only give non-definitive answers, and speak around the topic instead of directly addressing it. “Look at that other topic”, “That other guy also uses AI”, “Today it’s necessary to use”,… like guy, you don’t need to explain or defend yourself. Just be transparent and honest about the way you develop.

It does not make you look better to beat the other app/the other apps developer with a stick about how bad their app is and argue that there also nobody looked at the source. Just speak about your app, yourself, and your intentions, whatever they are.

“The app remains closed sources due to personal preference and is entirely/partly created with generative AI” would most probably have been enough to avoid the entire discussion.

[Kanthal]

@FixFlare

How do you know the prerequisite node rpm packaged by him is safe, is the source or build pipeline for that available? How do you know a backdoor wasn’t snuck into that?

I can’t believe I’m reading this from someone that doesn’t release the source code of his app to begin with.
It must be a joke, I can’t explain it otherwise.