So I’ve been using Rustdesk with a self hosted server for business and personal use now for some time. However, it is definitely the sketchiest foss software I’ve used. It seems to be based in China but the developers keep lying and saying its in Singapore.
Here is a list if everything I’ve found:
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/14kjvkg/community_consensus_on_rustdesk_with_all_the/
https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/discussions/1159
https://www.reddit.com/r/rustdesk/comments/y230hf/my_rustdesk_client_try_to_communication_with/
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/10ppntj/reminder_about_the_shadyness_of_rustdesk/
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/uurta8/_/
It seems that now the clients and OSS server are completely foss which is good. They also no longer have public servers in China according to them. In the client itself it also now has better defaults so you are less at risk of getting attacked.
It still is sketch but it now is slightly less sketch I guess? Either way its not ideal.
Noticed it with the android install (via fdroid) and I think I had the appimage on Linux (not at my machine to check, so going by my memory). I connected to a windows machine that had no internet connectivity so can’t speak to the windows installs working and ignoring relays or not, but Linux and android do phone the relay servers at least. I’ll see if I can pull some screenshots or details tomorrow when I get a moment! I’ll update the appimage too just in case (since I only validated the DNS call being made on my phone yesterday)
Either way, if I had to choose between it and TeamViewer for what I use it for, Rustdesk is still a clear winner lol.
Okay hopefully attaching images work on this app, never tried on Lemmy lol. I blocked the domain on my network firewall and then unblocked it from the DNS to confirm… and yes, the latest rustdesk appimage still calls out. I guess my memory of trying to disable the relay server was to try and force it to localhost in the settings. Could have swore there was a checkmark setting in there, but maybe that was some other software. The fields are default blank I believe.
However… I just tried to put 127.0.0.1 in ALL the fields (unlike the screenshot, which was when I checked what I had in there before), and it appears to now to call localhost. Either I goofed before, or it was fixed recently, because I am pretty sure I did try that before. It doesn’t get you around the very first call made when running the software of course… Opt out, not opt in, lol. But hey at least it’s possible now? I just tried on mobile and it worked there to when filling everything in with 127.0.0.1.