I recently came across a privacy friendly alternative to life360 location sharing app. It is called Paralino. Does anyone have any idea if it really is private or end to end encrypted as they claim? Or if anyone can recommend an old and time tested alternative to these service, that will be really helpful. Thanks.
Have there been any independent audits of this service?
If not the fact that they have a github and they’re not public nor any commits is done smells to me like honeypot.
I think it’s a new product. However, their website shows it was made in 2014. I couldn’t find any info about audits. You made a very good argument. I think I will stay away from this service for now. BTW do you know of any alternative to this service. A good E2EE location sharing app.
After some research:
Does this solution work for you?
if you have home assistant that’s a solution also instead of using owntracks
There is a more known and open source e2e encrypted location sharing app just like paralino which is called zood:
It is also available on IzzyOnDroid repo.
1 Like
Setting up a server… Now that’s something I don’t know how to do.
Hi all, I am the developer behind Paralino. It is a pretty new service, I just launched it few months ago so it is still somewhat in beta. I am working on it for quite some time already, but domain is with me since 2023. I guess some other company had it before since they no longer exists.
Paralino is end-to-end encrypted service, I personally wouldn’t use it otherwise. I am working on it since I didn’t find better alternative. If you try the app, there is “Encryption” screen for every resource, so you can see all your encrypted data how is it sent to the server.
Github page is quite empty now since I am literally just starting to launch the service 
. There are more commits on my Github profile though.
Also that is one of the reasons there are no audits, still very fresh. App is not making any money as of now so audits are not gonna happen any time soon unfortunately. I just started working on it full time, so getting sustainable is a priority. Will just have to see how it goes.
I posted more about whats and whys of Paralino recently on Reddit → Reddit - Dive into anything
If you have any questions, I am more than happy to answer.
4 Likes
Hi Zelimir, welcome! I absolutely understand that it’s a new project, and I don’t think anyone should hold that against you. Every great product has to start somewhere.
I am very happy to see that you have plans to open-source the client app in Q2, 2025. I imagine that for myself, and many others here, this is an absolute must for a service like Paralino. I think an open-source client, closed-source server model (assuming this is your plan) is among the most effective at serving and protecting the interests of both the average user and the developer.
Would you consider adding basic find my device functionality, including making devices ring and wiping them? Obviously, this should be optional since it requires dangerous permissions, but I think it could help make Paralino even more useful, as it could replace all invasive apps that require constant location access (Life360 + Find My, for example). My apologies if you feel this is beyond the scope.
I’d also ask that you consider releasing the app on Accrescent (a security, privacy, and usability-focused alternative to the Google Play Store, still in alpha) when the time comes. Unified Push might also be worth looking into for a fully Google-free experience.
I’m curious what you think about the ability to fully control location sharing for children. I feel that many parents might be hesitant to purchase your app if their children can simply turn off location sharing whenever. Obviously, children have a right to know their location is being tracked by their parents, but I think since it’s E2EE, this sort of privacy invasion can be reasonable if parents use it for their young children. Will there ever be an option to require a parent’s PIN or similar to disable location sharing? (edit: In hindsight this would probably be quite difficult to implement effectively because users can simply disable location system wide, although I believe that could technically be restricted with MDM functionality.)
I’ll end off by saying that I find your entrepreneurial spirit extremely inspiring and wish you the best of luck with Paralino!
2 Likes
Thank you 
I also personally prefer open sourced apps, so I want to do that for Paralino as soon as I am finished with some of the big features.
Find my device functionality is gonna be part of personal device tracking, it is already in the roadmap → Paralino roadmap · GitHub
Wiping device might come later though, since it is quite tricky to get right.
I am planning to add Unified Push. I didn’t add it to a roadmap, since I am gonna add it as part of a de-googled version of the app after it is open sourced. So basically a version without Google Maps and with Unified Push. But no short term plan for that yet.
I haven’t used Accrescent yet, but I’ll check it out if it makes sense to put Paralino there. I am gonna have direct apk and I already have auto-update for internal versions so I’ll probably stick to that at first.
Tracking for children is a complicated topic and it gets even more complicated when you consider that parents/children requirements are different for different ages. I consider Paralino a tool so I shouldn’t make any decisions about how parents handle location sharing with their kids. I can only provide options and features so everyone can choose for themselves.
I did consider adding an option to set different roles for group members, or to have an option to create groups where admin can control how and what is shared. End user would ofc be aware of these permissions or could see that for example group admin requires that everyone shares their speed or to have location sharing always active as you said, etc. That will be a first step as a feature, but without proper MDM it can always be circumvented. I haven’t planned yet for actual MDM.
With current feature set, Paralino is for consensual location sharing.
4 Likes
Hi.
I am so sorry for making assumptions about the service it is very nice that you have come out there and clear some doubts!
I was gonna try my own too but you and zood has been beaten to the punch I guess so that’s my defeat.
If anything I sincerely apologize I just wanted to keep them safe from potential honeypots and all signs pointed towards thar till you commented so again appreciated. (it’s also why I said “smells” not “is” a honeypot I hope you know what I mean)
Yes if it’s a new new service then understandable but I would appreciate the transparency and/or if you could submit the source code. Feel free to let us know once you do of course.
Sincerely,
Gorujo
1 Like
Hey, no problem at all, I totally get it. Kudos to you for being vigilant right away.
I probably would have said the same by looking at GitHub page 
.
I’ll try to be as transparent as possible, you can check privacy page and also architecure/whitepaper which is still in development though. It genuinely reflects what is going on in the app. I’ve also added some help/support pages on the website to give more insight how it all works.
For source code and other features there is a roadmap on GitHub you can refer to: Paralino roadmap · GitHub.
And as I said before it is a freshly released service, so not everything is in place yet. Hope you understand and have patience until more stuff is released🤞.
3 Likes
Hi @zlmr
I tried the app for some time and really liked it. It’s a beautiful piece of software. One thing that seemed odd was that after sharing my location, there is no “stop sharing” option on the map screen. I had to go through some settings to do that. It would be really awesome if this option was available on the map screen after sharing the location.
BTW I found out about Paralino from the recent HowToMen YouTube video.
Wishing you best of luck for the project.
2 Likes
Thank you, I am glad you like it .
To stop sharing your location you need to open group details.
But it is just one extra click:
I might adjust this UI part to make it more obvious. Thanks for you feedback!
And yea, I already saw the video and was super stunned to see the app featured there 
.
3 Likes