Qubes OS is a free and open-source, security-oriented desktop operating system that uses Xen-based virtualization to split a user's activities into isolated compartments ("qubes"), with optional Whonix templates for routing traffic over Tor. It is run by the Qubes OS Project, a named core team led by Marek Marczykowski-Górecki (founder Joanna Rutkowska is now listed as advisor), funded through Open Collective, EU bank transfers via the German nonprofit Center for the Cultivation of Technology, cryptocurrency, and tiered corporate/nonprofit Partners disclosed by year (Mullvad, Invisible Things Lab, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and others); the project states it hopes to eventually build a nonprofit organization but does not present itself as one today. Its privacy policy states the OS is intentionally architected so that it cannot phone home (dom0 has no network access), that the project does not sell user data, and that the only data it holds is standard access logs with IP addresses on its update servers, retained for up to three months and used for userbase statistics, with a Tor-over-Whonix option offered at install to hide that IP. Caveats include automatic periodic update checks from networked qubes, template software drawn from upstream distributions and volunteer-run mirrors outside the project's control, some non-free firmware, high hardware requirements, and no independent named-firm audit found in this research; the project publishes signed Qubes Security Bulletins (116 as of 2026-07-28) and quarterly canaries (47 since 2015).
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[2026-08-30] · NEW RECEIPTS
14 new sources on file for Qubes OS.
Qubes OS's file gained 14 new sourced claims since its last review.
The project's Statistics page states that the Qubes userbase is estimated by counting unique IPv4 addresses that connect to the Qubes update servers each month, with Tor users estimated proportionally from exit-node requests -- confirming that update-server IP logs are the project's one first-party data source about users, and that the published raw data excludes personally identifying information.
The Qubes OS privacy policy states that Qubes OS is specifically designed so that it is not possible to collect any data directly from installations -- the OS cannot phone home because dom0 has no network access -- and that the only data the project holds is standard access and error logs, including IP addresses, on its update servers, retained for up to three months for userbase statistics and incident response; users are encouraged to choose the Whonix option at install to route updates over Tor and hide their IP.
The Qubes OS donate page states the project earns no revenue from selling the software and relies on donations, accepts them via Open Collective, cryptocurrency held in a multi-signature wallet, and tax-deductible EU bank transfers handled by the Center for the Cultivation of Technology gGmbH (a German charitable nonprofit host), and says the project hopes to eventually build a nonprofit organization to ensure its long-term future -- i.e., no registered legal entity of its own is presented today.
The Qubes OS team page names each core-team member with role and PGP fingerprint -- Marek Marczykowski-Górecki as project lead, Michael Carbone (project management and funding), Joanna Gołębiewska (coordination, accounting, and operations), Andrew David Wong (community manager), Michał Chiliński (business, operations, and legal) and others -- and lists founder Joanna Rutkowska among former team members as founder and advisor.
The Qubes Partners page discloses the project's significant funders by year and dollar tier: for 2025, Mullvad and Power Up Privacy at $250,000+, Invisible Things Lab at $100,000-$249,999, and Freedom of the Press Foundation at $50,000-$99,999; earlier years name Bitfinex, Proton, Tether, Equinix, Mozilla, NLnet Foundation, Access Now and the Open Technology Fund (described as a United States government-funded program of Radio Free Asia). Invisible Things Lab is described as a privately held company based in Berlin whose primary revenue is security research and development and which has supported Qubes since the project began in 2010.
The Qubes OS software-license page states that the Qubes OS compilation is made available under the GNU General Public License version 2, that its source code is contained in repositories under the @QubesOS account on GitHub, and that each bundled package retains its own license.
The Qubes OS privacy policy states the project absolutely does not sell any user data and never sells or shares its update-server log data with any third party, while disclosing that ISO downloads and updates may also be served by volunteer-run third-party mirrors whose data collection the project has no control over, and that third-party software and operating systems running inside Qubes may not be as privacy-respecting.
The Qubes OS update guide states that, by default, most qubes connected to the internet periodically check for updates for their parent templates and that the Qubes Update tool notifies the user when updates are available -- outbound update-check traffic to Qubes and upstream template repositories occurs automatically unless the user routes it over Tor via sys-whonix, which the same page notes can be very slow.
The Qubes security bulletins page lists 116 numbered QSBs, the most recent QSB-116 dated 2026-07-28 covering multiple Xen issues, each issued by the security team through the signed Qubes security pack with a summary, impact analysis and patching details; the record includes Qubes-specific bugs (e.g., QSB-111 xfce4-screensaver login bypass, QSB-089 qrexec memory corruption) as well as passed-through CPU and Xen vulnerabilities.
The Qubes canaries page lists 47 signed canaries published roughly quarterly from Qubes Canary #001 on 2015-01-05 to Qubes Canary #047 on 2026-06-03 -- periodic statements by the security team that its signers have not been compromised, whose cessation or unexplained change would signal a problem; the page notes Qubes canaries are not strictly limited to legal warrants.
The Qubes OS project security center names a two-person Qubes security team (Marek Marczykowski-Górecki and Simon Gaiser) responsible for responding to reported issues, evaluating Xen security advisories, and writing, signing and publishing Qubes security bulletins and canaries, and commits that confirmed issues will be patched within a reasonable time and disclosed in a public QSB that credits the discoverer; no bug bounty is described.
Privacy Guides lists Qubes OS on its Desktop/PC operating-systems page under Security-focused Distributions, against published criteria that include being free and open source, receiving regular software and kernel updates, and supporting full-disk encryption during installation; the page notes Qubes as the exception to its avoid-X11 criterion because virtualization avoids X11's isolation issues between qubes.
The Qubes OS FAQ states that the main way Qubes provides privacy is its integration with Whonix, which makes it easy to use Tor securely, and explicitly does not claim to provide special privacy (as opposed to security) properties in non-Whonix qubes, including disposables; the FAQ also states that by default Qubes uses LUKS/dm-crypt full-disk encryption for everything except the /boot partition and describes a core tenet of distrusting the infrastructure (hosting providers, CDNs, package repositories).
The Qubes OS privacy policy states the project's website uses no ads or trackers, hosts all resources locally with no third-party CDNs so visitors connect to a single domain, is designed to work in Tor Browser with scripts blocked, offers an onion service whose access is not logged, and that the documentation on Read the Docs omits that host's ethical ads.