AlsaOS
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Windows · 64-bit

Download AlsaOS

One installer, no administrator prompt, and a signature Windows does not recognise. Everything on this page is here so you can decide before you run it — including the exact warning you are about to see.

Download for WindowsUse it in your browser instead

AlsaOS-Setup-0.2.0.exe · 83.0 MB · version 0.2.0 · built 19 Aug 2026

Windows will tell you not to run this

What you will see

This installer is not code-signed. When you run it, Microsoft Defender SmartScreen shows a blue box headed Windows protected your PC and saying it prevented an unrecognised app from starting. The only button offered is Don’t run.

To install anyway: click More info, the small link under the message, then Run anyway.

Please do not switch SmartScreen off. It is doing its job here, and the next unsigned installer you meet will not be ours.

Why it happens

A code-signing certificate binds an executable to a legal identity, and Windows trusts the publisher rather than the file. AlsaOS does not have one yet. SmartScreen shows that warning for any executable it has not seen signed by a publisher it knows, so what the dialog is telling you, honestly, is: Windows cannot tell you who made this file. It is not a malware finding, and it will keep appearing until there is a certificate behind these builds.

What you can check instead

The SHA-256 below is the fingerprint of the exact bytes this server sends. Hash the file you downloaded and compare: if they match, you have the file this page published, complete and unaltered in transit. Be clear about what that is worth — it proves the file matches this page, not that this page deserves your trust. It is a weaker guarantee than a signature. It is the honest one available today.

Verify what you downloaded

Version0.2.0
FileAlsaOS-Setup-0.2.0.exe
Size83.0 MB (83,022,475 bytes)
Built19 Aug 2026
SHA-2569198d0edf3569d4c57e0ffb14ba27379e5ca21bd32ed6af3fd0ecfb3bdfb5e7f

Windows Explorer will show this file as 79.2 MB, not 83.0 MB. Both are correct: Windows counts a megabyte as 1,048,576 bytes and a download is normally quoted in millions. The byte count above is the one that settles it.

Check it in PowerShell

Open PowerShell in the folder you downloaded to — Shift + right-click in the folder gives you the menu entry — and run:

Get-FileHash .\AlsaOS-Setup-0.2.0.exe -Algorithm SHA256

Compare the Hash it prints with the checksum above; case does not matter. If they differ, delete the file and download it again. A mismatch is nearly always a truncated or interrupted download — and it is never something to install anyway.

What gets installed, and what it does

Two things. The AlsaOS window, which is a desktop shell around your AlsaOS workspace and can only ever navigate to the server you point it at. And a device agent, which can read this screen. Neither collects anything until you connect the machine to a workspace, and the agent refuses every command but pair until you have.

Starting when you sign inOnThe app adds itself to your Windows logon items and starts hidden in the notification tray. Off switch: uncheck Start AlsaOS when I sign in in the tray menu.
Reading your screenOffOff until you turn it on from the tray, and turning it on shows a dialog first — every time, with Cancel as the highlighted button. Once accepted it resumes on later restarts without asking again; the tray’s first line always states whether it is running. Off switch: Stop reading my screen, same menu.
Recording activityOnApp name, window title and idle time, sampled into spans — no pixels, no keystrokes, no clipboard. It starts once you connect the machine to a workspace, and the first run says so in a dialog whose second button switches it off there and then. The tray’s second line always states whether it is recording and what it is recording. Off switch: Stop recording my activity, same menu, no internet needed.
Recording audioNot presentThe installed app does not capture your microphone or your system audio, and has no recording code in it. The web chat has a microphone button for dictating a question, which uses your browser’s speech recognition and runs only while you use it. Meeting transcripts come from a recording file you hand it yourself, on the command line, and only after each attendee’s consent has been recorded.

While the screen is being read

What it needs

  • Windows 10 version 1809 or later, or Windows 11. 64-bit Intel or AMD only — there is no ARM build.
  • Windows only. There is no macOS or Linux installer, and none is being served from somewhere else. On a Mac or a Linux machine, use AlsaOS in your browser instead — everything except screen reading works there.
  • About 350 MB of free disk — roughly 82 MB for the download and about 270 MB once unpacked, most of which is the Chromium runtime.
  • No administrator rights. It installs for your Windows user only, so there is no UAC prompt. The wizard lets you choose the folder.
  • Windows PowerShell 5.1, which ships with Windows. The agent uses it to read the foreground window and to run OCR; PowerShell 7 is not a substitute for that second job.
  • Screen reading additionally needs a Windows OCR language pack for one of your display languages, and a normal signed-in desktop — it cannot run as a service or as a scheduled task set to “run whether logged on or not”.
  • An AlsaOS workspace and an account. The desktop app is a shell around a running AlsaOS server; on its own it does nothing.

Installing it

  1. Download the installer with the button at the top of this page, and check its checksum if you want to.
  2. Run it, and get past SmartScreen. Blue box, then More info → Run anyway.
  3. Work through the wizard. It asks where to install and then does it — no administrator prompt, because it installs only for you. You get a desktop shortcut and a Start-menu entry called AlsaOS.
  4. AlsaOS opens and loads your workspace. Out of the box it looks for a server on this machine, at 127.0.0.1:3000. If yours runs somewhere else, the app says so by name and tells you which of its own settings files — alsaos-desktop.json, in its data folder — holds the address. Change it, then choose Retry connection in the tray.
  5. Sign in, in that window. That is the app running: the same AlsaOS you would use in a browser, in its own window, with a tray icon that keeps it alive after you close it.
  6. Optional — connect this machine as a device. Only screen reading needs this. In AlsaOS go to Devices → Add a device for a code that is good once, for fifteen minutes. Then, honestly: in this release the tray’s Connect this machine… takes you to that page but does not redeem the code — pairing is still a command-line step, alsaos-device pair --code with the code you were given.
  7. Once paired, the tray offers to read your screen — and shows the consent dialog before it starts. Everything in the section above applies from that moment and not before.
AlsaOS 0.2.0 for Windows · unsigned buildHomeHow it worksSign in
  • It looks about once a minute, and sends only when what is on screen has actually changed.
  • The picture never leaves the machine and is never written to disk. Text recognition runs against Windows’ own on-device OCR engine, in memory. Only the recognised text is sent — no image, no coordinates.
  • A window with a password manager, a bank, or private/incognito browsing in front is refused outright: the whole capture is dropped, not partly blanked. The limit, stated plainly — the capture covers all your monitors, and that check looks at the window you are focused on. The backstop is that any capture whose text contains something shaped like a password or a key is discarded whole.
  • Email addresses, card numbers, IBANs, ID and passport numbers and phone numbers are replaced with per-device pseudonyms before anything is sent — in the window title as well as the body. Only counts of what was replaced leave the machine, never the values.
  • Screen text is deleted after 7 days, and activity spans after 30. Both are stamped when the record is written, not swept up later.
  • Stopping needs no internet: the tray writes a file the agent watches. You can also pause or revoke the device from the Devices page in AlsaOS — the server can only ever make this machine do less, never more. Nothing the server sends can start a capture.