Zotero is published by unknown publisher?

grinsteadslibrarian
I am downloading Zotero for the first time and I am puzzled that the file shows "Unknown publisher." I was really excited about getting started with this program, but I am hesitant to download Zotero without this listed. Can anyone tell me why it is set up this way?
  • ElisabethSvensson
    I don't know why the software is not certified, but after having used it for 3 years, I'd say it is safe to install it.

    As I understand it, the certificate that is needed to not get the "unknown publisher" label by Windows basically just verifies that the company is who it claims to be and that they own the domain name they claim. Zotero.org maybe unknown to Microsoft, but it's not unknown to me and I've installed several versions and not run into any problems.
  • adamsmith
    getting rid of the warning requires the purchase of some sort of certificate - those start at $200/year. Many free/open projects can't or don't want to pay that type of money.

    Zotero is open source, you - and anyone else who is interested - can look at the full source code at https://github.com/zotero

    The code is also reviewed for inclusion in the mozilla add-ons repository - while that's not true for the standalone version, the standalone only includes a relatively small amount of separate code.
  • dstillman
    We have a code-signing certificate, actually—it just expired, apparently. We'll have a new one for 3.0.9.
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