[dward]

Last time I tried to use keybase it required me to paste my private key into a browser before using any of the advanced features like chat. This seems unnecessary and doesn't make any sense from a security perspective. Has the situation changed? I won't use their service until this is fixed.

[jonafato]

If I recall correctly, you can choose to let keybase store your password-protected private key for the purposes of decrypting messages through the website, but that's not required, and the advanced features (e.g. chat) don't work without a local install. Everything that can be delegated to the app (GUI or command line) generally is. The keybase team seems to take this quite seriously, and they've had documentation on how to use the platform without giving their servers any information since at least when I joined in early 2014.

Give it a shot, it's quite painless as far as crypto products go. You can always choose not to use it if you decide it's storing too much information. Happy to provide an invite if you (or anyone else) needs one.