Privacy Resource Guide
Privacy Content Creators
VPN Providers
Mullvad VPN
Our personal favorite due to their great speeds, great locations, honesty about the limitations of VPNs in their marketing, and good business practices. They have an open source client available on Android via the F-Droid store, iOS, and all major desktop distributions.
ProtonVPN
Swiss based VPN provider that belongs to the Proton suite of privacy services. Has a free version and a paid option is cheap with a ProtonMail premium subscription. Likely has ties to global powers seeing as Proton advertises developer ties to CERN and MIT.
Email Providers
Important Information About Email Privacy
Email is an inherently insecure and privacy unfriendly technology. While emails can be encrypted it is not the norm and governments love to read the email of their citizenry. Even if your emails are encrypted you should not assume any privacy. Encrypted emails contain a great deal of information in their metadata that can easily be used to profile the interaction between the sender and receiver.
Because of this any email provider we recommend should not be assumed to be immune to government surveillance just legal corporate surveillance. For private communications use an encrypted messenger like Signal or Session. We recommend the following services for their reliability, features, and lack of overt tracking and monetization of their users.
ProtonMail
A Swiss email provider which has an amazing UI and feature rich user experience. The open source service provides an end-to-end encrypted private mailbox that only you can access. The service provides 2FA, custom filters, folders, good spam detection and more.
They have handed over user IP addresses in the past but cannot legally capture and use your emails for advertising like Google. They likely have ties to global powers seeing as the company advertises ties to CERN and MIT.
That said we recommend ProtonMail as it should legally protect you from corporate surveillance and is a dream to use.
Tutanota
A German email provider that provides a private accounts with end-to-end encryption and security features like 2FA. The service is open source and has open source apps for mobile and desktop.
They have been ordered by German courts in the past to backdoor one of their user’s account. This would likely break encryption for all users despite the order being for just the one but they may have found a workaround.
Free accounts will have to wait 48-hours before using their email but they don’t require email or SMS verification to sign up. Accepts payment in Bitcoin for paid accounts.
Invidious
A privacy focused YouTube front-end that is free and open source. One of the best things on the internet right now it allows you to watch YouTube with no ads or tracking across videos. Many instances support subscriptions, playlists, and personalized homepages. You can install instances as a web app on Android.
Be sure to support content creators when possible.
Nitter
A privacy focused Twitter front-end made with free and open source code. Anyone can run an instance. With a pleasant theme you can switch from dark to light and search functionality it’s a better experience than using the official site which will ask you to login at some point. It It also converts urls to social media sites to privacy friendly front-ends like the one listed here.
teddit
A free and open source Reddit front-end with no ads, tracking, or telemetry. Refreshingly minimalist with a stripped down UI that maintains all the functionality you need to view the site. Features subreddit subscriptions on a per browser basis.
Bibliogram
A privacy focused Instagram front-end made with free and open source code. Allows creation of RSS feeds from account content. Popular instances are likely to be blocked by Instragram which tries to stop third-party software like Bibliogram.
Aliasing Services
AnonAddy
A free open source email aliasing service. We primarily recommend using it to create anonymous email aliases for your online accounts. However for a dollar a month it’s capable of much more. You can send and receive encrypted mail with anonymous aliases, use custom domains, and utilize a robust API.
The code is free and open to the public so you can also host your own instance. Open source browser extensions have been created as well for easy integration into your workflow.
Privacy.com
A security tool as much as it is a privacy tool, Privacy.com lets you protect your card payment information by allowing users to create various anonymous card aliases. Create a card for a single payment or a specific merchant and set spending limits to protect against fraudulent charges.
You can start using them for free and there are additional privacy features with their paid service that obfuscates your purchases from both your bank and merchant.
Social Media Front-ends