Top Tools To Fortify Your Digital Privacy

VPN

One of the most common privacy holes is your IP (internet protocol) address. If a bad guy can see all the data coming from one unique address, he can build a pretty good identity profile of the user and probably pick up some sensitive information.

I put VPNs at the top of the list because they can anonymize almost all the data coming from your device.

Connecting to a Virtual Private Network means that all the data your device sends over the internet is routed through a private server. Mixed with all the other VPN users' data, it becomes much more difficult to link your data to you.

Unfortunately the VPN market is flooded with poorly performing apps, empty promises, and downright scams.

You will see a lot of companies claiming "No user logs!" But you have to check to see if that claim has been verified. Does the company have regular third-party audits? If government orders them to hand over user data, do they do it?

If they have ever leaked or given up user data, that's a potential red flag.

Something good to look for is open-source software. Open-source means that anyone can download and audit the code of the VPN app. If they are not willing to let that happen, they're probably hiding something.

Some of the best options are: Obscura, ProtonVPN, and Mullvad.

Encrypted messenger

Encrypting messages means that if they are intercepted, the bad guy will see a bunch of unreadable gibberish instead of your message.

Basically, each person in the conversation has two keys: one to scramble the message and one to unscramble. The scrambler key is public, and the unscrambler is private.

Anyone can send messages scrambled by your key, but only you can unscramble them.

That's an extremely simplified explanation. The messenger apps I recommend use much more sophisticated versions of that process to further protect your privacy.

There seem to be a lot of encrypted messenger apps being developed these days, but Whitenoise, Signal, and Session are top-notch.

Email Aliases

Email alias services allow you to sign up for other services online without sharing your real, personal email address. You provide your real address to them, and then you can create email addresses like elmo.cthulu@aliasprovider.xyz

All emails received at that address will be forwarded (after encryption, with some providers) to your real email so you don't have to manage multiple inboxes.

The best I have seen are SimpleLogin and Addy.io

Browsers

When it comes to privacy, your web browser can work for you or against you. Browsers like Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome, by default are saving your history and cookies, leaving identifying information unprotected, and not blocking trackers.

There are much better options.

It's true that some websites may not work perfectly when you use a more privacy-respecting browser, but I have found this to be an infrequent and minor inconvenience.

Standouts here are Brave, Mullvad Browser, Librewolf, and Tor.

Get my top recommendations here!