Simple Privacy in 2022

Brave Browser is one of the simplest ways of protecting your privacy online currently. It is Chromium-based, meaning that the interface is familiar to most people, and is faster and lighter than Google Chrome. There is absolutely no reason why anyone should not be using Brave, there are no downsides whatsoever, and I suggest this browser to anyone who currently uses Chrome.

It is recommended to go into the Brave settings and set Trackers and ad blocking and Block fingerprinting to strict or aggressive respectivley.

Popular alternatives: Mozilla Firefox, Ungoogled Chromium, Bromite
Popular Firefox forks: LibreWolf (pre-hardened Firefox), Waterfox (recently bought by the ad company System1)

Brave Search is the default search engine for Brave Browser. I prefer using Brave Search over other options such as DuckDuckGo or Startpage due to the design and, in my opinion, superior search results.

It is also important to point out the recent controversy with DuckDuckGo. They have started to remove specific search results involving "misinformation" regarding the recent events in Ukraine. This has deterred many privacy-minded individuals from DuckDuckGo, but there are other users who don't mind, and that is okay too!

Popular alternatives: DuckDuckGo, Searx, Startpage,

Privacy Badger is a browser-add on tool that analyzes sites to detect and disallow content that tracks you in an objectionable, non-consensual manner. When paired with Brave browser or Firefox/LibreWolf, it results in very intelligent ad and tracker blocking without breaking websites.

For more advanced users: uBlock Origin

While it is harder to install than most extensions, LibRedirect is worth going through the trouble for. LibRedirect is a fork of Privacy Redirect, and it automatically redirects you from certain websites to more privacy respecting alternatives. Visit LibRedirect to see which sites are affected, and know you can switch off the ones you don't like.

For an easier installation but less redirects: Privacy Redirect

This simple browser extension allows you to easily tell which country a website is based in. This can be important for deciding what websites you would like to visit to get away from the 14 Eyes, and to verify the claims of a website saying they're hosted in a particular part of the world.

LanguageTool is an open-source alternative for Grammarly. LanguageTool also has created plugins for popular web processing programs, such as LibreOffice and Microsoft Word.

For more information on online privacy, this is a one-stop-shop for everything involved in it. This site shows you how to cut out big tech completely and why you should.

Another great website/community to check out: https://techlore.tech/

Signal is essentially iMessage, but cross-platform and end-to-end encrypted. The Signal protocol is much faster, more secure, and privacy respecting unlike MMS, RCS, and especially SMS, and is of course open-source. Signal also supports end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls!

To use Signal, both you and the recipient need to have Signal installed. Signal's Android app also doubles as your default messaging app, allowing you to send SMS messages within the Signal app.

For more extreme threat models: Session

MySudo allows users to create alias phone numbers and email addresses that are viewed and interacted with through the app. With the best plan, you can have up to 9 phone numbers to use across the internet and to compartmentalize your life. For example, you can have a work number, a phone number for your family and friends, and one for people you just met. These numbers do not expire, they are yours once you claim them.

ProtonMail is an open-source email service that respects your privacy and supports encrypted emails between ProtonMail users as well as PGP. You will find the normal email features you would find anywhere, but a few features that stand out are alias email addresses and sieve filters. IMAP and SMTP are also supported on all desktop platforms.

The mobile app may not look very nice, but all the features are accessible from the app. They are working on improving the mobile app, but for now, it is very unappealing for modern standards.

Popular alternatives: Tutanota, CTemplar

Element is a client for the Matrix protocol. Matrix is an open standard for, decentralized, real-time communication that supports encryption. Decentralization is important because it means that your messages are not stored on some random server across the world, and are instead stored on the physical server of which you connect to. Element allows you to use Matrix to enter chat rooms (similarly to Discord), direct message specific users, as well as initiate voice and video calls.

Element is a mere client for Matrix, there are many other clients to pick from if you don't like it, though Element is currently the most popular. It is important to note that no matter which client you choose, you can still communicate with anyone you wish over Matrix.

Here is a list of all of the supported clients you can pick from: https://matrix.org/clients/

Revolt is a new FOSS (Free and Open Source) alternative to Discord. The interface is almost identical, but provides better privacy and some exciting features such as user-created themes. This app is still in the very early stages of development, but is worth checking out!

In my opinion, Bitwarden is the only password manager worth using in today's world. It has all the features you would expect from any other modern password manager such as autofill, password generation, biometric unlocking, and TOTP/OTP. Bitwarden is open-source, end-to-end encrypted, and synced between unlimited devices for less than $1.00 a month ($10 a year), which is stupid cheap.

Popular alternative: LessPass
KeePass client: AuthPass

While this service is not open-source, it is still an excellent way of protecting your payment information online. This service creates virtual pre-paid cards that you can set for subscription and one-time payments. Data breaches often times release payment information such as debit card numbers, expirations, and CVVs, but with Privacy.com that information is away from the hands of the internet.

It is important to note that there are some services that will not work with Privacy.com due to the cards being pre-paid.

Made by the creators of ProtonMail, Proton Calendar aims to be a Google Calendar alternative. Similar to ProtonMail, Proton Calendar is also open-source and end-to-end encrypted. For the average user, this is a very appealing calendar app with no ties to Google.

Keep in mind, I never use my calendar, so mileage may vary, but it works very well for my personal needs.

Alternative for Android users: Etar

Notesnook is a newer project that tries to give the user a safe place to store your notes. While Notesnook does sync your notes across platforms, everything is done locally on the device, including encryption and the creation/editing of notes. This app is meant to be extremely user-friendly and has a beautiful interface and editor. Notesnook is in very active development, and is updated very frequently with new features.

WARNING: Notesnook is not currently open-source, and is a freemium service. The developers are working very hard to get Notesnook open-sourced as quickly as possible, as is on their roadmap.

Popular alternatives: Joplin, Standard Notes, Simplenote

ente is a new open-source project dedicated to replacing Google Photos. While you do have to pay for this service, it provides an entirely end-to-end encrypted cloud-based solution for all of your photos and videos, and allows users to access their media from everywhere, including from the browser. As you take/download photos or video, they are uploaded to the cloud and keeps local copies until you delete them from the device, which can be automatically done from the app.

Online alternatives: Stingle Photos, Cryptee, Piwigo, TripUp

IVPN is the most transparent VPN service out there. The moment you go on their website, they explain how every VPN company is lying to you with empty promises, and they explain what a trusted VPN can achieve for the user. Both the Wireguard and OpenVPN networks are frequently audited by third parties, and includes many privacy and security features to protect the user as much as possible. Not to mention the speeds, IVPN has some of the fastest speeds you could ask for, and the apps look great. You can even host servers through it!

Popular alternatives: ProtonVPN, Mullvad
Don't trust anyone with your internet data? Orbot

Ultra VPN comparison chart: https://techlore.tech/vpn

Syncthing is a free alternative to proprietary sync and cloud services such as Dropbox with something open, trustworthy and decentralized. None of your data is ever stored anywhere else other than on your computers. There is no central server that might be compromised due to the fact that your files are never stored anywhere else except on the devices that are paired together with Syncthing.

This app can be used for many different things, such as syncing your photos from your desktop and mobile device to go into a specific folder on both devices.

Whenever you create an account for anything, you will most likely need an email address. SimpleLogin is a way of preventing your email address from being leaked online and stop spam easily by creating a unique email alias for every website. These aliases are directly tied to your real email address, and all emails that get sent to an alias are then forwarded to your inbox automatically. You can also disable and delete aliases effortlessly in case you want to stop receiving emails from a service you signed up for. When you wish to send an email using a SimpleLogin alias, you can do so directly from your main email service and SimpleLogin will do the rest!

Something else exciting is that SimpleLogin and ProtonMail have recently started working together to better integrate aliases into ProtonMail!

Popular alternative: AnonAddy

Aurora Store is an unofficial, FOSS client for Google Play Store with an elegant design. Aurora Store does not rely on Google Play Services, so this can be used on de-googled phones and can help prevent Google from seeing what apps you are installing.