Privacy simplified.

As a creator of a privacy related tool, I get asked about other recommendations in this field pretty often by people with different backgrounds and goals. So while for advanced users mentioning ad blockers doesn't make much sense, it can open the whole new world for beginners and people who care (or rather don't) about ads, for example - or being tracked everywhere they go.

I will split this guide in different levels based on the goals and effort required. Will also share my setup and explain pros and cons of everything. Sounds cool? Let's dive right in!

Beginners. Major quality of live improvements with minimal effort.

3 extensions

  • uBlock Origin - the former king of the extensions. I say "former", because it's not going to work in newer Chromium (Chrome-like) browsers soon/anymore. So you can opt out for a light version (which is not that effective), not update your Chromium browser or use a Firefox-based browser instead. Extension itself has no downsides and will prevent many websites from showing you ads and protect your privacy at the same time. 10/10 - never use internet without it!
  • Privacy Badger - does protect your privacy in slightly different ways from uBlock Origin. Doesn't block ads. Some believe you shouldn't use them together - in my experience it works really well in pair, I encourage you to experiment. No downsides for beginners. We will get back to it in the "advanced" section.
  • PopUpOFF - ha! My website - my rules. Jokes aside, it's a tool that removes annoying cookie notifications and different popups. What's important in terms of privacy is that it skips the step of accepting or declining cookie scripts by just removing the overlay, which basically means that you're "skipping" initialisation of many scripts since cookies and trackers are idling by default. And so PopUpOFF keeps them idling while you can access the website. The downside of course is that it can be too aggressive and break functionality so it's not recommended to use on every website, just where you really need its help.

There are of course many other extensions that might help you, but they are either do what others here are already doing (like DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials) or too specific to mention (but nevertheless great and useful) like NoScript.

2 search engines

Before you judge next choices, remember that it's a beginner section and functionality and sustainability are important.

  • Kagi.com - paid engine that searches results better than google by now (which is google's fault partially) and focuses on privacy. I'm one of the early adopters and by now I'm using it daily and very happy with the results. Drawbacks: it's paid and that means that you'll have to sign in and connect your card which is not ideal for privacy of the more advanced levels, but is fine for us.
  • Not-signed-in-google.com. Surprised? While no one recommends using google because of the tracking and ads - if you in never sign in to any google/facebook services in your browser and use extensions from the section above - it's decent enough for beginner goals while maintaining good search results. Plus if you're using it with VPN in incognito mode - there is a very little amount of info it can gather.

You can play with other search engines, like DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, Qwant, Startpage - but they are not that great in my experience in terms of results + some have privacy or moral related concerns. I used all of them for long time and just couldn't settle there.

1 VPN

I bet there are a lot of good VPNs that truly protect your privacy, there is an extensive reddit research, I, however, would recommend just two, and realistically you need only one of them:

  • NordVPN - you might hear different things about it or consider it too mainstream because everyone advertises it. I am recommending it because I worked there and I trust what I saw. Plus the quality is really good: for all the years I'm using it, I've never had any issues.
  • My number 2 option is ProtonVPN. I generally consider Proton products very decent and have a subscription to all ot them. Plus ProtonVPN has a free option which is probably what I would use if I needed a free VPN - which I can't recommend unless you know what you're doing.

Results

If you follow those recommendations you can expect:

  • Little to no ads - many websites you used to see ads on will have 0 ads. News portals, google search, youtube, reddit, facebook - just name it.
  • Reduced ads accuracy. If you care about your privacy, that's good. Cause your favorite platforms will have less access to the information about what you're doing on the other websites (and right now they probably know a lot) and will be able to affect you to the lesser extent. Without more advanced steps you're still a target, but instead of "hitting the bullseye", it's just "hitting a bull" now.

Excited? More below!

Intermediate. More results but more effort.

Browsers

Let's talk browsers now. I didn't put them in a previous section because it takes effort to take the plunge. Changing routines, importing/exporting stuff, loggining in, etc. But once you do that, there's no way back. And it's definitely worth it if you're using regular Chrome, Opera, Edge or Safari now.

There are many different good options for everyone. Changing the browser is not that hard physically as it is mentally.

  • Brave - the first browser I'm going to recommend simply because it looks and works very similar to Chrome or Edge, but does it better in terms or privacy and ad protection. It has some crypto attached to it by default that might alert you, but worry not - all of it can be disabled in the settings and it will become a regular Chrome but better and with a native ad blocker installed by default. You can test it with and without uBlock Origin to see what you prefer more. I use both. Also uBlock Origin is going to be supported after Chrome's support will end.
  • Firefox - the best browser in terms of privacy but might have some issues with user experience, that's why I only recommend it as a second choice. It's a whole different platform beneath (unlike Brave which is a browser based on Chromium with Google's code stripped down) - and it has both pros and cons. Don't get me wrong, I like it and use it every day but your experience might be different from what you're used to, and I would hate to see you drop the whole topic because of it. Any popular Firefox-based browser would be better for privacy than almost any Chromium-based one. Also if you pick Firefox, google something like "firefox privacy settings" to disable a few flags here and there and make it better than by default and install a Facebook container extension that will sandbox facebook related trackers thus limiting its power.
  • Ungoogled Chromium - is what I mainly use right now but sadly might be dropping (or stop updating - which I already did) soon because newer versions are not going to support extensions like uBlock Origin very soon. Apart from that, it's best from two worlds. It looks and works as regular Chrome but without google's bullshit. Though no sync and installation process makes it less user friendly for beginners.

I can't recommend any other browser that I know. Vivaldi, Opera, Edge, Yandex and most other popular browsers are closed source and can be a potential privacy threat instead of salvation. Every action you do in the internet can be monitored and recorded by browser - so pick wisely - pick open-source. Firefox is worth taking a plunge for.

Email providers

Not using big popular email providers (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc) is crucial because those companies make money by showing you ads. You can guess how much useful info about you a company can gather from analyzing your personal emails. Do they do it? Short answer: "Yes". Long answer: "Absolutely". So what can you do? Switch to an email provider that has a different business model.

There is going to be only one provider that I'll be recommending: Proton Mail - because that's what I started using long ago and never looked back. It doesn't mean that there are no alternatives, it's just I think this one is the best. And with proton you can get the whole pack (vpn, calendar, drive, etc) for a better price.

Another thing I really like about Proton Mail and recommend to use is a Simplelogin (or Proton Pass) extension that automatically creates email aliases. An alias is basically a dummy email that you generate for a specific website. It will forward emails to your main email, thus giving you a possibility to not expose your real personal email to the website. Thus endorsing not only your web privacy but also web security which is a whole another topic.

Password managers

This is a complicated topic because many popular password managers had leaks at some point which makes this topic spicy. But since password managers do not influence privacy directly, but rather security I'll just mention that it's important to use one and some - like NordPass - have email alias creation function as well that does increase your privacy for reasons I mentioned above. I am using and would recommend NordPass because I worked on it directly and helped to release it.

Bitwarden is also good. Proton Pass is decent but lacks certain features yet.

Cloud drives

This is one of the last topics for this section and is a complex one because some services offer really strong privacy/encryption, but it often doesn't go very well with convenience and speed so be prepared to sacrifice some bits here.

  • MEGA - a decent combination of speed, convenience and privacy for pictures and regular stuff. I would not advise to store there important docs, information, private pictures without encrypting them first. But it's a general advise - if you're storing something private - encrypt (archive with password) it first, store password in a password manager and then upload to any cloud storage This way it's 100% safe even if someone or something can access your data.
  • Proton Drive - not the most convenient from a user experience point of view service, but has much more trust from me in relation to docs and private data.

I'm not mentioning self-hosted open-source solutions here because while they are the best, you have to have advanced knowledge about it and let's be honest, not many of us taking it that seriously. Plus it's more of a security topic again.

Storing not encrypted "raw" files like pictures and documents on google drive or any other popular free platform will give access to scripts and parsers to gather more information about you so they can sell it later. Thus making money on what you thought was private.

Messengers

If you read it this far, you should understand by now that your "private" messages are even a better source of information that helps companies to track your interests. Direct messages on platforms like Instagram or Facebook are a gold mine for those companies knowledge base about you. And you shouldn't ideally ever send any personal information there.

However there are a few problems with this topic:

  • Limited reach - sometimes it's not possible to reach a person or business in any other way. Then you kinda don't have any options, do you? What to do? Use, but be smart about it. And never share any sensitive info (bank card numbers, ID details, etc), which brings us to another problem.
  • Security - you can check all the data leaks yourself here. Chances are - if you're using a popular messenger tool - it has leaked in the past.

The visible solution is to use only encrypted and open source messengers with no history of leaks, but there is another problem. Who are you going to chat with? If you all your family and friends use WhatsApp/Viber or any other popular tool to communicate, you'll find it hard to persuade them to change it.

So the answer is... It's up to you, really. Is privacy worth sacrificing connections with people? I can't say so. But if that is an option, prefer to ask for Signal or Telegram first. Those are not ideal but popular enough so you can actually find regular people who use it and they are better than more popular ones.

Results

If you follow those recommendations you can expect:

  • Close to 0 ads accuracy. Because we're cutting major points of access to who you are and what you're doing on the web, ads will start to be random most of the time. It's not going to happen right away. Platforms were gathering info about you all those years and will still have a huge collection of information about you - but they will hardly collect anything else.
  • Increased web security. That's not our today's goal but it still is a very important topic and I'm glad we dived into it even for a bit. Let me know if you want to learn more.

Advanced. How to disappear completely.

Wow, you're still here? Liked that crazy stuff, huh? I have even more (applicable to both "stuff" and "crazy")! We will discuss ways to remove a core of access of those greedy platforms to you. But at the price of rather drastic changes. Changing browsers is one thing, changing your OS is a completely different process requiring more preparation but also more effective.

Anyway, be ready to learn how to install Linux on your MacBook :)

Yes, Linux

Linux is an OS that you can install (or pay someone to do so, sometimes even buy a PC/laptop with the system already) on your device. For simplicity I'll call it a set of different Operation Systems based on the same core technology. Those variants are called "distros" or "distributions" and there are many of them - all pursuing different goals. I'm going to recommend 2 of them which I've used most and which are the simplest to live with.

  • Ubuntu. Conventionally one of the best beginners distros there are and for a reason: it's easy to get used to it after Microsoft or Apple OSs. There is not much special about it: you'll be able to do the same things you do now, like: use the same browser to do whatever it is you do in your browser, use Steam to play games, watch movies - as far as I'm concerned it's what majority of us do most of the time.
  • Pop OS!. Very similar to Ubuntu but a bit more customisable and beautiful by default with a nice community of people who are ready to help each other. Ubuntu has a bigger knowledge base but PopOS is based on Ubuntu so most of the stuff will be exactly the same.

Before you try, you should know about downsides:

  • No support for some programs. If you use some programs a lot and can't live without them, check (by googling: "does Ubuntu supports [insert my program]") if Linux supports it. One example would be Photoshop which can't be simply run on Linux. Though who cares about it nowadays when you can do everything from your browser. Also almost any program will have an open-source and private alternative. Though not that fancy and polished of course. Most popular ones are very decent, like LibreOffice for example.
  • Sometimes no visual interface. It might sound scary, I understand, but it's not that big of a deal and chances are it won't happen to you anyway. But yeah, some issues have to be solved by pasting some commands from the internet to Linux terminal. If your blood pressure is rising from just reading it - Linux might be not for you.

Upsides besides privacy? Yes, a lot:

  • You don't need to install it to try. You just need a USB flash drive with at least 4GB to try Linux experience on your device without a need to install it. It won't damage or change anything on your PC.
  • Full control and freedom. Tired of forced updates at inconvenient times? Apps that you can't delete? Trackers that you can't disable? Well in Linux no one forces you to do anything.
  • Full customisation. With a huge active community it can look and work however you want.
  • Better performance. Out of box. It will fly on your device even if it's old.
  • No viruses. There are essentially almost no malware for Linux. You don't need an antivirus to run all the time, thus increasing the performance even more.
  • It's free and open-source. Just like PopUpOFF! Well, maybe vice-versa.
  • You can learn how to control and deploy servers online. Most of the stuff in the internet is hosted on Linux servers.

I stopped here

As you might or might not be interested, my setup ends here. It's not about the lack of knowledge. Life is complex and simple the same time. Everything needs balance, including effort, time spent, energy.

I accept consequences of lack of privacy at this point in my life. I don't want a custom ROM on my phone because I barely use it. I don't need to sandbox my apps/browsers/tabs because I'm not using any social networks at all. I've got one entire browser dedicated to google/facebook services I have to use and trust Firefox with a sandboxing extension to do that heavy lifting. I use a dedicated Brave browser for my work profiles with work google account signed in. And I use everything else in a third browser.

On my android phone I'm not signed in into anything and have all the google services disabled. I wanted to do a custom ROM on my pixel for a long time but never really got to the point where I felt I needed it. So I guess that's as far as I go, but the path doesn't end here if you care to stick a bit longer.

Sure, I'd have liked a more private way to store pictures but the hardest part if making your family use it. And without family why would I need a cloud hosting for pictures in the first place? So there is always a compromise and balance. Remember that while privacy is important, relationships with your family are superior. Don't be angry or spoil relationships because someone refuses to care about privacy as much as you do.

Custom phone ROMs

You'd need to have an Android phone as it can be configured better for privacy even without ROMs. There are basically only 2 names I trust here:

  • GrapheneOS. Only supports Google Pixel phones. As of now it's considered superior to anything else you could get on the phone. Allows you to sandbox apps so you can safely have Instagram and whatnot installed on your phone and "wrap it in a box", so while the app thinks it has its usual access to everything on your phone (pictures, contacts, etc), it will have zero access to anything.
  • LineageOS. Supports many more devices, should be good generally - but as a privacy person, I'd get Pixel and install GrapheneOS instead.
  • Any Linux based OS. Privacy: 10/10. Usability: you won't like it. Fun to try on the older phone, but that's about it.

Doors opened by Linux

Now that you're a master of Linux, you can redo most of the stuff from previous sections but in a more private way. OpenVPN for VPN on your own server. Nextcloud for cloud storage. Passbolt for password manager. Do you have to? Sometimes, but not really, though for sure you can and it might fit your goals better. Plus you would need to master web security to make sure it's all secure.

Going offline

LibreOffice package instead of Google/Microsoft docs on Linux. In rare situations where you need something to be hosted and edited online - for example sharing or collaborating with other people - you can use encrypted services like CryptPad. No one except for you is likely to enjoy it, but that's the price for privacy. Saving your data on encrypted hard drives is much more private by default, especially with encryption. VeraCrypt is a default choice that.

As you can see it all comes with a price of convenience. You can't show your vacation pictures from your phone any time anymore because you have your hard drive hidden at home. And if you lose/forget your password, all data will be gone.

Care more about tools you use

Like that Privacy Badger that I mentioned. It doesn't have downsides for beginners, but it might participate in leaving your digital footprint which is not what you want to have at this point.

By now you should understand how privacy "works". Almost anything that you use: smart speaker/clock, robot vacuum, doorbell camera, TV, game console, smart fridge, car - everything that has access to your information can be collecting it. And since "it" has your data anyway, its company might as well sell it since the majority of users wouldn't care about it anyway. Besides it also possesses a huge security risk.

Research everything you use. Most of privacy-friendly tools are likely to be open-source, but it doesn't guarantee it's going to respect your privacy just yet. For example Brave had an occasion with affiliate links for some services - even though it is open-source.

Results

If you follow those recommendations you can expect:

  • Fun if you're into it.
  • Stink eyes from people you're talking to about everyday things like posting pictures in social networks.
  • Probably even stronger web security. I'm saying probably because you need some knowledge in that area to make things better than companies, but again, don't overestimate companies. There is no need to even hack someone, on many occasions employees are just not careful enough that they can leak sensitive info by themselves. Plus again, just having Linux on your device will protect you much better than Microsoft ever.
  • To have a rare opportunity to be invisible in the internet. Like that special agent in a movie who was thought to be dead 30 years but is still alive and now is going for revenge. Except in the internet instead. And no revenge. And no one generally cares.

Above and beyond

For any regular person there is no need in this. But of course there are ways to make everything even crazier - as always. There are self-destroying emails and messages, burner phones and apps, proxies and many, many, many other options to eliminate all ways to be traced but nothing there is actually of any interest to a regular person simply because convenience goes down into a negative field and pretty far.

There are some less important (imo) things that I didn't cover, like health trackers, translators, etc etc - which all contribute to your footprints, and if you're using any tool pretty often, you can always find a better alternative for it just by googling. I however will leave some pointers to other resources which you can gain more knowledge from:

Hope it was an interesting and useful read, took me some time to write and edit. Let me know if you'd like to read my view on web security. Have a more private life now, bye!

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