Four Essential Services For Online Privacy

Here are four essential services to increase your online privacy:

  1. A VPN or virtual private network like ExpressVPN or PIA
  2. An ad-blocker like AdGuard
  3. A password manager like Bitwarden
  4. An encrypted cloud drive like Sync

A VPN

A VPN (or a Virtual Private Network) encrypt your internet connections and activities. This helps to bypass internet restrictions and secures the connections leaving your computer.

ExpressVPN or PIA are VPN providers that have good records in regards to privacy.

An Ad-Blocker & Tracker Blocker

An ad-blocker is useful for removing advertising and blocking unwanted trackers.

AdGuard is my recommend ad-blocker. It is a fully featured internet filter that removes ads, ad-trackers and blocks questionable websites. It operates as a standalone application, and incorporates a filtering mechanism that is quite fine tuned.

A Secure Password Manger

A secure password manager allows you consolidate all your passwords and secure notes in a encrypted safe.

I would recommend Bitwarden. This free, open source application is a replacement for proprietary password managers like Lastpass and 1Password.

Bitwarden syncs your passwords across multiple devices, and the browser extensions fills in your browser logins automatically.

An Encrypted Cloud

Using a encrypted cloud service is a handy way to keep your files secure and also conveniently available.

I recommend Sync, which is an easy-to-use encrypted cloud provider.

5 thoughts on “Four Essential Services For Online Privacy”

  1. Very good, but useless if one uses:
    – microsoft edge as a browser (just use chromium if you don’t want firefox, ms edge is just chromium with ms spyware)
    – google chrome as a browser (just use chromium if you don’t want firefox)

    Also, install LineageOS or other custom ROM (Resurrection remix or Replicant are other no-G ones) on your android for more privacy. Use a search engine if you want to find which devices are compatible with which. Maybe you’ll need a new device, but you can get one cheap (150 bucks). Remember, without Google’s bloatware and tracking, your system will be faster, so cheap phones will be more powerful.

    Also, install Linux, delete windows/mac. I do not recommend dual booting, because if you want privacy you will never boot windows again anyways. To try hardware compatibility use a live usb. Remember to check things like closing a lid and screensavers. Recommended distro: any, it doesn’t really matter. After a few months of using Linux you will know more than you expected you will, and then you will know which distro features are important to you, and they you will be able to pick one. Use a search engine if you don’t know what distro’s are.

    Lastly, if you have amazon alexa or similar, throw them in lava. Sorry.

    Delete your google, facebook and amazon accounts to make them delete your data. Deleting G and amazon accounts is pretty easy. For google, just google it (for the irony) and click a few buttons. Get a new email provider ofc before that and mail all your contacts that you are switching. Download your g drive contents too. Then delete account and never see it.

    For amazon, search for it, and you’ll learn you have to contact support. Don’t be afraid, just go with live chat, and it’ll be done in 5 minutes. Plus 24-48 hours waiting, but it’s not hard in my experience.

    Deleting your facebook account does not delete your data. Facebook is doing a crime by not being GDPR compliant, not deleting your hoarded data. I am as of right now fighting with their support.

    1. It was developed by Russians and the company is registered in Cyprus.

      Link to their history: https://adguard.com/en/blog/the-chronicle-of-adguard.html
      Link to their privacy policy: https://adguard.com/en/privacy.html

      I found this reply from AdGuard in regards to being Russian on reddit:

      Well, I am AdGuard community manager, so of course I will tell you that AdGuard is trustable 🙂

      But I really want my words to be backed up by something other than just linking our privacy policy. We monetize our apps by selling licenses to access premium functionality. Unlike some other free ad blockers, we do not need to have any kind of ‘acceptable ads’ program, or to sell user’s personal data. Historically, users’ privacy is our top priority, and we’ve come a long way to win their trust.

      It is good to be cautious and check the trustworthiness of any company you are about to share some of your personal data with. But I would like to believe that AdGuard has never given any reason to question its reputation. We can’t stop being russians, but we can do everything else in our power to prove that we take users’ privacy as serious as possible.

      EDIT: forgot to mention. Legally, we are a Cypriotic company, so we are not subject to Russian law.on user privacy

  2. foxconn0901@protonmail.com

    I am running Firefox.
    Do i still need:
    – https everywhere
    – privacy badger
    – ublock
    – Decentraleyes

    with Adguard installed?

    1. I currently use AdGuard with Cookie Autodelete, HTTPSEverywhere and Decentraleyes. Privacy Badger and Ublock are not necessary when using AdGuard.

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