Top Privacy Tools 2019 by LimeVPN
Secure Browsers
Firefox
Mozilla, the company behind Firefox, makes browsers, apps, codes and tools that put people before profit. Their browser extensions, especially the one for Facebook, helps you control more of your web activity from Facebook by isolating your identity into a separate container. This makes it harder for Facebook and others to track your activity on other websites via third-party cookies.
Waterfox
Waterfox was one of the first widely distributed 64-Bit browsers on the web. Waterfox focuses on giving users a choice. The browser is focused on power users, which lets you make important decisions. There is no plugin whitelist (meaning you can run Java Applets and Silverlight apps), you can run whichever extensions you like (including bootstrapped add-ons that can completely change the functionality of the browser) and absolutely no data or telemetry is sent back to Mozilla or the Waterfox project.
Brave
Unlike Firefox which needs a certain level of customization, Brave block ads, and trackers by default. It is a chromium-based browser that is highly privacy-centric. Apart from these, it is also customizable, fast and has inbuilt protection against browser fingerprinting.
Password Managers
KeePass
KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish).
LessPass
LessPass generates unique passwords for websites, email accounts, or anything else based on a master password and information you know. LessPass computes a unique password using a site, login and a master password. You don’t need to sync a password vault across every device because LessPass works offline!
Bitwarden
Bitwarden secure cloud syncing features allow you to access your data from anywhere, on any device! Your vault is conveniently optimized for use on desktop, laptop, tablet, and phone devices. Data is sealed with end-to-end AES-256 bit encryption, salted hashing, and PBKDF2 SHA-256.
Also Read: Tips on how to create a secure password
Secure Messaging Apps
Keybase
Keybase is a key directory that maps social media identities to encryption keys (including, but not limited to PGP keys) in a publicly auditable manner. Keybase offers an end-to-end encrypted chat and cloud storage system called Keybase Chat and the Keybase filesystem respectively. Files placed in the public portion of the filesystem are served from a public endpoint,as well as locally from a filesystem mounted by the Keybase client.
Signal
Signal prides itself on being fast, secure and simple and offers a wide range of features, Some of them are:
- Sending HQ images, texts, videos etc anywhere in the world without SMS or MMS
- Signal messages and calls are always end-to-end encrypted and hence are safe
- Keep your chat history tidy with messages that you can set to disappear.
- There are no ads, no affiliate marketers, no creepy tracking.
Threema
Threema is a proprietary, end-to-end encrypted instant messaging application for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. In addition to text messaging, users can make voice calls send multimedia, locations, voice messages, and files.
Private Search Engine
SearX
Searx is a free metasearch engine, available under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3, with the aim of protecting the privacy of its users. To this end, Searx does not share users’ IP addresses or search history with the search engines from which it gathers results. Tracking cookies served by the search engines are blocked, preventing user-profiling-based results modification. By default, Searx queries are submitted via HTTP POST, to prevent users’ query keywords from appearing in web server logs
Qwant
A web search engine headquartered in Paris, Qwant processes well over 10 million search requests per day and over 50 million individual users a month worldwide, spread over its three main entry points: the normal homepage, a “lite” version and a “Qwant Junior” portal for children that filters results.
Qwant offers several ways to filter results to areas of interest:
- Web
- News
- Social
- Images
- Videos
- Music (Beta)
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo (DDG) is an Internet search engine that emphasizes protecting searchers’ privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search results.DuckDuckGo distinguishes itself from other search engines by not profiling its users and by showing all users the same search results for a given search term, and emphasizes returning the best results, rather than the most results, generating those results from over 400 individual sources, including crowdsourced sites such as Wikipedia, and other search engines like Bing, Yahoo!, and Yandex.
Private Email
Tutanota
Tutanota is a free and open-source end-to-end encrypted email software and freemium hosted secure email service. Its business model excludes earning money through advertisement relying solely on donations and Premium subscriptions.
Mailfence
Mailfence is an encrypted email service that offers OpenPGP based end-to-end encryption and digital signatures. Some of the key features are:
- OpenPGP end-to-end encryption (E2EE)
- Digital signatures
- Integrated Keystore
- Two-factor authentication
- All connections to their server are via Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) encryption, both for web services and IMAP / POP / SMTP email client access.
StartMail
StartMail uses state‐of‐the‐art security like PFS (TLS 1.1 & 1.2) and extra-secure vaults to keep the communications and data safe. Some of the important features are:
- Easy one-click PGP encryption
- Send private email to everyone
- 10 GB storage in a personal vault
- IMAP/SMTP compatible
- Disposable email addresses
- Competitive pricing
Operating Systems
Elementary OS
elementary OS is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. It focuses mainly on non-technical users and has a pay-what-you-want model. Built on GNU/Linux, one of the most secure systems in the world. An open source product, all of elementary OS is available for review, scrutiny, modification, and redistribution by anyone. Which improves security and privacy for everyone.
Ubuntu
Ubuntu is free and open-source. Linux distribution based on Debian. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: Desktop, Server, and Core (for the internet of things devices and robots). Ubuntu is a popular operating system for cloud computing, with support for OpenStack.
Tails
Tails or The Amnesic Incognito Live System is a security-focused Debian-based Linux distribution aimed at preserving privacy and anonymity. All its incoming and outgoing connections are forced to go through Tor, and any and all non-anonymous connections are blocked. The system is designed to be booted as a live DVD or live USB and will leave no digital footprint on the machine unless explicitly told to do so. The Tor Project has provided financial support for its development.
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