Privacy Tools

Password managers

Tool	What it's for	Price
Bitwarden	Most people, best free option Open source, audited, and a free tier with unlimited passwords on unlimited devices. Our top pick.	Free / Premium
Proton Pass	Aliasing built in Creates an email alias with each login, so one breach can't link your accounts.	Free / paid
1Password	Families Polished apps and strong family sharing. A Secret Key means a stolen master password alone can't open a vault.	Paid

Encrypted DNS

One profile blocks trackers in every app.

Tool	What it's for	Price
NextDNS	Seeing and tuning everything The most configurable, with a live log of which app hit which tracker. What we use.	Free tier / paid
Control D	Set and forget Comparable filtering, friendlier interface. Better if NextDNS has more knobs than you want.	Free / paid

VPN

Tool	What it's for	Price
Proton VPN	Most people Swiss, open-source apps, independently audited, and a usable free tier.	Free tier / paid
Mullvad	Minimal data footprint Account numbers instead of emails, accepts cash, flat price, no upsells.	Flat monthly price

Hardware security keys

Tool	What it's for	Price
YubiKey 5C NFC	Apple Account and everything else USB-C and NFC: tap it on an iPhone, plug it into a Mac. Phishing-resistant in a way codes aren't. Buy two.	Paid, per key

Private email

Still testing. For now, Hide My Email comes with iCloud+ and covers most needs.

Tool	What it's for	Price
Proton Mail	Leaving Gmail End-to-end encrypted between Proton users, Swiss, open-source apps, and a working free tier.	Free tier / paid

Virtual cards

Each merchant gets its own card number, so a breach or unwanted renewal hits only that card.

Tool	What it's for	Price
Privacy.com	Subscriptions and one-off shops Single-merchant and spending-limited virtual cards. US only.	Free plan / paid

Getting off data-broker sites

Data brokers are companies that collect and sell people’s names, addresses, phone numbers and relatives’ names. Getting off their sites means asking each one to delete your listing, one by one, and it takes time. IntelTechniques publishes a free Data Removal Workbook that lists where to send each request and which sites to start with.

LastPass: its 2022 breach exposed encrypted vault backups, and in March 2025 US investigators linked about $150M in crypto thefts to vaults cracked after that breach (LastPass says it has seen no conclusive link). The UK ICO fined LastPass £1.2m in December 2025, and in June 2026 a breach at its vendor Klue exposed customers’ names, emails, phone numbers, addresses and support-case records (LastPass says vaults weren’t affected). If you used LastPass before 2022, change any passwords or crypto keys stored in it, and switch to one of our password picks.
Free-only VPN apps: your traffic is the product.
iPhone “antivirus”: iOS sandboxing stops it scanning other apps.
Chromium-reskin “privacy” browsers with affiliate search deals. Use Safari with content blockers, or Firefox.
Anything sold with a countdown timer.

Keep reading

Our free guide and the blog cover setup. Further Reading lists independent resources for going further.