Thunderbird is the desktop mail program in Mozilla’s orbit: IMAP and POP, calendars, feeds, and OpenPGP built in on the desktop. Mail stays in the program on your machine, which is the real difference from opening Gmail in a browser tab. The Android app is a separate story and still leans on OpenKeychain. “No telemetry” […]
K-9 Mail is an open-source Android email app, and it is still its own app. Thunderbird for Android is the Mozilla-branded sibling built from the same project. Installing one does not install the other. Both talk to your mail server and, if you leave them that way, not to an analytics company. Neither app contains […]
PeerTube is decentralized video: anyone can run an instance, instances federate so they share each other’s content, and videos play through peer-to-peer WebTorrent to survive popularity. Open source, ad-free, governed by its communities. Discovery is scattered across hundreds of instances, creator monetization is grassroots, and the catalog has more philosophy than production value. An open, […]
ClearURLs removes tracking parameters from the links you click: the utm_source, the fbclid, the click identifiers that report where you came from. Open source, lightweight, and it cleans in the background while you browse normally. Occasionally a stripped parameter breaks a page that relied on it, and development moves at a calm pace. A small […]
uBlock Origin appears in this list too because it is simply an extension every browser should carry: open source, efficient, and the most effective ad and tracker blocker available. Its element-picker lets you remove anything a list missed. Chrome’s extension changes restrict it, so Firefox is where it lives best. If you install one thing […]
Privacy Badger, from the EFF, watches which third parties track you across sites and automatically blocks the repeat offenders. No lists to configure: it learns as you browse, and it is built by one of the most reputable digital rights organizations there is. It is a tracker blocker, not an ad blocker, and pairing it […]
mail.tm makes a disposable address with a password and a public API. That is why developers use it for registration tests. The inbox is not a world-readable web page the way some older throwaway sites are. The operator can still read the mail, and anyone you share the address and password with can read it […]
Temp-Mail.org is the disposable address most people find first: instant inbox, mobile apps, premium options for longer-lived addresses. It does the one job without ceremony. The free version shows ads and offers a paid plan. Fine for a quick one-off code; never use it for anything you need to keep.
ExifTool is the definitive metadata tool: read and write every tag in photos, videos and documents, from GPS coordinates to camera serials to editing history. Perl-based, scriptable, and the engine inside half the privacy tools on the market. It is a command-line instrument, intimidating to newcomers and beloved by everyone who learns it. Photos posted […]
ExifCleaner wraps metadata removal in a drag-and-drop desktop app: drop images or PDFs, it strips EXIF, GPS, comments and color profiles, showing you exactly what was removed. Open source, free, Windows, macOS and Linux. Batch scripting and exotic formats are beyond it, and development has been quiet lately. For cleaning photos before posting, it is […]
BellCrier breach check
Most people are, and never hear about it. BellCrier checks your email against known data breaches for free, then alerts you when it turns up in a new one, with exactly what leaked and how to fix it.
