Element is the main app for Matrix, a federated chat protocol. You can use Element’s server or run your own and still talk to people on other servers. Private rooms can be end-to-end encrypted. Bridges can mirror Slack, Telegram, and other networks into a room. The homeserver sees metadata. Public rooms are often unencrypted. Encryption […]
Signal encrypts messages, voice, and video by default. The protocol is open. WhatsApp uses a cousin of it. Sealed sender hides your identity from Signal’s servers on ordinary messages. Since 2023 the handshake also includes a post-quantum layer, PQXDH, so a recording of today’s traffic is harder to crack later with a future quantum machine. […]
Mailbox.org is Heinlein’s hosted office in Berlin: mail, calendar, contacts, cloud storage, and an office suite, under German privacy law. The webmail speaks OpenPGP. Anonymous payment works. Cheap plans still allow your own domain, which is rare. The interface is a tool, not a consumer app. Some of the better privacy switches sit in expert […]
Tuta, the service formerly called Tutanota, encrypts more than the body of the mail. Subject lines, the address book, and the calendar are encrypted with the product’s own open-source scheme. The company is in Germany. You can pay without handing over a name. Newer accounts get a post-quantum layer on Tuta-to-Tuta mail. That custom cryptography […]
Proton Mail is encrypted email that normal people finish setting up. Swiss company, apps on every platform, end-to-end encryption when both sides are on Proton, and OpenPGP if you want to write to someone who is not. You can open an account without a phone number. Mail that leaves Proton for Gmail is ordinary mail […]
Posteo is a paid mailbox in Germany, about one euro a month, on electricity they buy as green power. You can pay anonymously. They strip technical headers that would show your IP, they encrypt stored mail, and they will encrypt inbound mail from other providers when they can. There is no Posteo app. You use […]
Windscribe is a Canadian VPN with a free tier that is large enough to be useful, plus split tunneling and a firewall in the app. They publish transparency reports. The tone of the marketing is jokes. The settings screen is not a joke. There are a lot of switches. Free locations are a subset, and […]
IVPN is a small VPN run from Gibraltar. No referral leaderboard, no countdown timers, payment by card, cash, or Monero. The apps include a firewall that blocks traffic if the tunnel drops, and they offer anti-tracking DNS. Independent audits of the no-logs claim are published. The server list is short on purpose. You are not […]
Proton VPN is the VPN from the same Swiss group as Proton Mail. The apps are open source. The free tier uses the same no-logs rule as the paid one, which is rare and also slow and limited to a few countries. Paid plans add Secure Core hops and more locations. They publish audits. Swiss […]
Mullvad gives you a numbered account and nothing else. No name, no email, no password. You can mail them cash. The apps are open source. They have been audited, they publish when police show up, and in a 2023 search of their office there was no traffic log to hand over because they do not […]
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.
