Step 1: Upgrade to a better web browser

What’s the best alternative to Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge?

Thankfully there are a lot of great alternatives to the monopolistic, bloated, sluggish, privacy nightmare browsers like Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome.  While everyone’s needs and tastes vary, there are some reliable options for most people:

• Brave – Extremely privacy friendly with incredibly robust built-in ad and tracker blocking. Supports Chrome extensions, Tor and the decentralized web!!
• Firefox – Open-source, made by a not-for-profit foundation, strong on privacy & recently improved performance issues, but the org is very politically biased.
• Opera – Fast & efficient with nice privacy features like built-in ad blocking and free desktop VPN* – Supports Chrome extensions** – Based in Norway.

Step 2: Stop using Google or Microsoft/Bing for searches.

Once you’ve made sure you’re using a trustworthy browser that protects your privacy, you’ll need to change its default search engine from Google or Bing to a privacy-friendly search engine. Common recommendations include DuckDuckGo (which uses Microsoft Bing’s results without tracking) or StartPage (uses Google’s censored results, without tracking) (?) While both are better choices than your standard offerings, because they still are based on Big Tech platforms, we highly recommend instead using Yandex, which from our tests is the only viable search engine which will give you politically unbiased results!

Remember: even browsing in a private window will not keep Big Tech and its related trackers from spying on you, so it’s crucial to make this change as well.

Concerned about what information Google has already recorded? Here’s how to delete Google searches & other activity from your account

If you care about privacy you’ll want to review Spread Privacy’s guide, “How to Set Up Your Devices for Privacy Protection”

Step 3: Stop sharing all your private conversations with prying eyes

Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know that the NSA is vacuuming all of our encrypted data, including what we send over text messaging (SMS) and messaging apps like Facebook Messenger.

Thankfully there are a lot of free messaging apps to choose from, but none are as universally recommended by privacy experts (such as Edward Snowden) as free end-end-encrypted messaging desktop & mobile apps, “Telegram” (and “Signal” which we don’t recommend, due to its drastically fewer features and apparent ties to CIA from its inception.

Telegram provides faster and more user-friendly & fun experience with more useful features (and it’s also probably more likely your friends are already using it). Signal is slower and takes a bit more getting used to, but uses more secure encryption methods by default.

Step 4: Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN)

To learn more about VPNs, why they matter, and what you’ll need to do to get them working, check out this article:

How to secure your browser in 10 minutes for free (and why you urgently need to)

• Note: While Opera desktop is bundled with a free VPN service (with standalone mobile app) that is now owned by Symantec, and their privacy policy is very concerning.  For more info on this, see: How FREE VPNs Sell Your Data.

There are definitely better VPNs available, even a couple that are free, like Proton VPN (our recommendation), Windscribe and TunnelBear.

Make Microsoft Windows More Private & Secure

How to turn off Cortana and stop personal data gathering in Windows 10…

Windows 10 Records Every Key You Press by Default—Here’s How to Disable It

In addition to securing Windows, we offer some more tips to help improve your performance and general experience.

Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of privacy is the operating system on which everything else functions. The vast majority of OSes are made by some of the largest Orwellian multinational corporations (namely, Microsoft, Apple & Google). Thankfully viable alternatives exist today, most notably Linux. While installing Linux on your computer is not something most will be confident doing, it may be something to at least begin considering.

Perhaps the most attractive option for most people today is Ubuntu Linux, which is increasingly comparable to Apple’s OS X in user-friendliness, and can be downloaded and installed free of charge. Another strong viable option for most people is Ubuntu, which is also a fairly user-friendly option.

For important featured privacy stories, follow our privacy news portal at: privacy.truists.org