I am not a tinfoil hat person. I work in tech. But the amount of data being collected about you in 2026 is staggering. Here are the practical tools to take back some control without becoming a hermit.
Browser:
- Firefox with uBlock Origin. Chrome is literally an advertising company's browser. Firefox blocks trackers by default and uBlock Origin removes ads and tracking scripts.
- Brave if you want a Chromium-based browser with built-in ad blocking.
- Skip: Chrome, Edge (both send telemetry to Google/Microsoft by default).
Search:
- DuckDuckGo — No tracking, no filter bubbles. Add !g to any search to get Google results if DuckDuckGo misses.
- Brave Search — Fully independent search index. No Google dependency.
- Kagi ($5/month) — Premium search with no ads, no tracking. Worth it if you search a lot.
Email:
- Proton Mail (free tier) — End-to-end encrypted. Based in Switzerland. Google cannot read your emails.
- SimpleLogin (now owned by Proton) — Email aliases. Give every service a different email address. When one gets spammed, kill the alias.
Messaging:
- Signal — End-to-end encrypted, open source, no metadata collection. This is the gold standard.
- Stop using SMS for anything sensitive. SMS is sent in plaintext and your carrier stores it.
VPN:
- Mullvad ($5/month) — No account needed. Pay with cash or crypto. Audited. Based in Sweden.
- ProtonVPN (free tier available) — Good free option.
- Skip: free VPNs (they sell your data) and NordVPN/ExpressVPN (privacy claims are marketing, not technical guarantees).
Phone:
- iPhone: go to Settings > Privacy > Tracking and turn off "Allow Apps to Request to Track."
- Android: Settings > Privacy > Ads > Delete advertising ID.
- Both: audit app permissions. Your flashlight app does not need your contacts.
DNS:
- Change your DNS to NextDNS or 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare). Your ISP DNS logs every website you visit. Your ISP in DFW is most likely Spectrum or AT&T and they sell browsing data to advertisers. Source: FCC broadband privacy rules were repealed in 2017.
Sources:
- EFF Surveillance Self-Defense guide (eff.org)
- PrivacyGuides.org — community-maintained tool recommendations
- Mozilla Foundation — browser privacy research
- FCC — broadband privacy regulation history
Changing DNS to NextDNS was the single easiest privacy improvement I made. Took 2 minutes on my router and now my ISP cannot see my browsing history. Also blocks ads at the network level.