Core OPSEC — applies to everyone
Short answer No. Incognito mode is not private. It stops your browser from saving history locally. It does not hide you from your ISP, your employer, or the websites you visit. If you need real network-level privacy, incognito is not the tool. Honest answer: no. But not for the reason you think. Every week someone…
Short answer Yes. Phone carriers sell location data. In documented US cases, major carriers sold real-time location to data brokers and bounty hunters. In the EU, GDPR limits this, but carriers still retain location data for up to 12 months and have been repeatedly breached. Your carrier knows where you are. That data does not…
Short answer We turned down NordVPN, Surfshark, and ExpressVPN. NordVPN concealed a server breach for over a year. ExpressVPN’s CIO worked in UAE government surveillance. Surfshark merged with Nord Security. Our rule: would we use this tool ourselves if our security depended on it? For these three, the answer is no. This article costs us…
Short answer A VPN protects your network traffic. It does not protect you from spyware, compromised accounts, or mistakes already made. If your device has spyware, the VPN is irrelevant. The spyware operates above it. If you are logged into accounts that identify you, you are not anonymous. A VPN is one layer of a…
Short answer Yes. Free VPNs sell your data. A VPN costs money to operate. If you are not paying, you are the product. Documented cases, including Hotspot Shield, UFO VPN, and Hola, show free VPN providers logging and selling browsing history, device identifiers, and location data. Some explicitly claimed no-log policies. They lied. There is…
Short answer A VPN that does not work in a restricted environment is a usability problem. A VPN that hands user data to the authorities of that environment is a safety problem. Consumer reviews rarely distinguish between the two. That distinction has real consequences. How countries block VPN protocols China, Iran, Russia, and a growing…
Short answer Proton VPN is the most audited, most transparent VPN at consumer price. Swiss jurisdiction. Open source. No connection logs, verified under real Swiss court requests. Not the fastest. Not the lightest. The one we would trust if our connection logs could end up in court. We affiliate with Proton. We say that upfront….
Short answer Mullvad is the most anonymous consumer VPN available. No email required. No identity attached at any stage. Cash payment by post accepted. Swedish police visited their servers with a warrant in 2023 and found nothing, because nothing is stored. Mullvad does not run an affiliate programme. We make no money from recommending it….
Short answer Proton or Mullvad depends entirely on your threat model. If account creation itself is a risk, use Mullvad. No email, no identity, cash by post. If you need a full privacy ecosystem or a VPN that works through active blocking, use Proton. Both have been tested under real adversarial conditions. Both held. This…
Short answer A personal threat model answers five questions: What are you protecting? From whom? How likely are they to try? What are the consequences if they succeed? How much friction will you actually sustain? Answer these honestly and your tool choices become obvious. Skip them and you will spend effort in the wrong places….