Tools we use: the four-tool operator stack we run.

Most affiliate pages are written by people whose income depends on the click. Ours are not. Predaxia runs three affiliate partnerships and refuses everything else. The rejected list is documented separately in our piece on tools we refuse to affiliate with, including the names of well-funded companies whose offers we sent back.

The four entries below are the operator stack we run, plus one editorial mention with no commercial relationship. Use this page once, revisit it every six months. Tool selection is downstream of your threat model, never the other way around. If you have not built one yet, start with our guide on how to build your threat model.

Proton: VPN, mail and password manager

Swiss-based. Open source. Independently audited. The only consumer privacy suite where the legal jurisdiction, the technical architecture, and the audit trail all line up.

Why Proton. Switzerland is not a member of the 14 Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, which means Swiss courts decide what gets handed over, not foreign agencies through informal channels. The codebase is open source and audited by Securitum on a recurring basis. The no-logs policy has been tested under real Swiss court orders: when compelled, Proton handed over the account metadata it had, which did not include connection logs because connection logs are not stored. The Stealth protocol obfuscates VPN traffic to look like ordinary HTTPS, which keeps the connection alive in environments that block standard VPN signatures. We compared it directly to its closest competitor in Proton vs Mullvad in 2026, and broke down the VPN alone in our full Proton VPN review.

Best for. Journalists who need a verified no-logs VPN with encrypted mail attached, lawyers who need client-confidential storage and communication in the same suite, NGO field workers who need everything to work in countries where VPN traffic is actively blocked. Start with the VPN, add Mail and Password Manager when the workflow is ready. The Unlimited plan covers the full stack and is the configuration we run.

Trade-off. Proton VPN is not the fastest provider on the market. If raw throughput is the only thing that matters, there are faster options. If verifiable privacy under court pressure matters more than streaming speed, the trade-off is worth it.

See Proton →

1Password: the password manager that does not negotiate

Used by security professionals in enterprise environments. The architecture is documented, the audits are recurring, and the recovery model does not undermine the threat model.

Why 1Password. The Secret Key system means the master password alone is not enough to decrypt your vault. Even 1Password cannot recover your data if you lose the Secret Key, which is the entire point. Some competitors hold recovery options that quietly weaken the model: if the vendor can recover your vault under any circumstance, so can a court order or an internal compromise. 1Password chose the harder path on purpose. Law firms, newsrooms, and corporate security teams use it for exactly that reason. We covered the journalist-specific configuration in our 1Password review for journalists.

Best for. Lawyers managing client credentials across multiple platforms. Journalists juggling accounts on sensitive services. Anyone whose password manager is the single point of failure between an attacker and the rest of their digital life. The shared vaults work for teams without leaking individual credentials across the team.

Trade-off. Not the cheapest option. Bitwarden costs less and is a defensible choice if budget is the main constraint. If the operational requirement is the most professionally supported model with recurring third-party audits, 1Password is what we run.

See 1Password →

DeleteMe: data broker removal that documents itself

Data brokers do not delete you. They archive you. We covered the mechanic in detail in data brokers and military families, and the principle is identical for civilians in conflict-divorce situations and journalists with public bylines. DeleteMe is the service that actually removes your profile from the brokers and documents each removal with proof.

Why DeleteMe. The removal pipeline is verifiable. They send the takedown request, they confirm the broker complied, and they monitor for re-listing because brokers re-publish your profile after a few months as a matter of operational routine. Several services in this space invoice you for a process they do not actually perform. DeleteMe shows you the receipts.

Best for. Anyone going through a contested divorce where your address being publicly findable creates a real risk. Military families whose home address combined with deployment routine is a threat. Journalists whose physical location is the next step a hostile party would investigate. People in any situation where the gap between “googleable” and “unfindable” determines the outcome.

Trade-off. Does not address data collection at the carrier or ISP level, which is a separate problem covered in our piece on how phone carriers sell location data. DeleteMe handles the most accessible layer, the one findable by anyone with a credit card and a search engine. Pair it with a VPN for the network layer and you have closed two of the three big surfaces.

See DeleteMe →

Mullvad VPN: editorial mention, no affiliate link

The most anonymous consumer VPN available. Mullvad does not run an affiliate programme. We mention them anyway, because the recommendation is independent of any commercial relationship.

Why Mullvad without a link. No email is required to register. No identity is attached at any stage. Cash payment by post is accepted, processed against an account number that exists only in your head. In April 2023, Swedish police visited Mullvad offices with a search warrant. They left empty-handed because there was nothing to seize: the architecture does not store user data in a form that can be handed over. There is no commercial relationship between Predaxia and Mullvad. We recommend it because it deserves to be recommended. The full review is in our Mullvad VPN review.

Best for. Anyone where account creation itself is part of the threat surface. Journalists registering tools from field locations where an email address would create attribution. Sources verifying that their communication channel is not silently tied to their identity. Operators running compartmentalized configurations across multiple jurisdictions.

Trade-off. Smaller server fleet than Proton. The Stealth protocol equivalent (Shadowsocks via Mullvad) requires a bit more configuration than Proton Stealth, which works out of the box. For most operators, this is acceptable. For teams that need a single click solution across non-technical staff, Proton wins on operational simplicity.

What did not make the page

Several offers from well-funded providers were declined for editorial reasons documented in tools we refuse to affiliate with. Free VPNs in particular are a category we do not touch and have explained in detail in free VPNs sell your data. The pattern is consistent: when the product is free, the surveillance is the business model. The companies on this page charge real money because they are selling a service, not selling you.

Frequently asked questions

Why so few tools?

Because most of what is sold as privacy tooling does not survive operational use. We list four because four are what we actually run. Adding a fifth to look more comprehensive would defeat the point of the page.

Are the affiliate links influencing the recommendations?

The other way around. The recommendations existed first. We approached Proton, 1Password and DeleteMe because we already used them. The affiliate programmes came after the editorial decision, not before. Mullvad is on this page without any commercial link at all.

What about Bitwarden, Tutanota, NordVPN, ExpressVPN?

Bitwarden is a defensible choice if budget drives the decision. Tutanota is a credible alternative to Proton Mail with a different threat model. NordVPN and ExpressVPN are commercial VPNs we do not recommend, for reasons covered in our piece on tools we refuse to affiliate with.

When was this list last reviewed?

Reviewed every six months and after any major incident affecting one of the providers. If a tool stops meeting the criteria, it leaves the page. The same standard applies to additions: a new tool only joins this list after we have used it operationally long enough to write the review honestly.

Where do I start if I am new to all this?

Build the threat model first. Our guide to threat modelling takes about twenty minutes and tells you which tool matters for your specific situation. Without that, even the best tool stack on this page is just unused subscriptions.

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There’s no perfect setup. Anyone selling you perfect is selling fear. The goal is simple: make yourself a harder target than the person next to you.