Servers

The only way to have full control over your personal data is to run your own server. This is not for everyone though, as it requires considerable time investment and technical knowledge.

Email
Notes

For more email providers, take a look at Privacy-Conscious Email Services. Please decide for yourself whether if you trust them with your data. For more discussion about safe email providers, please see issue #461.

Kolab Now is hosted in Switzerland and benefits from the strong Swiss privacy laws. It is run exclusively with free software and using the service supports the development of Kolab. Also, it lets you export all your data at any time.

Riseup’s services may also be accessed via their Tor Hidden Service addresses. A list is available here.

Why not Hushmail? See ‘compromises to email privacy’a>.

If you have the technical aptitude, consider running your own mail server.

Enterprise Suite
Notes
The enterprise suite category is for solutions for organizations that cover more than 10 categories in an integrated fashion (ex.: logins work throughout all apps, etc.)
Avoid
G Suite
Office 365
Zoho Office Suite
File Storage & Sync
Notes

This section has been carefully curated to only include software that encrypts data on the client. That means your data should be secure even if servers it’s stored on are compromised.

Avoid
Dropbox
Google Drive
Microsoft OneDrive
Yandex.Disk
Instant Messaging
Avoid
Discord
Facebook Messenger
Google Hangouts
LINE
Skype
Snapchat
Telegram
Tencent QQ
Viber Messenger
WeChat
WhatsApp
Mesh Networks
Notes

A mesh network is a decentralized peer-to-peer network, with user-controlled physical links that are usually wireless.

“Mesh networking (topology) is a type of networking where each node must not only capture and disseminate its own data, but also serve as a relay for other nodes, that is, it must collaborate to propagate the data in the network.”

Avoid
Operating Systems
Notes

Apple, Google, and Microsoft are allegedly a part of PRISM. Their proprietary operating systems cannot be trusted to safeguard your personal information from the NSA. We have two free alternatives: GNU/Linux and BSD.

GNU/Linux has a much larger community to help you with the transition. It’s recommended that you begin your explorations by looking for a GNU/Linux distribution that suits your needs. Additionally the Free Software Foundation hosts a list of completely Free distributions.

Debian has a long tradition of software freedom. Contributors have to sign a social contract and adhere to the ethical manifesto. Strict inclusion guidelines make sure that only certified open source software gets packaged in the main repositories.

Fedora is a community edition that serve as the stable basis for enterprise ready GNU/Linux distributions with commercial support. Companies all over the world trust Red Hat Inc. because of their transparency throughout the whole development process.

Canonical’s Ubuntu is not recommended by PRISM Break because it contains Amazon ads and data leaks by default. GNU/Linux distributions based on Ubuntu are also currently not recommended due to several other reasons.

Avoid
Productivity
Notes

Riseup also offers email, XMPP, chat and data hosting (via Up1) services, all of which are accessible through Tor Hidden Service addresses. The list of these addresses is available here.

Avoid
Doodle
Evernote
Google Docs
GroupWise
Microsoft Outlook
Zoho Docs
Social Networks
Notes

If you have system administration knowledge, please strongly consider running an instance of pump.io (or something else) for your friends, family, or favorite community. Many of them would be willing and grateful to escape Facebook if you provide them a way out.

For those of you without your own server, RetroShare is the easiest way to start your own encrypted social network.

Avoid
Facebook
LinkedIn
Snapchat
Twitter
Video & Voice
Avoid
Discord
Facebook
Skype
TeamSpeak
Ventrilo
Web Search
Notes

DuckDuckGo is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) hosted around the world that provides you with anonymous search results from these sources. DDG open source components are available here.

There is also a DuckDuckGo hidden service at 3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion for Tor users.

MetaGer is a SaaS by the German non-profit SUMA e.V. that provides you with anonymous meta search results.

Avoid
Google Search
Microsoft Bing
Yahoo Search
Yandex