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’.

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

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Try to use Tor Browser for all of your web surfing. It will offer you far better anonymity than any other browser. Make sure to learn the basics of Tor before using it. If the site you want to visit will not work in Tor Browser, try Firefox intead, but realize these browsers do not anonymize your ip by default.

Tor Browser notes: Using Tor Browser to sign into websites that contain your real ID is counterproductive, and may trip the site’s fraud protection. Make sure to check for HTTPS before signing in to a website through Tor. Signing into HTTP websites can result in your ID being captured by a Tor exit node.

Firefox notes: This browser uses Google search by default: replace it with a more private alternative.

Why are Chromium, SRWare Iron, et al. not recommended on PRISM Break? More info here.

Warning for mobile devices & Tor: Websites using HTML5 <video> tags will leak <video>-related DNS queries and data transfer outside of Tor.

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.

“If you spend time contributing to OpenStreetMap you are helping a good cause, and building a geographic database of the world which is free and open for all and forever.”