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Most of the software selections in this article are ''opensource''. Opensource software is desirable because all of the code is available for anyone to download and look at. This means it is far less likely that the software does creepy things behind the scenes because, if it did, someone would have noticed it.
I've written a sister article that describes specific privacy breeches and ways to mitigate them. Check it out over here at [[Online Privacy Measures]].
=Easy=
==Startpage, DuckDuckGo, or IxQuick==
*Search engines like Google and Bing keep track of everything you've ever searched for. Switch to one of these other browsers which promise to keep no logs of their own and foil Google and the others by aggregating search from millions of people. Startpage provides Google results, DuckDuckGo gets results from Bing & others, IxQuick provides results from everyone BUT Google. Try all 3 and pick your favorite. You can't go wrong!
*https://startpage.com/
*https://duckduckgo.com/
*https://www.ixquick.com/
==Firefox==
*Switch to ''Mozilla Firefox'' for your web browser. Firefox is a well known and mature web browser that benefits from being opensource and not owned by Google. It also has a robust set of Addons that are key to improving your privacy online.
#*HTTPS-Everywhere contains a list of sites with secure conections available and tells your browser to use those secure connections when visit the unsecured version of their sites.
#*https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
==OpenNIC==
*Change your DNS Lookup to use a free, non-log-keeping server supported by the OpenNIC project. This allows you to browse without having your ISP log every single website you visit via DNS Request Logging.
*http://www.opennicproject.org/configure-your-dns/
=Medium=
==Linux==
*Windows and OSX are closed source and when you use them you trust your privacy to Microsoft and Apple. Linux is a good alternative because many distributions are completely open source which means 3rd parties can vet the software and give you confidence that it is not gathering information about you and sending it back to Windows or Apple. In addition the culture of Linux is largely one of free as freedom and free as in beer. Therefore many of the tools and programs designed to work on Linux are inherently more privacy-centric (and often free!).
===Distribution===
*Not Ubuntu
*Mint
*Fedora
==More Firefox Addons==
#NoScript
#*NoScript stops websites from running code on your machine like Javascript. This can disable functionality on many webpages. NoScript allows you to easily whitelist webpages and allow them to run Javascript. The pain level goes down as you whitelist the sites you frequent.
#*https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/noscript/
#RequestPolicy
#*RequestPolicy is an addon that prevents websites from loading content from other domains. This is especially useful in that it, by default, blocks most content and tracking attempts by advertisers as their code, typically, resides on their servers. The downside is the this, initially, breaks many websites as they often load legitimate content from an alternate source. This addon contains mechanisms to whitelist entire domains or requests from one particular domain to another. Like with NoScript, the pain level goes down as you whitelist the sites you frequent.
#*https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/requestpolicy/
=Hard=
