GUIDES
HOW-TO // COUNTERMEASURES YOU CAN DEPLOY TODAY
Turn Off Google Maps' Memory
Google Maps can keep a record of everywhere you've been and everything you've looked up. Here's how to switch both off, and wipe what's already there.
Browse Without Leaving Tracks
Private browsing won't hide you from the internet, but it stops your own device keeping a record, and keeps one session from bleeding into the next.
Watch and Read Through a Side Door
Open-source frontends let you use YouTube and Reddit without an account, the tracking scripts or a watch history on someone else's server.
Scrub Your Files Before They Leave
Photos, PDFs, office documents and videos all carry hidden data about who made them, where and on what. Stop recording it, strip what's there, and check before you share.
Talk to AI Without Feeding It
Every prompt you type into a cloud chatbot is stored, and may be read, reviewed or trained on. Run models on your own machine, or at least stop signing your name to every question.
What a VPN Does (and Doesn't)
A VPN moves your trust from your internet provider to someone else. Pick that someone carefully, and know exactly what you're buying.
Email Is a Postcard
Email was never built to keep secrets. Encrypt what you can, hide your real address behind aliases, and move private conversations somewhere better.
Delete the Accounts You Forgot
Every abandoned account is a copy of you sitting on a server nobody's watching. Find them, empty them, and close them for good.
Turn On Two-Factor Everywhere
A stolen password should be a dead end. A second factor makes it one. Here's which kind to use, which apps to trust, and how not to lock yourself out.
Stop Handing Out Your Phone Number
Your phone number is a lifelong ID you give to every checkout form. Use a second number for the world, and keep the real one for the few accounts that need it.
Know Your Threats
You can't defend against everything, and you don't need to. Name what you're actually up against, then pick the countermeasures that fit.
Change Your Search Engine
Your search history is the most honest diary you've ever kept, and you're keeping it on someone else's server. Moving it takes about thirty seconds.
Block Ads on Desktop With uBlock Origin
Ads are the delivery system for most of the tracking on the web. Install the right blocker for your browser, set it up once, and learn the handful of tools that matter.
Signal Discipline
No app, setting or garment does the job alone. The real countermeasure runs between your ears: deciding, every time, what leaves your hands.
Your Data Is an Exchange, Not a Gift
Every free app, survey and loyalty card is a trade. Learn the price, negotiate it down, and stop paying in location history.
Passwords: Unique, Long, Managed
One reused password turns a breach on a forgotten shopping site into a breach of your whole life. Make every one unique, long, and stored somewhere you don't have to remember.
Harden Firefox With a user.js
A handful of preferences that cut fingerprinting, leak-prone APIs and cross-site tracking — versioned in one file you control.