The Best Android and IOS Apps to Keep Your Privacy and Data Safe
Large corporations collecting our data and resetting passwords after every major data breach may seem inevitable that we just have to agree with in 2019. But there are ways to protect your data and privacy.
Disclaimer before we proceed: The apps I recommend in the video above will not make you 100% safe . It’s impossible. What they will do will help keep your data more secure and private.
Password managers
The most important tool is the password manager. Using a password manager to randomly generate long, complex passwords is arguably the most important step you can take to improve the security of your online accounts.
Twice Lifehacker recommends: 1Password and LastPass .
Browsers
Choosing a browser other than Chrome might seem like a waste of time given its dominant market position . But when it comes to data privacy, there are much better options.
The two we recommend are Firefox and Brave .
VPN
Aside from using a privacy-focused browser, using a VPN service to mask your internet traffic is also a great way to increase your internet security. My colleagues have written extensively about how to choose the right VPN and how to make sure the one you are using is trustworthy .
Message exchange
I’ve already shot a video about how messy messaging apps are , so I’ll be brief. In an ideal world, we would all convince our friends and family to use an open source end-to-end encrypted messaging platform like Signal .
Given how fragmented cross-platform messaging is, iMessage and WhatsApp are good alternatives. They are widely encrypted and popular. Obviously, one belongs to Apple and the other is Facebook, so it’s up to you how much you trust these companies to keep your data private.
Payments
There seems to be a new data breach every day that exposes customer and credit card information . This is why we recommend using Apple Pay or Google Pay wherever possible. Both services hide your actual credit card number behind a virtual one, so sellers never get this information. This can be a lifesaver if a retailer has a major data breach.