The good news about online privacy is that a handful of relatively simple changes provide the vast majority of the protection available. You do not need to become a security expert to meaningfully reduce your digital footprint.
Password management
The single most impactful thing you can do is use a password manager (Bitwarden, 1Password, Proton Pass) to generate and store unique, long passwords for every account. Reusing passwords is the primary way accounts get compromised — if one service is breached, every account with the same password is at risk. A password manager makes unique passwords effortless.
Two-factor authentication
Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on every account that supports it, prioritising email and financial services. An authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Authy) is significantly more secure than SMS codes, which can be intercepted via SIM-swapping attacks.
Browser settings
Firefox and Brave are more privacy-respecting than Chrome by default. Install uBlock Origin to block trackers and ads. Use the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension to isolate sites from each other. Set your default search engine to DuckDuckGo or Startpage.
Email and messaging
Proton Mail offers end-to-end encrypted email hosted in Switzerland. For messaging, Signal is the gold standard for private communication — used by journalists, lawyers and anyone who needs genuine message security. WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption but its metadata is collected by Meta.
