This post is short, sweet, and to the point.
I have been a privacy advocate for decades, since LONG before we learned for a fact that the US and UK governments, as well as likely the vast majority of world governments, not to mention a high percentage of ISPs, mega-corporations and nefarious hackers, spy on us all as a matter of day-to-day business, simply because they can. Internet users beware.
I remember both Nixon and Reagan as president, and this surprises me not in the slightest. Our government has been moving in this direction for decades, as have many others, and it's clearly not a good trend.
As George Carlin so aptly put it, if it comes from the government, it's probably bullshit, and the same goes for their bullshit reasons for spying on ALL law-abiding citizens, just in case we happen to traffic with known criminals, as if that were a daily occurrence. Fie on the lot of them.
In short, I am amazed at how many online gurus who write about online security are still using Gmail, or Yahoo, and recommending "secure" options that I opted out of years ago as being inherently insecure.
Gmail is first and foremost. Yes, I still have a couple of Gmail accounts lying around, but I only use them when I simply don't care whether or not my email is intercepted . . . which is to say, rarely, if ever.
Instead, for the past couple of years, I have been using Protonmail.com, a secure-by-default email provider based in Switzerland, which uses end-to-end encryption for even their free email accounts.
Protonmail was started by some computer geeks out of MIT and CERN, who started the service after the revelations on NSA government spying by Edward Snowden. Their logic was that everyone deserves secure, unhackable email, and so they started their service on the premise that they would not log user accounts, that they would save no data, and that if a government or other legal entity demanded that they turn over their records of a particular email account, they would simply have nothing to turn over. Which has, by the way, worked excellently in practice.
Like Steemit, they do not keep user passwords, so unless you provide them with a recovery email address, losing your password will result in losing your email account. Completely.
So back up your passwords, and make certain they are saved, preferably multiple times in encrypted files.
Protonmail's free accounts are great, and give you 500 MB of email storage, with okay customer support should you run into any issues. Their paid accounts are better, give you 5 GB of storage, and give you the option of using branded email on your websites, with far better (read: faster) customer support.
I have both free and paid accounts, and will keep using them until doomsday. I LOVE Protonmail.
If you're still using Google: why? Do you prefer handing over your browsing habits for someone to market to you? Not to mention your identity and privacy?
Not me. For years, far longer than I've been using Protonmail, I've been using StartPage.com, which does not log my searches, or turn over my data to anyone, and I will continue to do so. Many thanks to my older sister for this suggestion. I suggest you try them as well.
As for texting, Signal is my app of choice.
As with StartPage and Protonmail, they don't log user information, and if you lose your password, you lose your account.
And they are FAR more secure than FB messenger, which I will NEVER allow on my phone, because they require FAR too many permissions that are, frankly, none of their freaking business.
So what privacy apps do you use, and why?
Any great recommendations out there in Steemitland? ;-)