Tools

Lists of different tools I’ve used or recommend for different purposes.

Last updated: 2023-11-03

Password Managers

• 1Password
• Bitwarden
  • I haven’t used personally, but continue to hear good reviews from other security professionals.
• LastPass
  • The latest breach at LastPass revealed enough internal security issues that I now actively recommend against keeping LastPass.
• KeePass

File Encryption

• Cryptomator
  • Now my primary option for file encryption for cloud storage, since Dropbox acquired Boxcryptor
• Boxcryptor
  • (File encryption for cloud storage - now owned by Dropbox)
• Whisply
  • by Boxcryptor - not sure if this will stay around or not, now?
  • As of 2023-11-03, it’s still around, so…. 🤷‍♂️
• GnuPG/PGP
• GPG4Win
  • OpenSource Windows implementation of GnuPG
• miniLock (Chrome extension/app) (HOWTO)
• Keybase (Keybase has since been acquired by Zoom and went downhill fast)
• 7zip (with AES256)
  • Still a good compression tool, but I no longer recommend it for any form of file encryption
  • But sometimes, we have to do things we don’t want to do

VPN

• ProtonVPN

Instant Messaging

• Signal
• Session

Ad Blockers

• DisconnectMe
• AdBlockPlus
• Brave Browser
  • Full web-browser with good built-in ad blocking and privacy settings
  • Based on Chrome

Backup Software

• Arq Backup
  • AWS S3 or Wasabi for cloud-based backup target
• Carbon Copy Cloner (Mac only)
• Sync
• Cryptomator (File encryption for cloud storage)
  • I currently use this in combination with Dropbox for cloud-based file sync

Notes

All note solutions below support Markdown and provide some level of encryption, at various levels of paranoia. 🙃

• Obsidian
  • This is my daily driver notebook
• StandardNotes
  • Simple, privacy centric note taking app
  • Fully supports local encryption prior to server upload
  • Free and paid versions
• Bear.app (macOS only)