Editors note: This post is a companion piece to this guide on how to take action and protect your privacy in light of the bill that President Trump recently signed into law that allows internet service providers (ISPs) to sell consumers browsing data.

Picking a good, secure VPN even for tech-savvy people can be difficult.

Im not a lawyer and someone with legal background should examine this, but something people need to understand is that VPN providers can also be classified as ISPs as theyre providing an internet service. And if theyre based in the U.S. or their servers are in the U.S. or in a country with similar anti-privacy laws, they may still be able to monetize your browsing habits. So basically by picking a bad VPN service, you might make the problem in hand even worse.

There are very very few service providers whom I know and trust that dont have any interest in the users data and take active measures to either not to have access to it in the first place or secure it if they have. Riseup.net and Calyx.net are two of them.

For more technical users, here are some tools I recommend. Each have their own pros and cons.

To be perfectly clear, Tor is NOT a VPN and is not even remotely comparable. Apples and oranges. But its probably your best shot at protecting your privacy. Tor Browser is a hardened browser built on top of Firefox. It makes it harder for sites and adversaries to track you by anonymizing your path to the website you visit. If this is the first time hearing about Tor, I encourage you to watch this short animation.

While Tor Browser is my primary browser these days, I dont use it for my banking, for example. They might freak out as your IP address changes from one country to another roughly every 10 minutes. Using Tor makes it extremely difficult for anyone to see or collect your online behavior.

Full disclosure, Im a volunteer and core member of The Tor Project.

Pros

Cons

[Related: A beginners guide to Tor.]

Once setup, Algo is probably the easiest and one of the most secure way to get a VPN up and running to be used on MacOS or iOS. If youve ever used the command line, setting up an instance of Algo should be fairly easy for you. Just be mindful, if youre using Algo for your privacy against the recent deregulation in the U.S., you might want to pick a data center that resides in a privacy- friendly jurisdiction. Another thing you might want to consider is that Algo uses Google DNS by default. If youre worried about this recent deregulation, you should as well be worried about the visibilities the Silicon Valley companies such as Google have on your traffic.

Pros

Cons

The design of Bitmask is based on OpenVPN and you can easily hook it up with Riseup or Calyx servers. In fact, theyre both already two of the built-in service providers. I hear from the developers that the MacOS version is on its way, but if youre like me and cant wait to see it, you could chip in with your money or skills to speed up the development process.

Also find it here.

Pros

Cons

A separate operating system housed on a USB stick, DVD or SD card that includes a suite of privacy-ninja applications built in. Everything runs over Tor. Tails is built and maintained by a mostly anonymous, international collective of highly respected developers (yes, all of those things). It can be tricky to set up the USB stick, but once you have it set up, Tails is easy to use. The best part about Tails is that it doesnt touch your currently running operating system. Whether you have Windows or MacOS or Linux, you can install Tails on a USB, reboot and do your work in Tails and when youre done, reboot and unplug the USB stick.

Neither your computer nor Tails would have any memory of what articles you read online or which newspaper you leaked documents to.

Pros

Cons

This new operating system, currently in alpha release, is based on Debian and not only sends all of your traffic over Tor by default, but also protects you from zero-day attacks by taking advantage of grsecurity patches. And on top of that, it has some amazing sandboxing features. If youre a little more savvy and want to try things at the bleeding edge, definitely give it a shot. Imagine Tails but built to be your primary OS.

Pros

Cons

Nima Fatemi is an independent security researcher and core member of Tor.

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A new law allow ISPs to sell your data without your consent. Here's how to shield your privacy - Technical.ly