Privacy technology does not have to mean replacing every device you own or learning how to build your own computer.
There are plenty of smaller changes you can make to adjust the way you use technology. You can keep information offline, block trackers across your home network, choose software that gives you more control, or even carry an entire operating system on a USB drive.
The tools below take different approaches to privacy, but they share a common idea: you get to decide how your technology works instead of simply accepting its default settings.
Build a smartwatch that only does what you want
Many smartwatches are designed to work alongside an app and an online account. Your activity data is collected by the watch, transferred to another device, and potentially sent onwards to a company’s servers.
You can take a different approach with Watchy(yeni pencere), a small programmable computer designed to be used as an open-source smartwatch. Because you can program the device yourself, you get to decide what it does and what information it collects. You could use it for something as simple as counting your steps without requiring an account or constantly syncing your activity to a remote service.
The data can either stay on the device or transfer it to your computer. You can also customize the watch with your own features, information, and displays. This makes Watchy an interesting alternative to more ubiquitous smartwatch brands if you want the functionality of a wearable without automatically handing control of the experience to a third party.
Use Flipper Zero to understand wireless technology
A surprising amount of everyday technology communicates wirelessly. Your garage door opener, office access system, television remote, and other devices all rely on different kinds of wireless signals to communicate. Most of the time, you never see any of this happening.
Flipper Zero(yeni pencere) gives you a way to experiment with some of those signals. It can read, save, and replicate certain wireless communications, depending on the technology and security involved.
For example, you can use it with a compatible infrared remote. The device can capture the signal sent by the remote, store it, and transmit the same command itself. That does not mean it can unlock or control everything around you. What it can interact with depends on the particular technology being used.
The real value is educational. Instead of treating wireless communication as something invisible happening in the background, you can use a Flipper Zero device to understand how some of it actually works.
Keep Wikipedia in your pocket with Kiwix
Kiwix(yeni pencere) lets you download large collections of information so you can access them offline. One of the best-known examples is Wikipedia, which you can store locally and search without being connected to the internet.
That can be useful when you’re travelling somewhere with unreliable connectivity, spending an extended amount of time in a remote location, or simply want access to information without constantly requesting it from an online service.
There is one obvious limitation: your offline library is only as current as the version you downloaded. But once the content is stored on your device, you do not need a live connection to access it.
It is a useful reminder that you do not have to depend on the internet for every piece of information you need. Sometimes, you can simply keep the information yourself.
Turn an old iPod into a dedicated music player
You probably already have a device that can play music. Your phone can stream millions of songs, recommend something based on your listening habits, and keep your entire library in the cloud. But if all you want is a device that plays your music, an old iPod Classic can still do the job.
With alternative software such as Rockbox(yeni pencere), you can give an iPod Classic a new lease on life. Hardware modifications can also bring it up to date with features such as USB-C. The result can be deliberately simple. You load your own music onto the device, much like copying files to a USB drive, and listen without needing a streaming subscription or account.
That way, there are no recommendations for deciding what you should listen to next. Nor is there a need for a service to track your listening habits as your music library can simply remain on the device. You can even use the extra storage for things such as important phone numbers or other information you might want available when your phone is unavailable.
Sometimes privacy means choosing a device that does less.
Block trackers across your home network with Pi-hole
Your phone is not the only device that can connect to advertising and tracking services. Your laptop, smart TV, tablet, and other connected devices can all make requests to servers around the internet.
Pi-hole(yeni pencere) lets you filter some of those requests at the network level. You can run Pi-hole on a small computer like a Raspberry Pi. It sits between the devices on your network and the wider internet, checking where they are trying to connect. Requests to destinations on your blocklist can then be stopped before they leave your network.
Because Pi-hole operates at the network level, you can use it to cover multiple devices at once. This can be particularly useful for devices such as smart TVs, where installing conventional ad-blocking software may not be possible. You can also see the requests being made by devices on your network, including the ones Pi-hole has blocked.
For even more local control, you can combine Pi-hole with Unbound(yeni pencere). Instead of relying entirely on another company’s DNS server to resolve website addresses, your own system can handle more of that work and store the answers locally. Your home network becomes something you can inspect and manage rather than a black box.
If you want to try it yourself, check out our guide explaining how to set up a Pi-hole(yeni pencere) and use it to filter DNS requests across your network.
Take your own network with you when you travel
Hotel Wi-Fi can become awkward when you have several devices. You might have to connect your phone, laptop, tablet, and other hardware individually, and some hotels place limits on how many devices you can use. A travel router gives you another option.
Instead of connecting every device directly to the hotel’s network, you connect the router to the hotel Wi-Fi. Your devices then connect to your router. That means you only have to deal with the hotel’s network once. Your own devices can stay connected to the network you’ve configured, even if you’re travelling with several of them.
You can also run a VPN directly on the router. Traffic from the devices connected to it can then pass through the VPN connection before reaching the internet. A travel router is a small piece of hardware, but it gives you considerably more control over how your devices connect when you’re away from home.
Our guide to setting up a VPN on your router(yeni pencere) explains how router-level VPN protection works and how it can cover devices across a network.
Choose a laptop you can repair and customize
A laptop does not have to be a closed system that gets replaced when something goes wrong. Framework(yeni pencere) laptops are designed so you can open them up, replace components, upgrade parts, and customize the hardware. Even the ports are modular, allowing you to swap one type for another when your needs change. That philosophy extends to the software if you run Linux.
Linux gives you more control over what is running on your computer and most Linux distributions are largely open source. That means the underlying code can be inspected by developers and researchers rather than requiring you to rely entirely on a company’s description of what its software does.
Open-source software is not automatically private or secure. But having access to the underlying code gives you another level of control over the technology you use.
Together, repairable hardware and open-source software let you take greater ownership of both the physical computer and the software running on it.
Carry a privacy-focused operating system on a USB drive
You can carry an entire privacy-focused computer environment without carrying another computer.
Tails(yeni pencere) is an operating system designed around privacy that you can boot from a USB drive on a compatible computer. Instead of using the operating system already installed on the machine, you can start the computer using Tails.
Internet traffic is routed through the Tor(yeni pencere) network, which sends connections through multiple relays to make it harder to determine where they originally came from. Tails is also designed to be amnesic. When you shut it down, it aims to leave as little trace as possible on the computer you were using.
That makes a USB drive containing Tails something like a portable privacy setup. You can carry your preferred operating system with you and use it on a compatible computer without relying on the machine’s usual operating system.
It is an extreme example of the same principle behind many of the other tools here: you can have more control over the technology you use, even when you are away from your own devices.
If you want to understand how Tor and VPNs differ, Our guide to Tor over VPN(yeni pencere) explains how the two technologies provide different layers of privacy.
Start with one change
You do not need a programmable smartwatch, a modified iPod, or a privacy-focused operating system on a USB drive to take more control over your technology.
Each of these tools represents a different way to change a default. You can keep your data locally instead of automatically syncing it. You can block trackers at the network level. You can store information offline, choose open-source software, or create your own network when travelling.
You can also start much smaller. Check which permissions your existing apps have. Think about whether an app actually needs access to your location, microphone, or other device features. Look at which services require accounts and which information is being stored remotely.
You also do not have to change everything at once. One deliberate choice can reduce the amount of information you hand over by default.
Privacy does not require completely changing how you use technology. It can start with deciding that one part of your technology should work differently.
