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About

About & methodology

OpSec Guide is a reference for people who want to reduce how much of their life is visible to companies, data brokers, criminals and governments. It is opinionated on purpose: it favours anonymity and control over convenience.

What we look for

  • Collects as little as possible: no phone number, no real name, no KYC where avoidable.
  • Open source and independently audited, so claims can be checked.
  • Decentralised or self-hostable, so no single company can be compelled or bought.
  • Accepts private payment: cash or Monero.
  • A track record: how the operator responded to incidents, legal requests and acquisitions.

No tool is safe in every situation. Start with the threat modeling guide and choose what fits your situation, not the longest list of features.

How verdicts work

Every tool gets one of four verdicts. Read the pros and cons too: a tool marked “use with caution” may still be the right choice for you, and the drawbacks tell you what to watch out for.

Highly recommended
The best available option for most readers of this guide.
Recommended
Strong privacy and security, a transparent operator and no known serious issues.
Use with caution
Usable, but with real trade-offs. Read the drawbacks before relying on it.
Not recommended
Serious privacy or security problems. Listed so you know why to avoid it.

Tags

Entries can carry tags for properties we have checked against primary sources:

Open source
Source code is public under an open-source licence.
Self-hostable
You can run your own server or instance.
Onion service
Reachable through an official Tor .onion address.
Accepts Monero
Payment in Monero (XMR) is accepted directly.
No account
Usable without registering.
No phone number
Sign-up does not require a phone number.
End-to-end encrypted
End-to-end encrypted by default.
Audited
Independent security audit published in recent years.

How content is kept current

Each guide shows the date it was last reviewed end to end. During a review every entry is checked against the project’s own site, changelogs, audits and reputable reporting, and claims that cannot be confirmed are removed. Sources are linked under each entry so you can check them yourself.

This site’s own privacy

The site is a static page with no analytics, no cookies, no third-party scripts and no externally hosted fonts. Outbound links are opened without sending a referrer, so the sites we link to do not learn that you came from here.

Disclaimer

This guide is for education. It is not legal advice, and laws differ between countries. Nothing here is a guarantee of security or anonymity.