Over the past few weeks or so, I noticed that some community members expressed concern over excessive numbers of sections and/or tool recommendations.
Since our current layout includes a overly broad “Software” category, it may eventually lead to bloat if we recommend too many tools. On the other hand, Privacy Guides might end up excluding some tools for not being mission-critical enough.
To address this issue, I would love to hear your feedback on how we can better organize the “Recommendations” sidebar. Only if there is community consensus for a redesign of course!
Here is the current layout with the number of pages within each catagory:
1. Internet Browsing (4)
2. Providers (9)
3. Software (17)
4. Hardware (2)
5. Operating Systems (3)
6. Advanced (2)
A good first step is to break up the software category into different usage categories. We may also consider reordering it as well if that is agreed.
I am strongly opposed to their being a security section. Security is an exceptionally vague term and all recommendations are expected to be reasonably secure, no insecure product or service will ever be recommended.
It’s just a mock-up of how Software can be broken up. If the categories are reorganised then they should of course be structured in more logical categories. That said, practically speaking, crypto currencies kinda only are files😛
However they get categorised in the end, I think structuring it this way is quite an improvement. Smaller sections will be a lot easier for a beginner to navigate.
A follow-up question to also consider is how they will be sorted, both the pages and the categories.
A few ideas:
Alphabetical, just for the topics or the categories as well.
By complexity/chronology, such as how an instruction manual is organised (you do A then B then C).
How frequently they are visited. If you have statistics of which pages are visited the most that would be a good starting point.
I quite like getting rid of the providers category. There is a lot of inconsistency in regards to what falls under providers and doesn’t. For example, mail and calendar sync both recommend Proton and Tuta yet mail falls under providers while calendar doesn’t.
I’m not sure an essentials category in this way makes much sense. So many tools are essentials and placing a type of tool under essentials makes its proper category feel very empty (e.g., real-time communication tools are undeniably essential, yet it would be very strange to have a communications category without them.)
I think that this category is useful in defining a category of privacy tools which are thought of as a service first, not necessarily software first. In other words, I can expect most, if not all, recommendations in the Software category to provide download links (CLI tools included), while this is more often not the case for a handful of tools in the Provider category.
Cloud Storage
Cryptocurrency
Data Removal Services
DNS Resolvers
Email Aliasing
Email Services
Financial Services
Pastebins
Photo Management
Search Engines
VPN Services
My reasoning above also explains why I suggest moving the Cryptocurrency and Pastebins pages to the Providers category.
Software
Tech Essentials
Multifactor Authentication
Password Managers
Real-Time Communication
Encryption Software
My reasons for including these tools in this category are as follows:
The articles “Introduction to Passwords” and “Multifactor Authentication” are grouped under the Technology Essentials category in the Knowledge Base. This forms the basis of including the MFA and Password Managers pages here.
One consistent through line / theme of the website is to encourage readers to prefer end-to-end encrypted instant messengers over email and social networks for sensitive communications.
The inclusion of Encryption Software in this category is a bit more tenuous because while the idea of encryption as essential seems like a no-brainer, the actual use of the tools in the category may not reflect this sentiment — particularly OpenPGP. It may belong in a different category (perhaps Utilities).
Productivity
Calendar Sync
Document Collaboration
Email Clients
Language Tools
Notebooks
Office Suites
Document Collaboration, Language Tools, and Office Suites were all on one page at one point; they were split into separate pages almost a year ago, so grouping them in this category seems like a no-brainer. The other pages listed here were placed based on what I think of as “productivity.”
Media Consumption / Media Sharing
Social Networks
Frontends
News Aggregators
File Sharing and Sync
I think that the Social Networks page and Frontends page pair well together—one page suggests alternative social media platforms, while the other suggests alternative ways to access social media content on mainstream platforms. The only page here that may be out of place is the File Sharing and Sync page—it’s admittedly a stretch to consider these tools for media sharing. Perhaps this page belongs in Utilities too.
Utilities
Health and Wellness Apps
Maps and Navigation
Data and Metadata Redaction
AI Chat
As defined by Merriam-Webster, one of the meanings of the word utility is as follows:
a program or routine designed to perform or facilitate especially routine operations (such as copying files or editing text) on a computer
I think that the pages listed in this subcategory reasonably follow this definition.
Hey! I have just returned from my break. Always happy to figure out a good proposal with everyone else at PG.
This could work if we do decide to keep the “Software-Provider” dichotomy in our sidebar. Adding additional sub-catagories under Software could make everything more readable.