Do you regularly pay for any privacy-enhancing tools?

General
21

Do I believe that privacy should be a commodity that I need to purchase? In a perfect world, no. It should be an inalienable right, just as clean food, fresh water, and shelter should be. Sadly we don’t exist in a perfect world.

Do I believe all privacy preserving tools should be free as in beer? No. People work hard to make these tools and deserve to be compensated.

5 Likes
22

I believe in making recurring annual contributions to projects that improve my daily security, privacy and anonymity .

Linux Mint
Proton mail & VPN
GrapheneOS
KEEPASS password manager
AEGIS authenticator
THUNDERBIRD email client
FUTO keyboard

4 Likes
23

Yes.

If corporations are able to offer a free service without you paying for the money, that doesn’t mean no revenue is made.

  1. A non profit relying on grants and donations (Signal)
  2. You paying for their service (Proton)
  3. Freemium with paid Enterprise (not as frequent, but WinRar is a classic example, and Obsidian before they made it free to use for all)
  4. Freemium with upgrade to better tiers (Obsidian - free local use, paid online backup)
  5. Surveillance capitalism (social media, by and large)
  6. Bait & Switch / Embrace Extend Extinguish (free now, or at a loss, but free lunch doesn’t come forever, looking at ChatGPT and AI is today)

And these are not necessarily a discreet set, plenty of these can be happening at the same time. If you aren’t sure where the money comes from, then you should be questioning if you are the product, and if that matters for you.

2 Likes
24

I personally steer away from “free” services, and have for a while. Email, VPN, Browser, OS, Backups, even if I can get them for free, I’ll pay for them with recurring donations or by subscribing to “pro tiers”. It can add up if you don’t have a job or have trouble making ends meet, so ideally, privacy should be provided for free, and by default, but unfortunately that’s not really easy or possible in many real-world scenarios.

3 Likes
25

I agree. People have become way too spoiled with free apps and such, and act like being asked to pay for software is some sort of front.

The people outting all the work into that software have families to support too!

4 Likes
26

mullvad VPN - monthly
iodéOS Premium - yearly
njal.la (private domain name) - yearly
disroot nextcloud - yearly (donation)

2 Likes
27

i keep the amount I pay minimal. most of what you can do in terms of privacy is related to opsec and not the paid tools you use. top of my head, pay for a vpn, mail, domain & that’s it.

1 Like
28

I won’t say which tools, but I spend about $30/mo on privacy / online services.

1 Like
29

$287.76USD for 24 month Proton Duo.

Hopefully some other Cloud Storage providers mature in the meantime.

1 Like
30

I pay for Mullvad. Beyond just privacy it’s useful for accessing geo-restricted content and services and using Youtube without an account these days. I also support GrapheneOS and Signal with donations when I can.

2 Likes
31

I pay for Proton Unlimited, Standard Notes, and Signal Backups (previously I just donated to Signal).

If we don’t financially support privacy services then eventually we won’t have them.

Nothing is free. Privacy is worth paying for.