The new 12 months is simply across the nook, and you already know what which means? Resolutions and recent begins! And whereas that often applies to health or private targets, it’s simply as related to your digital life, particularly your privateness.
Considering the sheer variety of shakeups and shocks we witnessed in 2025 – from age verification (significantly within the UK and US) to web blackouts (global internet freedoms deteriorated in 2025) – it’s comprehensible in case you’re questioning the right way to degree up your privateness in 2026.
Luckily, the solution isn’t all that complicated. The bottom line is this: step away from Big Tech and reduce the amount of data it has on you. How do you do that? That’s exactly what this article will cover. We’ll walk you through some of the best tools to help you limit data harvesting, browse more privately, and protect your personal information.
1. Brave
With over 3.8 billion active users, Google Chrome is undoubtedly the most widely used web browser in the world. And while it can be curated to better respect your privacy, it’s very data-hungry by default, which makes it worth looking at alternatives like Brave which can be constructed from the bottom up with privateness in thoughts.
Brave’s privateness coverage clearly states that it doesn’t monitor your on-line actions or gather your information – not to mention promote it to 3rd events for revenue. In truth, it comes tuned for privateness proper out of the field. Without having to alter a single setting, the Brave browser routinely blocks third-party advertisements, cross-site trackers, and third-party cookies.
It additionally helps fingerprint randomization, which, merely put, makes you on-line presence seem totally different to totally different web sites. As a consequence, ISPs and internet companies can’t simply construct an in depth profile about you. For an additional layer of anonymity, the browser even integrates Tor. By default, it additionally makes use of Brave Search – the corporate’s privacy-centric search engine that doesn’t profile customers in the identical approach Google and Bing do.
Brave’s privacy-first strategy doesn’t imply it skimps on usability options
Brave’s privacy-first strategy doesn’t imply it skimps on usability options. If something, there are a number of right here that you just received’t discover on Chrome or elsewhere. For instance, it has a privacy-focused video conferencing characteristic known as Brave Talk, which you should utilize to make limitless free one-to-one video calls with out having to create a separate account.
There’s additionally a built-in internet web page translation perform, and Brave’s integration with the Wayback Machine helps you dig up archived variations of lacking internet pages. Finally, to maintain issues forward-looking, Brave consists of an AI assistant known as Leo, which may summarize internet pages, reply questions on on-page content material, and extra.
Of course, you may as well tinker with the browser’s colours and background to tailor it to your preferences. Also, since each Brave and Chrome are constructed on the identical open-source browser engine, they share a really comparable feel and look, that means switching from Chrome to Brave received’t ask a lot of you. What’s extra, Brave, like Chrome, helps bookmarks and tabs, and works with nearly all Chrome extensions.
2. Tor browser
Created by The Tor Project in 2008, the Tor Browser is likely one of the most secure browsers round. While it’s admittedly a extra superior and technical choice than Brave or Google Chrome, it’s unparalleled in terms of boosting consumer anonymity.
First issues first, it’s absolutely open supply and managed by volunteers, quite than being a for-profit product backed by Big Tech. This means there’s little incentive to gather consumer information or promote it to advertisers for revenue.
One of the most important benefits of utilizing the Tor browser is that it encrypts your shopping information thrice because it passes over the Tor community. It does this by routing your visitors by way of a community of relay nodes unfold throughout the web.
When you go to an internet site utilizing Tor, the information you ship and obtain is bounced round these segregated nodes earlier than reaching its vacation spot. This makes it extraordinarily tough for web sites or snoopers to trace your on-line actions.
Tor can be the one browser that masks your IP address and placement information out of the field. Plus, it will also be used to entry the dark web or non-indexed pages. For these causes, Tor is usually utilized by journalists, researchers, or whistleblowers, i.e., people who want excessive ranges of digital privateness. The browser additionally prevents fingerprinting makes an attempt and routinely deletes cookies whenever you shut the session.
It’s additionally price noting that the Tor browser makes use of the privacy-first DuckDuckGo search engine by default, although you do have the choice to change this in case you so select. Lastly, you should utilize Tor on nearly each platform, together with Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux.
3. Proton VPN
Proton VPN helps you within the battle towards Big Tech by encrypting your web visitors and hiding your public IP handle. This successfully stops ISPs, huge tech corporations, or garden-variety hackers from monitoring your on-line actions or misusing your information for id theft or fraud.
It’s additionally price noting that Proton VPN is headquartered in Switzerland – a rustic that doesn’t impose obligatory data-retention legal guidelines and sits exterior each EU and US jurisdiction. One of Proton VPN’s standout options is Secure Core, which provides an additional layer of safety by routing your visitors by way of an ultra-secure server in both Switzerland, Sweden, or Iceland earlier than lastly connecting you to your chosen location.
Proton VPN additionally has one of the vital well-stocked anti-censorship arsenals we’ve seen. This consists of its proprietary Stealth protocol, which makes use of VPN obfuscation technology to disguise your VPN visitors as common web exercise, permitting you to sidestep VPN blocks and censorship.
Finally, Proton VPN is likely one of the few VPNs whose apps are absolutely open supply, that means anybody can examine the code and independently confirm its privateness claims. That mentioned, the supplier has additionally undergone a number of third-party audits, with the most recent conducted in September 2025.