Due to financial problems, throughout my privacy journey I have only used free tools to enhance my privacy. I was recently thinking about the question: If I had the money to give back to the services I’ve used, which ones would I donate to? Here is my personal list, which is still a WIP:
I will definitely donate to:
- The Qubes OS Project
- Whonix
- Tails
- GrapheneOS
- Tor Project
- Mullvad
- SearXNG
- uBlock Origin
- KeePassXC
- SimpleX
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
I will most likely donate to:
I may donate to:
I may add more as I think of them. Please leave your ideas!
DivestOS
I have to donated to lemmy and an instance.
I have a monthly donation to Signal and Wikipedia
I recommend checking out Wikiless! While the link I provided here leads to one of the more broken instances, there are many more, lots of which are included in LibRedirect. Wikiless is a more private front end for Wikipedia.
mhm… expired SSL certificate…
The best kind! /s
In all seriousness, I’m not entirely sure why Wikiless’s “main” instance (the one linked) has so many issues. The other instances I’ve used (again, courtesy of LibRedirect) have been just fine. I don’t blame you for being skeptical, it’s what makes sure people stay safe!
Edit: Here is a list of some of the ones found on LibRedirect:
https://wikiless.esmailelbob.xyz/ (Dark mode)
https://wikiless.northboot.xyz/
https://wikiless.tiekoetter.com/
https://wikiless.funami.tech/ (Dark mode)
https://wiki.owo.si/ (Dark mode)
https://wikiless.rootdo.com/ (Dark mode)
https://wikiless.r4fo.com/ (Dark mode)
And some onion sites for you Tor users:
http://wikiless.esmail5pdn24shtvieloeedh7ehz3nrwcdivnfhfcedl7gf4kwddhkqd.onion/ (Dark mode)
http://ybgg2evrcdz37y2qes23ff3wjqjdn33tthgoagi76vhxytu4mpxiz5qd.onion/
http://wl.vernccvbvyi5qhfzyqengccj7lkove6bjot2xhh5kajhwvidqafczrad.onion/
http://tdx37ew3oke5rxn3yi5r5665ka7ozvehnd4xmnjxxdvqorias2nyl4qd.onion/ (Dark mode)
http://wiki.pk47sgwhncn5cgidm7bofngmh7lc7ukjdpk5bjwfemmyp27ovl25ikyd.onion/ (Dark mode)
http://w.sneed4fmhevap3ci4xhf4wgkf72lwk275lcgomnfgwniwmqvaxyluuid.onion/ (Dark mode)
I’ve donated to Signal and the web archive
I’ve supported mullvad and I also try to support my Lemmy instance where I can.
DivestOS is the same guy managing the Mull browser. Maybe in future Signal or LibreTube. I tried to donate for Thunderbird but they don’t want money due to required mail and blocking specific mail services. I bought FairEmail and Netguard.
Otter possibilities: Tor related services and PersonalDNSFilter
Betterbird takes donations.
The DivestOS creator has so many great projects. Like memory efficient hardened malloc, hardened OpenWRT images, an rpm repo, Brace (auto privacy and security config of supported Linux systems, arkenfox and chromium config management), multiple DNS and content blocker lists, and XMPP conversations server, the list goes on. They are amazing.
I think my first donation would be to GrapheneOS.
It really is a great choice! :)
Which of these are tax deductible in the EU? In the US? Making the surveillance states lose out on some tax that funds their schemes, to pay developers trying to make our privacy more attainable is great.
I’ve never heard of whonix. What’s the use case for it?
Whonix is a unique operating system focused on privacy, security, and anonymity. Rather than being a standalone operating system, Whonix is unique in that it needs a “host” operating system to run Whonix as a virtual machine within the operating system. That means that if Whonix got compromised, the rest of your system stays untouched. Whonix isn’t like a standard VM, however, but I don’t know the specifics on how to properly explain that. Anyways, one cool feature of Whonix is that, like Tails, it routes all traffic through Tor.
Thanks! That helped get an idea of what it’s for
Lol Lemmy is not a privacy service
While Lemmy is not a dedicated service for privacy protection, it has certain features that respect user privacy more than mainstream social media platforms.
Thanks for compiling most of my list.
Not seen one of my favourite projects listed yet, so Jellyfin!!
Edit, forgot this was about privacy. Wopsi. But they do have better privacy than say plex… If that counts 😅
I included Lemmy, so I think it counts ;)
I donate monthly to the EFF.
Support Open Street Maps instead
Ouch, tough break. I’ll still leave them on my list in case anything changes, but that will move them down a few notches. Thanks for the info!
F-Droid changed the label to Non-Free Network Services because just linking from a POI to a booking site alone (without affiliate linking etc) isn’t the privacy nightmare fdroid wants it to.
I could use OM my whole life without clicking links from POI and never is anything exchanged with Kayak or OM.
If one does a booking at Kayak then sure Kayak takes all kind of PII. OM wouldnt know btw.
Non free network label is assigned because OM app is dependent on OM providing mapdata. And one cant change that.
I would encourage people to withhold donations from Mozilla. They have plenty of money rolling in, and in the past year they used it to overpay their CEO disproportionately, and to buy an AdTech company with private data that they sell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#Negative_salary-performance_correlation
https://www.fakespot.com/privacy-policy (search “personal information is sold”)
Plus donations to Mozilla cannot even be used for Firefox development due to the structure of the foundation and corporation.
Yah, let’s make sure to shit on the company making the only browser that even tries to preserve user privacy because the company does 1% of the shitty things Google does.
If we try hard enough, they might succumb to the constant attacks from Microsoft, Google and Apple and we’ll be left with the browser engine we deserve.
I want Mozilla to make a browser that preserves privacy. They keep making it worse. And I don’t see how giving them money is helping them improve.
And my comment won’t cost them any money either, as @Matt@lemdro.id pointed out:
Plus donations to Mozilla cannot even be used for Firefox development due to the structure of the foundation and corporation.
Thanks for the info! A lot of the services on my list offer paid services that are used as a source of income, but I want to support those just the same. Mozilla has been an iffy choice to add to my donation list. They are the developers of Firefox, which has been forked to create the most private browsers (Tor, Mullvad, etc.), but on the other hand their business practices (Google as a default search engine, Firefox Pocket, etc.) are not very good. As such, I will move them to the honorable mentions section (since I don’t actively use stock Firefox) until further notice.
I don’t think Mozilla should be deprived of money, and Firefox (or a lightly modified fork like Librewolf) is and probably always will be my default browser… But they’re getting plenty of money from elsewhere, so they probably don’t need ours.
If Firefox no longer got maintained, it would be very difficult for downstream projects (Librewolf, etc.) to keep up, because they would be doing the work of hardening the browser AND fixing bugs that are upstream (that Mozilla would otherwise fix). This is one of the reasons GrapheneOS is as good as it is, Google does the heavy lifting of developing AOSP, and GrapheneOS hardens it and makes it as private as they can.
A good chuck of that money is google ad money… i personally would like to see a Firefox that has no Google money in it at all.
