Start Here · iPhone · Your path
Browsing and search
A browser and search engine that don't profile you, and when a VPN helps. Work down the list — each step builds on the ones above it.
Start here
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Switch Your Browser
⏱ 15 min ★ Impact: High
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Switch Your Search Engine
⏱ 5 min ★ Impact: High
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Browsers
Seven browsers by engine, out-of-the-box privacy and how far you can configure them.
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Browser Extensions
The minimum useful set of privacy extensions, in priority order.
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Search Engines
Seven search engines by index, business model and verdict.
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Browsers, fingerprinting and search
The Privacy Diet · Chapter 4
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Test Your Browser, and Read the Results Properly
Three checks for the browser you use every day — blocking, fingerprinting and leaks around a VPN — what a good result looks like for Brave, Firefox and Mullvad Browser, and what to change when one fails.
Check the switch worked, and read the results properly.
beginner⏱ 20 min -
Encrypted DNS on Your Phone, Everywhere You Go
Android's Private DNS and an iPhone DNS profile, set up in fifteen minutes: which resolver now that Mullvad's is closing, how to check it works, and how it fits with a Pi-hole at home.
beginner⏱ 15 min
VPNs and Tor
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How to Judge a VPN
The seven factors that actually matter, each with its corresponding red flag.
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VPN Providers
Six providers by jurisdiction and audit status — including the ones to avoid.
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VPNs and Tor
The Privacy Diet · Chapter 6
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Proton VPN, set up everywhere
Proton Suite: The Definitive Guide · Chapters 13–15
If you choose Proton VPN.
Run it yourself
Optional, and a bigger step: host it on a small server at home so the data never leaves your house. Do these in order — each one assumes the last.
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Plan the server: threat model, hardware, networking
Be Your Own Cloud · Chapters 1–4
Decide whether self-hosting suits you before buying anything.
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Self-Hosting Trade-offs
What you gain against what you take on, stated plainly before you invest.
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Homelab Hardware
Six starting points by cost, power draw and what each is good for.
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Installing Ubuntu Server for a Home Lab
From USB stick to a headless, static-IP, auto-patching box you can SSH into — the machine every self-hosting guide assumes you already have.
beginner⏱ 60 min -
SSH: Key-Only Login and Sensible Hardening
Turn off password authentication, lock down root, and stop the log noise — the twenty minutes that closes the most-attacked door on any server.
beginner⏱ 25 min -
Docker and Compose, Properly Installed
The right repository, the docker group and what it actually grants, a Compose file you can read, and the update routine that keeps a homelab from rotting.
intermediate⏱ 45 min -
Storage
Be Your Own Cloud · Chapter 7
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Reverse proxy, HTTPS and local DNS
Be Your Own Cloud · Chapter 8
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Reverse Proxy and HTTPS, Set Up Once
Chapter 8's Nginx Proxy Manager from empty folder to a trusted padlock: the shared proxy network, a DNS-only API token, one wildcard certificate for every service, and a way to test it all before Pi-hole exists.
Every service page assumes this is done.
intermediate⏱ 45 min -
Secrets and .env files
Be Your Own Cloud · Chapter 9
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SearXNG
Be Your Own Cloud · Chapter 15
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SearXNG: Going Deeper
Chapter 15's private search engine: what SearXNG writes on first start, where the book's engines block goes, how to run only the engines you list, and making it your browser's default.
beginner⏱ 25 min