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privacytoolsIO
PrivacyTools.io
OPEN SOURCE2015–2020
privacytoolsIO / PrivacyTools.io

PrivacyTools.io

Suggestions and Discussions for PrivacyTools.io

13Distinct people
19Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
348GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

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Suggestions and Discussions for PrivacyTools.io

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Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

This is one of the reasons I recommend https://www.privacytools.io It's fairly well thought out, and the decisions usually are agreed upon on the issue tracker…

tya99 used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

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Also in these discussions

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This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year19 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2015-07-12 06:28:35 UTC to 2020-03-30 20:55:47 UTC.

0369122015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments20152016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20172018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 12 mentions; 2 submissions, 10 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments2020

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC12210
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413

What Hacker News says

19 sources
Looks like the sock puppets have arrived, quoting myself from that thread: https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/375... > There also seems to be a small group of devout followers who travel from the Palemoon forums to other parts of reddit, HN and github to spruik the project and derail criticism. I've observed (without naming names) it's the same names doing it over and over again. They always use the same phrases too "nazi" and "fake news", "false narrative" etc. They tend to refer to themselves as "power users" with a clear tone of superiority to their comments. I guess it must be the deep state! (sarcasm).
In Please consider not adopting Google WebComponents
PrivacyTools doesn't have a deal with any VPN company or any other company. They can become our sponsors, but they won't get listed as our recommendation on the website [1] (we don't even have any sponsor at the moment), also we can't profit from it personally and everything is transparently shown on OpenCollective [2]. We even give a huge red warning that VPN is not going to help a lot and that you should probably use Tor instead [3]. Also we removed a lot of VPN services from our site, some time ago [4][5]. [1] https://www.privacytools.io/sponsors/ [2] https://opencollective.com/privacytoolsio [3] https://www.privacytools.io/providers/vpn/ [4] https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/113... [5] https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/pull/1174
In The trouble with VPN and privacy review sites
I would say one of these providers: * https://www.privacytools.io/providers/email/ * https://web.archive.org/web/20190619003906/https://www.priva... Ultimately free without encouragement to pay is not good as it will involve the platform monetizing by selling your data in some way. Should also note at the moment, not all providers are equal, for example posteo.de doesn't allow you to use your own domain whereas some of the others do. Protonmail doesn't currently have calendars although that's coming soon https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/wiki/dev-status Tutanota does not allow for IMAP/SMTP (you must use a browser or their client). There's also this issue where privacytools.io plan to expand the information about each provider. https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/603...
In Ask HN: Getting Off GMail
I would say one of these providers: * https://www.privacytools.io/providers/email/ * https://web.archive.org/web/20190619003906/https://www.priva... Ultimately free without encouragement to pay is not good as it will involve the platform monetizing by selling your data in some way. Should also note at the moment, not all providers are equal, for example posteo.de doesn't allow you to use your own domain whereas some of the others do. Protonmail doesn't currently have calendars although that's coming soon https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/wiki/dev-status Tutanota does not allow for IMAP/SMTP (you must use a browser or their client). There's also this issue where privacytools.io plan to expand the information about each provider. https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/603...
In Ask KN: What email service should I choose to use?
> I'm sorry for your bad experiences with the Palemoon guys. You are obviously not who this software is meant for. Who is it meant for if it's not meant for users? Are they intentionally trying to turn away certain people? > I don't need or want sandboxing for my extensions I think you'll find with all security, it's best to have the "principal of least privilege" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_privilege at all levels of software. The reason for this is because if something happens to exploit one area of your setup, the hope is that it will be stopped somewhere else. > I can take care of my own sandboxing external to the browser profile instance. As do I. I use multiple VLANs (network segregation), Virtual Machines, and other things in addition to browser profiles. Most people however do not. Software should be designed
Read the rest
for "most people". > And I don't want it either, because it makes them less flexible and powerful. XUL based extensions turn my browser into a power tool, There's plenty of frameworks out there. Perhaps what you're trying to do shouldn't be a browser extension. > Chrome is a toy. Okay if you mean high performance web browser with a lot of market share that Mozilla must compete against in order to stay relevant? > I don't know why you are upset, because the vast majority of the Internet agrees with you. They do because I am right. I rarely say this as I do often like a good debate, however in this situation I will. > Most people are happy to have Google control their web browsing experience. Why do you engage with them if they make you so upset? Why are you threatened by a small group of users who want a browser their own way? I didn't engage with them. They came to our bug tracker and started to push their software on us. I contribute to the privacytools.io website. I was explaining why that particular piece of software did not belong there. > As for the HSTS thing, I'm sorry nobody explained that, I'd be happy to elaborate a bit more for you. My computer belongs to me, and I get to decide what runs on it. I can choose to use Palemoon how I want to. Not implementing HSTS according to the RFC is harming nobody except potentially myself. The way HSTS is written is self serving for the powers that be. It reenforces the SSL certificate infrastructure, and takes away user choice in the name of "security". For practical reasons, being able to disable HSTS is important for development. And even without Palemoon, there are still plenty of ways to bypass HSTS. All Palemoon is doing is saving users time. For software that is distributed to the public certain 'sane' defaults are expected for the software to be labeled as secure. These are usually according to spec as I pointed out in https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/375... there are a number of reasons why software developers should make certain choices for users. There are a couple of reasons for this: > 1. Users could be socially engineered into bypassing the warning > 2. The warning gets "ignored" because lazy users just want to "visit that website", without thinking of or understanding the consequences. > 3. Advanced users (web developers etc) can simply fix the error server side, do something like this, https://blog.filippo.io/mkcert-valid-https-certificates-for-... or at worst compile their own browser. > 4. Website owners will fix errors as it will mean their customers, visitors will not be granted access. The fact is, if Mozilla designed software for "a small group of users who think they know everything" nobody would use their software as the majority would have a poor user experience. What I mean by that is allowing users to override certain security (they may not understand and may put them at risk) is not a solution to lazy site owners who have TLS errors. It is very good that those site owners must now fix their problems, or the sites simply won't work. > Besides, Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft happily trample on the RFCs when it's convenient for them. Chrome itself was infamous for this when it first came out. I remember seeing Chrome users clobbering webservers and violating protocol to get slightly more speed. Of course, Chrome now sets the standards. Maybe so, and those are separate issues. Those issues should be constructively criticized when they come. > I have to disagree with your characterization of Palemoon users as fascists. I didn't say their users were. I said that certain developers certainly give off that vibe. I also said that they do engage in censorship, on their forums and on Twitter https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13395682. I've read about that here on HN and Reddit, ie 'forums' that they do not control. I witnessed it in that thread when one of them attempted to brigade the GitHub issue I was conversing in. > If you don't like Palemoon, then you are more than welcome to not use it and leave the community alone. [Insert Leave Britney Alone meme] The point is I only made an argument as to why it would not be added to privacytools.io the "defenders of Palemoon" came there and accused me of spreading "fake news", and spreading "false narrative". They didn't however refute what I said in a technical sense, which is what is expected in technical communities. If you want to say someone is wrong, then provide proof/examples, or you'll be laughed at. > The Palemoon community represents a dying breed. Progress will do that. > Soon enough, most hardware will be forced to use their browser, and will only be permitted to go to websites that they approve of. I don't believe that for a minute. The big tech companies have been very active in standards forums like the IETF. > And mandatory DRM. That only happens when you want to use content like Netflix, and then it's a part of the user license agreement that Netflix MUST agree to in order to satisfy content creators/rights owners etc. Mozilla never says that a site must use DRM, but does provide the option should they need to. > Mozilla also loves DRM. You mean they implement it so their browser can use things like Netflix? Sure, because if they didn't everyone would just use Chrome. > Anyway, if you have any more questions I'd be happy to answer. This is the point, though isn't it. The "Palemoon defenders" never refute what I say with actual evidence.
In Librefox: Firefox with privacy enhancements
Honestly I wouldn't go anywhere near Palemoon. Not unless you feel like using an antiquated browser such as Firefox 28 which is where it forked. I expect their shills will be deployed to this thread shortly. It's certainly not more secure when you've got all your extensions running at highest level privileged (not WebExtensions), the sandboxing code "removed" because mattatobin a Palemoon developer says that it "doesn't work", without giving any specific use case and their non-compliance with the HSTS spec RFC6797 [0]. There's probably countless other things wrong with it, but that's what I spotted after a cursory look. Their developers are also toxic https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/375 that's all the proof you ever needed. Many of your sentiments there are demonstrated in that very thread. One of the developers (
Read the rest
mattatobin) repeatedly avoids answering my questions and just says "fake news" and goes all trumpian on me. Don't bother trying to ask on their forums about this they will just delete your posts and go on about "the untrue narrative" without addressing your questions. If you contact them on twitter they will block you. It seemed like their while mode of operation was very "alt-right" if that makes sense. They live in a small "social bubble" it would seem. I also found it rather lol that a so called "privacy browser" has to resort to using google advertising on their main page. 15:05:34 www.palemoon.org -- script https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js 3p 15:05:34 www.palemoon.org -- script https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js 3p 15:05:34 www.palemoon.org -- script https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js 3p [0]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6797#section-8.4
In Librefox: Firefox with privacy enhancements
I have been doing some reviewing of myself and intend to publish on privacytools.io early next year. https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/603... I tested a number of new email and security related RFC to see how the providers complied. We plan to have a criteria (also in that issue) to rate them on a scoreboard. I'm also hoping some of these providers will really consider • https://jmap.io/ • http://arc-spec.org/ Despite what some people say, I think email will always exist in one form or another. There is a need to send a simple text message to people with minimal fuss. That means no walled gardens or bullshit to get in the way.
In Review of Secure, Privacy-Respecting Email Services

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