With the not really surprising news that governments are tracking all our online activity, its time to get a bit more savvy with your online security and one of the best places to get informed is the great tech tools for activism website. They offer a great booklet that can be downloaded and printed out here.

This is the Blurb from their front page (all links are to their page):

“Tech Tools for Activism is a gateway to a set of tools to help campaign and organise more securely online. These include email, email lists, websites / blogs, status.net, instant messaging and VPN (virtual private network). We also provide online help and real life workshops on how to use these tools as well as a 32 page printed booklet.

The site is aimed primarily at activists and campaigners, but will be useful to anybody interested in protecting their online privacy and security. It is also helpful to anyone seeking alternatives to corporate online services or wanting access to educational resources in this area.

Why use Tools for Security & Privacy

If you are already using tools like Facebook, Gmail or Twitter to organise you may ask why bother using these other tools? Have a look around at some of the information on this site and you will see that much of today’s online services are insecure and track what you are doing. The aim of this site is to try to make it as easy as possible to sign up and use more secure tools provided by your community.

Online privacy is a right, and we work with others who are campaigning to preserve the Internet Freedoms we have. We are working with a wide range of different service providers to move towards some new standards called the Providers’ Commitment for Privacy. This is a way of formalising some of the secure ways of providing onlice services.

You can help keep the services promoted on this site running in a secure and non-corporate way by donating.

Tools for Grass Roots Media

Think the mainstream media isn’t covering the important stories or that it’s biased? We cover tools, services and tactics to help you to set up you own media production channels in a accessible and low cost way.

These tools include audio and video production, streaming media and a guide to audio hardware. We would like to like to expand this section of our site by working in partnership with other collectives.

Tools for Freedom

The tools and services we talk about are also free. There is a battle going on not only for the control of your computer but also the content that you create and for how we use the Internet. We want you to take part in this struggle and you can do this by using and supporting Free Software and the Open Web. The Open Web consists of initiatives and open standards that work to protect the relatively level playing field that the Internet currently represents, including issues of net neutrality, open standards & open content licences.

Free Software uses open licenses and open standards that encourage certain freedoms. You can find out more about free software from gnu.org, and see our list of some of the available free software.

Check back here on this website for news about how you can support various campaigns to ‘Save the Internet’.”

The following comes from the great webpage http://prism-break.org/

Operating system	Apple OS X Google Chrome OS Microsoft Windows	→	GNU/Linux Free, open source operating system. Debian Popular ethical GNU/Linux distribution. Fedora Fast, stable, powerful GNU/Linux distribution. *BSD FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, PC-BSD. Tails Live CD/USB designed for privacy.
Web browser	Apple Safari Google Chrome Microsoft Internet Explorer	→	GNUzilla IceCat GNU version of Firefox. add-torbutton Mozilla Firefox Open source web browser. add-torbutton recommends non-free addons* Tor Browser Bundle Encrypted, anonymous browsing.
Web browser plugins		→	HTTPS Everywhere Encrypts your communications thousands of websites. Fix Tracking! Guide to stop getting tracked online. Torbutton Tor plugin for IceCat and Firefox. advanced
Web search	Google Search Microsoft Bing Yahoo! Search	→	DuckDuckGo Anonymous, unlogged web searches. partly proprietary* Seeks Project Open decentralized platform for collaborative search. Startpage Private, unlogged web searches. proprietary* YaCy Decentralized web search.
Online transactions	PayPal Google Wallet	→	Bitcoin P2P digital currency with no central authority.
Email services	Gmail Outlook Yahoo! Mail	→	Bitmessage Encrypted, decentralized email server. beta RiseUp Secure and private email accounts. invite-only
Email desktop clients	Apple Mail Microsoft Outlook	→	Evolution Free email and calendar application. Icedove Free version of Mozilla Thunderbird. Mozilla Thunderbird Open source email application. mostly free* recommends non-free addons*
Email encryption		→	Enigmail An OpenPGP plugin for Thunderbird/Icedove. GNU Privacy Guard Free OpenPGP implementation. Mailvelope OpenPGP encryption for webmail. WebPG GnuPG/PGP in your browser.
Maps	Apple Maps Google Maps	→	OpenStreetMap Free, collaborative world wide map.
Cloud storage	Apple iCloud Dropbox Google Drive Microsoft SkyDrive	→	git-annex assistant Synchronizes folders on each of your computers & drives. ownCloud Cloud data in your control. Sparkleshare Self-hosted version control and file sync. Tahoe-LAFS Free and open cloud storage system.
Social networking	Google+ Facebook LinkedIn Twitter	→	Diaspora* Community-run, distributed social network. Friendica Open source, free social web server. GNU Social Self-hosted, decentralized social network. Movim Private, decentralized social network server. xmpp/jabber pump.io Self-hosted social stream server. Tent Free, autonomous social network protocol.
Instant messaging	AOL Instant Messenger Google Talk OS X Messages Yahoo! Messenger	→	Cryptocat Private, encrypted online conversations. Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) Install and enable in Pidgin for encrypted chat. Pidgin Open source chat program. xmpp/jabber otr Adium Pidgin for OS X (remember to enable OTR). xmpp/jabber RetroShare Free, secure, P2P communications platform.
Video conferencing/VOIP	FaceTime Google+ Hangouts Google Talk Skype	→	Jitsi Encrypted text and video chat. xmpp/jabber sip Mumble Encrypted, low-latency voice chat.
Media publishing	Flickr Instagram Picasa Tumblr YouTube	→	GNU MediaGoblin Decentralized media publishing platform. Piwigo Free photo gallery platform. WordPress Free website/blog CMS. Zenphoto Free media website CMS.
Document collaboration	Google Docs	→	Ethercalc Multi-user spreadsheet server. Etherpad Open source, real-time collaborative documents.
Web analytics	Google Analytics	→	Piwik Open source, self-hosted web analytics.
Android		→	CSIPSimple Free, encrypted VOIP for Android. CyanogenMod Aftermarket firmware for Android phones. mostly free* Gibberbot Private, secure OTR messaging for Android. Orbot Tor proxy for Android. RedPhone Secure private calls for Android. mostly free* Replicant Fully free Android distribution. TextSecure Secure SMS/MMS communication for Android. mostly free*
iOS	Apple iOS Messages Apple Mobile Safari WhatsApp Messenger	→	ChatSecure Encrypted IM for iOS. Onion Browser Secure browsing for iOS. $0.99