3 Top Apps to Help Protect your Privacy Online In Canada
The approval of the anti-terrorism act, also known as bill C-51 back in 2015 sent a clear message from the Canadian government. Likened to the also criticized US Patriot Act, the bill gives a lot of powers to different government departments and agencies that a lot of people consider to be disrespecting the citizens’ right to privacy. Some fear this bill might lead to an increase in arbitrary detentions under the justification of a potential terrorist threat determined thanks to surveillance activities allowed by this act.
While the bill is still active, it is up to the people to take action against it. And while many protests and other similar activities have indeed taken place, the most efficient way to avoid the reach of the act is by doing so in its own game: technology. There are many apps available online that can help you protect your privacy without taking away the joy of using the internet to share, communicate or discover new things.
Today we’ve taken the liberty of presenting you with the ones we consider to be the best privacy apps for Canadians looking to strengthen their privacy:
SpiderOak
SpiderOak is a cloud-based collaboration tool that lets its users communicate and share files on their platform as well as backing up their data in case they ever need it. It is true that there are many services like this one already available, but the thing that makes it different is the fact that they feature end-to-end encryption throughout all their services.
According to vpnAlert, all user data stored on SpiderOak’s servers is encrypted with keys to which the service provider has no access at all. Meaning that access to data is restricted exclusively to those collaborating on a project or anyone with permission from the owners. This is convenient if the government or any hacker happens to bypass the service’s security. They wouldn’t be able to retrieve anything unless they got a hand on the decryption keys.
Signal
This messaging app is the one that actually came up with the end-to-end encryption protocol implemented by WhatsApp a couple of years ago. Their encryption extends to their audio and video calls, ensuring that your communications stay protected at all times and under any circumstances.
The app also prevents screen scrapping and even asks the user for a password after a certain amount of time to ensure the device hasn’t been taken away by anyone else. This added to its friendly user interface makes it by far the most reliable chat app available in any mobile marketplace and one of the best privacy apps for Canadians.
Firefox Focus
This is Mozilla’s variation of its beloved browser dedicated solely to the protection of user privacy online. The browser features ad-blocking and blocks tracking by default, which is something many other browsers should take note about. It also blocks popups, does not store passwords and lets you decide whether to keep cookies, history and other data.
Imagine the incognito mode from Chrome and then give it some steroids, that’s what you get by using Firefox Focus. It’s available for Android and iOS, and it is free to install. This is without a doubt a very powerful tool to up your privacy game in Canada and pretty much anywhere in the world.
The Importance of Privacy
As we’ve stated, the only ones who can do anything against the unfair legislation that attacks our privacy over the world are ourselves.
Whether or not you decide to adopt any of these apps in your daily life is up to you, just remember that our privacy is one of our most precious possessions and we should, therefore, do everything we can to protect it from those who want to exploit it and benefit from it. At least now you know the kind of tools that are at your disposal, it’s only a matter of starting to use them.
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