# Securing your Business ![[assets/bizlock.jpg]] _If you don't trust Big 'Brother' Tech, there are SOMETHING solutions to protect both you and your business interests._ **Written By:** Geovian\ **Updated:** 25 March 2025 ## Background I've been following the Big Brother encroachment for decades now. It gets more insidious by the year. The recent escapades by Facebook, YouTube and Twitter/X are all reasonably well known by everyone on the Net, especially when it comes to the subject of censorship. The fact that these tech overlords rule the roost over the planet simply defies belief. I'm certain that it will all come to a head shortly, and come to a final conclusion, much to the relief of everyone. We've had enough nonsense from the likes of Zuckerberg, Pillai and Dorsey. As a roundup, here's a summary of many offending applications. It should become a good memory jogger as to what to avoid. If you're on some of these really bad ones then get off pronto. Your phone and tablet will thank you for it. ## Some Good but Mostly Bad Examples ### Search Engines **Google** - I won't mess around. I'll get straight to the point. Do not ever use Google as your search engine. Never ever. Not even if your life depended on it. Google is not your friend, it is your enemy. **Bing** - I've never trusted Microsoft to do the right thing. It's my belief that this company has held back tech innovation for decades because of mismanagement, poor products and a vampiric financial model that is both out of touch and hopelessly out of date. Small business and Microsoft are a match made in Hell. However, Bing is marginally better than Google at being transparent, but not by much. Use something else. **Duck Duck Go** - go for it. Recommended. **Brave Search** - another recommended search engine, protected by shields and encryption plus Private DNS. The inbuilt AI assistant is a bit underwhelming though. ### Email Communications Email has been around for decades, and despite what people say in defence of it, Email is definitely showing its age and with many of its (lack of) security features still very much evident, it should really be put out to pasture. Netizens are still blind to the convenience of email, perhaps not realising the inherent dangers (past and present) which lurk in mailboxes such as executable viruses, trojan horses, a myriad of spam attacks, as well as phishing attempts. Email has proven itself time and again to be a continuing threat to all sizes of business. It has one absolute critical flaw, and that is: **Plain Text Mail Headers**. These headers can not be hidden, obfuscated or encrypted, simply because the email will have no idea where to land on the Internet without it. This flaw has been existent since it first started to be commercially available back in the early 80's, and Big Tech loves it because email as a whole is unfettered. Don't let Email companies who provide so-called encrypted email fool you. In the main, that is totally a myth. The only encryption occurs in two instances: - Where email is sent and received on the same domain (like users on the google.com domain). - where email is in transit across interconnected domains. But email sent by you to your email provider is not encrypted, nor is it encrypted at the far end of the chain as email leaves the receivers email provider and sends it on to them. Purely because Plain Text Mail Headers are required to send to, and then receive from. Without it, your email doesn't work. Remember this when dealing with the likes of Proton Mail or Tuta Mail. The other issue is that users in general are too lazy and too dumb to do anything about it anyway. No wonder Big Tech keeps advocating for the Golden Goose. Some mail providers are better than others, but once you know the real truth, you'll look at every Email Provider in a different light. The only way to fix it is to start using encrypted Messenger apps. Onsite email systems managed by in-house staff are particularly vulnerable due to gaps in staff technical knowledge and in some cases insufficient resources to manage an external attack of magnitude. Much better is for your mail to be managed externally if your business policy allows for it. With small business and sole traders this is probably less of a concern but it still pays to keep your wits about you. Uncertainty can strike at any time. Also, bear in mind what I wrote about mail encryption as above. The following is an overview of some of the well known mail providers out there. The comments given are the opinion of the site author only. **Gmail** - you can still keep a Gmail account if you must (particularly for using an Android phone because there's no way around that, especially if you want to download and pay for apps) but you don't have to use it for correspondence and communication. We would recommend not using Gmail for email purposes EVER! It is known in the tech trade as the 'great mail harvester'. Google will tell you there is privacy built in. Sure, for everybody else except them. Avoid! **Hotmail, Live, Outlook** - should be called 'Notmail'. For your own peace of mind, use another mail provider. Not this POS. **Yahoo** - if there is anyone still using this crappy mail system, get off it, get off now! **Protonmail and Tutanota** - two privacy respecting services, one out of Switzerland, the other from Germany. I've used them on/off over the years but because they are both encrypted systems.. apparently, they can't be used to download into a mail aggregator, like Thunderbird, K9 Mail or Mailspring for instance. Good for what they are, and even on their own, they present slightly better choices than Gmail, even if they advocate with encryption which in all honesty is a load of hogwash. Both have free and paid accounts. Take your pick. [ProtonMail Link](https://ProtonMail.com) [Tutanota Link](https://Tutanota.com) **GMX** - an email provider with a large user base mostly across Europe which like some other email providers I use, but I'm fairly ignorant as to whether my privacy is fully respected, but because they're a German provider, you do have EU protections in place which does provide a level of comfort I guess. I've tried to access my GMX mail via an external email aggregator but I wasn't able to get it to work due to encryption no doubt. It's free (as well as a paid version) and works well on desktop and mobile. [GMX Link](https://gmx.com) **Mail.com** - it's free (obviously there's a paid plan too), and it comes with a whole bunch of cool features which might appeal to some of the readers here. You have the ability to set up a mailbox on any one of Mail.com's sub-domains, and there are a few of them. Mostly this is a good choice but like GMX above there's no ability to aggregate your mailbox from the system to another offsite solution like Thunderbird. [Mail.com Link](https://mail.com) **Mailbox.org** - Mailbox is a family run email business out of Germany which I've been using since 2023. I use it for Email alias, it's my CALDAV and CARDAV Server central access point for all my devices, plus it has an encrypted Drive space which I use to upload my critical encrypted files to Mailbox's offsite location from my devices and my residence, just in case my phone or residence is compromised. more about Securing Offsite Backups in another to come. [Mailbox.org Link](https://mailbox.org) **Riseup** - for many years I've wanted to use this platform, but you need to be invited onto it. Because I knew no one that was using it, I couldn't get on. It does have a good privacy reputation, and for those that are successful in getting on, please let us know how it went. [Risep Link](https://riseup.org) **Disroot** - I've recently signed on with this lot, based on three factors: - it's free. - it can be aggregated into an all-in-one mail aggregator. - has very good security and privacy provisions. However, I had problems getting past the account validation. There is a proviso, in that your account is vetted and approved within 48 hours of you signing up. Good luck to those that are successful. [Disroot Link](https://disroot.org) **Your own domain and private email** - this is my preferred method of email, where you control the email configuration 100%. Creating your own domain isn't difficult to set up, and once done, setting the email up is even easier. Also, nearly 99.9% of the time, any mailboxes created under your domain can be aggregated into an all-in-one mailbox aggregator whether using something like Thunderbird on the desktop or any number of aggregator apps on Android (like BlueMail, TypeApp or K9) or iOS. I'll write up a tutorial specifically on this in the near future. ### Social Media + Chat Most are in the "don't use category", purely guilty by association. Included are: * Facebook Messenger * Skype * What's App * We Chat * Google Chat, Hangouts, Workspace * X Messenger * LinkedIn * Pinterest * Instagram * Tik Tok * Snapchat * Line * Discord * Slack * Viber * TenCent Some which may be ok: * Signal * Molly (forked version of Signal) * SimpleX * Session * Most XMPP clients **Disclaimer:** depending on your use case, the mileage you obtain from the above options will vary.