New Year, New (Digital) You: Safe and Secure Apps for Privacy
Start the new year off right with a digital house cleaning. These trusted apps and privacy features will help you develop healthier digital habits and stay secure online.
Secure Your Passwords
One of the best ways to protect your online accounts is by using a password manager. 1Password allows you to safely organize your login details and share them securely with trusted individuals. It also helps you create unique, strong passwords for each website and autofill them for easy access.
If you're looking for a password manager that offers shared vaults for families or teams, mSecure is an ideal choice.
Dashlane is another excellent password manager that offers pro privacy features like Dark Web Monitoring. This feature checks for leaked or stolen data associated with your email addresses and notifies you if any of your information has been compromised.
Mind Your Money
When it comes to personal finance apps, privacy should be a top priority. Copilot is a privacy-first option that allows you to view details across all your accounts and categorize transactions using machine learning on your device, not in the cloud.
If you're looking for an app to help with tax filing and refund estimation, Keeper is a great choice. It employs bank-level security protocols to ensure your personal information is safely stored.
For managing recurring payments and subscriptions, Bobby provides a bird's-eye view of your financial commitments while keeping your transaction details private.
To maximize rewards without compromising your privacy, consider using CardPointers. This app helps you track points and miles from over 5,000 cards while keeping your bank accounts and transactions secure.
Safeguard Your Snapshots
If you're looking to declutter your digital photo albums, Slidebox can help. It suggests albums to sort your images into and alerts you to any duplicates.
For privacy-focused editing of photos and screenshots, try Blur Photo and Whiteout. These apps allow you to redact, blur, pixelate, and obscure sections of your images.
To remove sensitive metadata from your photos before sharing them, consider using Metapho.
Explore the Web Your Way with Safari Extensions
Enhance your browsing experience with Safari extensions that prioritize privacy. Hush blocks cookie notices, popovers, and other trackers without collecting any data or requiring additional action from you.
For automatically redirecting links to cached web pages in Safari, use the open-source extension Precache.
Hyperweb goes beyond blocking annoyances by allowing you to tailor your search results and add custom scripts to web pages.
Enjoy a cleaner and faster web browsing experience with Wipr. Its blocklist is regularly updated to provide maximum privacy.
Privacy by Design
iOS and iPadOS are designed with user privacy in mind. Here are a few ways you can protect your information:
‣ Restrict Access to Your Photos
You can choose which photos in your library to share with specific apps. To manage permissions, go to Settings, then tap Privacy & Security > Photos.
‣ Prevent Web Tracking
Safari's Intelligent Tracking Prevention uses machine learning to fight cross-site tracking. It hides your IP address from trackers by default.
‣ See How Apps Handle Your Data
Privacy Nutrition Labels on app product pages provide information about how apps handle your data, including those developed by Apple.
Protect Your Data If Your Device Is Stolen
Enable Stolen Device Protection to make it more difficult for thieves to access your important information. This feature requires authentication through Face ID or Touch ID for certain actions like viewing saved passwords or turning off Lost Mode.
Stolen Device Protection also adds an additional hurdle for unauthorized access attempts outside of your frequent locations.
To enable Stolen Device Protection, make sure your device is running iOS 17.3 or later. Go to Settings, then tap Face ID & Passcode and turn on Stolen Device Protection.