Privacy Tools 2026 — Browsers, Password Mgrs, Hardware_

A Briar ●

Peer-to-peer messenger over Tor, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi. No servers, no metadata.

fees Free · F-Droid + Play Store · Android primary

A Cwtch ●

Tor-only multi-party chat. No accounts, no servers, every conversation an ephemeral .onion.

fees Free · Tor-only · multi-platform · ephemeral groups

A Ghost Chat ●

End-to-end encrypted messaging over Nostr relays. PGP-encrypted payloads, no accounts, no servers, no logs.

fees Free · MacOS/Win/Linux/Web · PGP over Nostr

A Element ●

Federated E2E chat. Self-hostable, open-source, hosts most XMR/privacy community rooms.

fees Free · federated · self-hostable · clients on all platforms

B Session ●

Decentralised messenger — no phone number, no email, onion-routed.

fees Free · GPLv3

A SimpleX Chat ●

Decentralised messenger with no user IDs at all. The only major messenger that doesn't identify users.

fees Free · open-source · self-hostable relays

B Threema ●

Swiss paid one-time messenger. Phone-number optional, anonymous IDs, no metadata.

fees $5 one-time · Swiss · audited · no phone required