YOU’LL NEED THIS

A WINDOWS PC

Internet connection

WANT THE BENEFITS of your favorite programs without them collecting your data? Well, the good news is you can, by using ‘forked’ versions. The code for open-source software is made freely available to other developers, so they can help improve programs by identifying bugs and suggesting new features. This collaboration often involves ‘forking’, which allows you to modify somebody else’s project, share the changes you’ve made and let the original developer decide whether to incorporate your modifications. But some ‘forks’ result in software being turned into a completely new project because users are unhappy with the direction the original developer has taken. Privacy concerns are among the most common reasons for forking, which has resulted in some interesting open-source alternatives. Here we reveal the best private forks of popular tools, and how to use them. –ROBERT IRVINE

1 SWITCH TO A GOOGLE-FREE CHROMIUM BROWSER

If you want to stay private when browsing the web, Chrome is far from ideal. Even if you don’t use the browser’s Sync feature, which saves data such as your bookmarks, browsing history, passwords, and contact details to Google’s servers, Chrome still shares details of your web activities in the background. This is officially intended to help Google ‘improve its services’ and the browser’s performance, but also means it can see every page you visit and use that information to target you with ads from its partners.