Transparency
Trust & editorial standards
We build privacy tools. This guide exists so you are not stuck with only ours. Below: ownership, conflicts, methodology, what this site collects, and how to challenge a listing.
Who owns PrivGuide
PrivGuide is hosted and owned by Vassbrekke AS, a Norwegian company. The same company builds PrivyDeck, PrivBeacon, and other VassDev tools.
That ownership is a conflict of interest for any listing of our own products. We disclose it everywhere — not only in the footer.
Editorial intent: recommend the best practical tools for each job. When a third-party tool is clearly better for most people, it stays ahead of ours.
- vassbrekke.no — company identity, legal entity, contact.
- PrivGuide — how to get private (mostly tools we did not build).
- PrivyDeck — personal privacy dashboard for individuals.
- PrivBeacon — website privacy compliance for organizations.
Conflicts of interest
Products marked Ours are built by Vassbrekke AS / VassDev. They are never unlabeled.
We do not accept payment for placement, ranking, or a Recommended badge on PrivGuide.
We do not use affiliate links on PrivGuide. Official website links go to the vendor’s own site.
Crypto donations support hosting and maintenance. Donors cannot buy a listing or a higher rank.
- Ours cards always show an Ours badge and publisher line.
- Default app order puts independent tools first; Ours appear after community recommendations (or under the Ours filter).
- Ours never outrank a clearly better tool in the same job without a written reason on the card.
- Path checklists may mention our products as optional — never as the only option.
- If you believe a listing is unfair, open a correction issue — we publish material changes in the changelog.
How we choose apps
Recommendations are practical, not maximalist. Usability counts: a private tool you abandon is worse than a good-enough tool you use daily.
We review listings on a rolling schedule. Each card shows a last-reviewed date. Criteria below apply to first-party and third-party tools alike.
- Threat-model fit — clear who it protects against, and who it does not.
- Security posture — encryption, open source or auditable claims, update cadence, history of incidents.
- Privacy business model — how the vendor makes money; avoid predatory free tiers that sell attention.
- Jurisdiction & governance — where the org is based and what legal pressure looks like.
- Usability — will non-experts actually switch and stick with it?
- Official distribution — we link only to official sites or well-known trusted repos (e.g. project GitHub).
What this site collects
PrivGuide is a static site. There is no account system and no advertising.
Checklist progress is stored in your browser’s local storage only. Clearing site data clears progress. Nothing is uploaded to us.
We do not load third-party analytics, ad pixels, or social trackers. Fonts are local/system — not Google Fonts.
- No cookies for advertising or cross-site tracking.
- No third-party analytics scripts.
- Server access logs (if any) are handled by the host — we do not run a marketing pixel layer on top.
- Outbound links use rel=noopener noreferrer; we do not append affiliate parameters.
- Verify with your own blocker — empty network requests beyond the page and assets is the point.
Changelog
- — Published Trust page (ownership, conflicts, methodology, transparency). Moved Ours listings after independent tools; clearer disclosures.
- — Removed Google Fonts; use system/local stacks to avoid third-party font requests.
- — Multi-language guide launch with curated apps and hardening paths.
- — Added Vassbrekke product disclosures and Ours badges.
- — Initial PrivGuide public draft.
Suggest a correction
Disagree with a ranking, spot a dead link, or think an Ours card is unfair? File a public issue. Material changes are noted in the changelog.
Security-sensitive reports about our products should go to the product’s security contact; listing mistakes belong in the PrivGuide issue tracker.