My question, though, is how does this differ from other similar sites such as privacytools.io? How do I reconcile the privacy tools listed there with the ones listed here? Most of them are different.
Ultimately, whose recommendations should I trust?
And thanks for privacytools.io, I wasn't aware of!
We want to spread the word that people should protect themself. Once we manage to convince, people are like "Ok, but what now?" You'll probably answer: "Well, you have to quit facebook, start using linux and have your server at home". And the person will be overwhlmed and just say "it's too complicated."
We try to offer a gamified way: "Here is the first step, and it will take you 5mins of your time!" Then people feel they are on the way to get better at protecting their privacy.
And if you feel we don't recommend the right one, please get in touch, we'd love to collaborate to make it better!
Just using some of the tools will thwart most 3rd parties and a significant chunk of government techniques to spy on you.
I would trust their recommendations since you see the same applications popping up repeatedly like Tails, Tor, Linux, Diaspora, etc. These are are well known tools in the hacking community and have been used and tested for years.