Avoid the Hack (avoidthehack!) promotes internet privacy and cybersecurity for all users.

usflag avoidthehack is based in the USA

greencheck avoidthehack promotes privacy and cybersecurity

nospy avoidthehack doesn't collect/share/store personal information.


When it comes to their personal data, avoidthehack believes everyone has the right to:

  1. Know what data is being collected and/or shared about them or their devices
  2. Protect their information from being accessed and used by anyone else (to include private and public persons/enterprises alike).

Avoidthehack! (ATH) believes that maintaining privacy and security for all users (not just the "nerds," "geeks," or "IT people,") is important.

Everyone should have the chance to make informed decisions about how they share/protect their information on the internet.

avoidthehack!'s mission

Avoidthehack! understands (and strongly believes) that privacy is a fundamental human right; privacy should be respected both online and in the "real world."

Because of this belief, avoidthehack aims to have an impact on the current internet privacy crisis by enabling the "regular" user to preserve and retain their online privacy by highlighting actionable privacy and security practices.

For journalists and other fellow freelance writers, you can find more information on the press page: Press Page

Who is behind avoidthehack?

ashley from avoidthehack portrait

I'm Ashley, the "founder" or "owner" and who created avoidthehack by accident. I'm a combination of a technical writer and forever-learning privacy (and recently, security) researcher. I write most of the content here, with some input from the greater privacy and cybersecurity communities.

How is avoidthehack! supported?

This site is primarily a one-person show. Because of the numerous privacy, cybersecurity, and overall ethical issues targeted ads pose, I decided to not run ads on the site. To maintain integrity and freedom of publishing content, I also do not take payment for "sponsored" posts, listing in recommendations, or reviewing services.

Running avoidthehack has real world costs, broken down yearly:

Category Description Yearly Cost
Server hosting Rented server space for everything you see here. Everything. $360
avoidthehack.com domain This is the domain name for the site. $24
avoidthehack.io domain The other domain that houses some services for the site. $62
Newsletter sending/hosting Service used to send emails from the newsletter. Hosted by Buttondown. $72
Support for infosec.exchange This is where the Avoid the Hack (avoidthehack) Mastodon account is hosted. $60
avoidthehack.com yearly costs.

There are a couple of ways users can chip in:

Send an anonymous tip using Monero (XMR) to the wallet address: 41ycHn8wePM2b2hth4fXgj15sFnnJ4PQ4LpMv1RqUGNi55Tecbkwtj7ZsqWVDAqo7bYWJFPtRng5ca7Uw8k5ygu96NPrZ5H

Purchase a service/product from vetted affiliate partners at no additional cost to you. Avoidthehack is completely transparent with what products/services are from affiliates. If the button is orange, then it is an affiliate link. To be honest, the affiliate partners listed here are worth at least checking out: View Affiliate Partners

Pledge support or leave a one-off tip on Ko-Fi, a more creator-centric alternative to Patreon. An account is not required. Go to Ko-Fi

If you cannot afford to support monetarily to offset costs, that is truly okay! Sharing your favorite content pieces to others is always much, much appreciated!

Sourcing

Some of the stock photos found in various posts on avoidthehack are provided by: Deposit Photos

Questions?

CONTACT